Why so much hatred for MTH? (2024)

brianel027

• Member since
  November 2003
• From: The ROMAN Empire State
• 2,047 posts

Fred, that's certainly a loaded question. The well-documented lawsuit (which you could go back and research on the train forums) certainly polarized people, and certainly didn't not help the image of the hobby especially to outsiders. I think hatred is a strong word... it's really a matter of choice.

Dealers are a different ballpark than the consumer, and there are a number of variables that affect a dealer's decision including: productavailability and allocation, pre-order amounts (both quantity and dollar amount), wholesale availability, product backup and service/repair arrangements, return policies, product updates - and the list goes on. For every dealer who feels like he got some kind of raw deal from MTH, there's another who could say he got a raw deal from Lionel, or Williams or others.

Blowout pricing certainly annoys small dealers. They pre-order products at normal pricing to be sold at normal pricing and then all of a sudden a select few large mailorder dealers are selling the same product at a discount price to consumers that beats the small dealer's wholesale price. Which means that item either sits on the dealer's shelf until the blowouts are gone (which can take months) or the dealer sells his items at a loss. That's one small example, and Lionel and Williamshave beenguilty of that too.

From a consumer viewpoint, I think there are some real diehard MTH fans out there.... you see that in the train magazines. MTH has aimed their product line more towards the scale end, and they do have variety (espeically of locomotives) that is unmatched in 3-rail trains.

For me personally, they make very few undersized 027 or traditionally sized trains outside of their Rugged Rails line, which lags behind other companies. From the very beginning, MTH made known theirintentions they were not making undersized, smaller trains and their advertising made good point of this in comparison ads with Lionel products.

BUT some of us like those smaller products. And some of us DO NOT like the additional electronics in our trains. Now MTH does make some smaller products: some of the Railking Rolling stock items like tank cars and flat cars are very close to the Lionel conterparts. And the Rugged Rails cars are even better in this department. I have a few Rugged Rails cars and do like them, and would have happily bought more. But MTH has put little effort into this product line with scant few new productswhereascompanies have done otherwise.

So for me, it's not hatred at all. It's simply a matter that MTH chooses to make product I am not interested in. Others like RMT, Lionel, and K-Line made smaller-than-full-scale products I liked. Some of the older Railking locos were very nice and I liked the modern styles and paint schemes... BUT I WILL NOT buy any loco with added electronics that I will only rip out and throw away. When they make those same locos without the added electronics, and price them accordingly, my story may change... may I say because I already have plenty of trains and very few of them are MTH.

brianel, Agent 027

"Praise the Lord. I may not have everything I desire, but the Lord has come through for what I need."

Anonymous

• Member since
  April 2003
• 305,205 posts

I'm unloading all of my MTH engines and possibly buildings. I've got TMCC and Legacy and do not need, nor require DCS, so that's the reason for that move. The MTH buildings are flat out huge and do not look right with my Lionel, OGR, and other buildings. IMHO the MTH buildings look more appropriately sized for scale O gauge and could even be used on G scale layouts.

As for the hatred.

Mife Wolf - the founder and owner of MTH trains (Mike's Train House) got his start in model railroading by working for Williams Trains I believe. Williams got their start by selling knockoffs of Lionel's venerable PostWar engines. He was selling Williams trains out of his house and was one of, if not, the largest Williams dealers. Then he partnered with Lionel and started selling Lionel trains as well. This helped him to grow his business and he decided he was going to get into O Gauge Brass and started working for Weaver Trains, all the while still selling Williams and Lionel trains. He then started manufacturing his own trains under the MTH brand. Now he never severed his connections with the other three manufacturers and this came to ahead during a York train meet. Wolf had aspirations of buying and owning Lionel trains and when he was uncermoniously fired from Lionel he turned his attention to ruining Lionel. Back in 2000 there was some stink about Lionel manufacturing and selling engines that rivaled MTH's detail, and MTH sued Lionel. This is when the MASSIVE rift in O-Gauge railroading was formed. MTH got their start selling knock-offs of Lionel's products, MTH's DCS is TMCC compatible ONLY because Lionel made the technology open and would license it to other companies - then MTH CLOSED the DCS system and stated that if anyone reverse engineered their system they would sue them. So MTH sued Lionel for selling knock-offs of their products, but it was - and still is - fine for MTH to sell knock-offs of Lionel products.

Spend any amount of time in a train store and you will find that MTH fans are just as passionate about MTH products as Lionel fans are of Lionel products. I personally have problems with both companies, which has been well documented on the forum in recent weeks.

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Anonymous

• Member since
  April 2003
• 305,205 posts

n1vets333 wrote:

I know some have said that MTH is responsible for al the lawsuits in the hobby but I also think if it weren't for them the other companies like Lionel wouldn't feel the heat of competeition and find improvement of their products as important as it is right now. With the MTH products continuously running and looking better it forces the other companies to keep improving thier products to stay up to par. If you ask me, they have only been a godaddiion to the hoby. I f on love their products, I recently bought one of their premier f7 units and plan on buying my next engine by MTH as well.

Lawsuits don't promote competition. They typically result in bankruptcies of all companies involved.

MTH has been struggling since they started the lawsuit, laid off a bunch of people, and their quality (at least track) has not been up to snuff.

As for Lionel they are still in a transition state, which is why they cancelled 90% of the last catalog, and the new catalog is smaller with fewer new offerings. There has been some hints throughout press releases and other media that major changes are occuring and for the betterment of Lionel, its employees, it dealers, and its customers.

I've heard from a few people at Lionel that they value our feedback and would like more of it. You can do this via the Customer Service line, or their email address. Hopefully soon we'll be able to recommend products via their web site and see what others have recommended as well.

• Edit

nblum

• Member since
  December 2001
• From: Upstate New York
• 899 posts

One aspect that I think riles the most people is a personal issue in this small cottage industry. Mike Wolf, the leader of MTH, has always portrayed himself as the savior of the hobby, has an ego the size of Mt. Everest (not necessarily a bad thing), and most importantly, has consistently disparaged and failed to show respect to all his competitors, both as companies and as individuals (not just Lionel--he engaged in predatory marketing against K-Line and Atlas when they entered the scale end of the hobby). By consistently mocking the products of his competitors he by proxy mocked the taste of those hobbyists who liked those products, which is not calculated to foster affection for the guy in those people's minds. :) Thus for those who care about these things, as opposed to the products themselves, he's viewed by some hobbyists and dealers as a largely divisive, unprofessional, entirely self-serving, not entirely truthful and corrosive figure in the hobby. In fairness, in recent years, Mike Wolf, his staff and their advertising have toned down these hostile and seemingly malicious attitudes greatly. The next step would be some collegiality and occasional cooperation when it serves the industry and consumer.

nblum

• Member since
  December 2001
• From: Upstate New York
• 899 posts

"MTH demonstrated that there was a larger market for more prototypical trains than had been previously guessed."

Once again, in fairness, I must agree with Bob's caveat here. Even those who have nothing but contempt for Mike Wolf's style of doing things, such as myself, recognize his extraordinary contributions to the industry and hobby as Bob says. His competition clearly caused others, particularly Lionel, to improve their quality, constrain their prices and become even more innovative. Sometimes this is overstated, by those who fail to remember that even before Mike Wolf came on the scene, Lionel was experimenting with prewar reproductions, had started development of TMCC and Railsounds and other such paradigm shifting approaches.

But clearly Mike Wolf's energy, competitive nature and creativity pushed Lionel much more than would have occurred otherwise, and opened the door for Atlas, in particular, by promoting the hi-rail part of the hobby. So whatever unflattering things one can say about Mike Wolf and MTH, and I have mentioned a few, he and MTH deserve a lot of credit for growing the hobby, providing products that wouldn't have existed otherwise and that many love, and generally pushing the envelope overall.

brianel027

• Member since
  November 2003
• From: The ROMAN Empire State
• 2,047 posts

"Regardless, MTH demonstrated that there was a larger market for more prototypical trains than had been previously guessed. When I started at CTT I asked why the new product coverage had been so limited and was told "Guys aren't that interested in the new stuff." But then I was hired specifically to do the product coverage, so that was certainly changing and that was 1996."

Bob makes an interesting point and it illustrates how much the hobby has changed in just over the past decade. The market for scale prototypical trains may have been larger than previously guessed at that time a decade ago, but that market is not as large nor as profitable as everyone seems to think itis either. MDK K-Line went down that prototypical track and found out the hard way.

One thing for certain: as some hobbiests turned their interests and dollars to accurate, advanced, scale sized trains, prices on used common postwar and especially MPC Lionel products have come way down from a decade ago.

I can honestly say because of MTH (and the technology/scale advances at Lionel too), I own far more postwar and MPC Lionel products than I suspected I would when I first re-entered the hobby. So while those electronically advanced scale products are of zero interest to me, I've certainly benefitted from them.

brianel, Agent 027

"Praise the Lord. I may not have everything I desire, but the Lord has come through for what I need."

phillyreading

• Member since
  January 2005
• From: Lake Worth FL
• 4,014 posts

I like some of MTH products, mainly their steam locomotives and rolling stock, never had any problem with the couplers on MTH.I have no regrets about buying any MTH product and will buy more as time allows.I have heard too much bad publicity about MTH Realtrax to attemp buying it.

As for Lionel I have very little loyalty for that company because they don't back up their product warrenty at times. Also Lionel's newer switches in tubular track(not Fastrac, I can't afford it)are the worst I have seen in over 14 years. Bought a brand new GP-7 from Lionel about 12 years ago and it would only pull four quad hoppers, even when powered by a ZW transformer.

Just for the record, Lionel helped put K-Line out of business by suing them a few years ago.

I personally think that Williams made a very high quality product for the money that you paid for them. The only thing is that Williams never put command control in any of their engines, they kept it simple. The other thing about Williams is that they are not well known outside of Classic Toy Train members.

Lee F.

jonadel

• Member since
  March 2004
• From: Adel, Iowa
• 2,292 posts

When I got back into the hobby 10-11 years ago I fell in love with MTH and the DCS system. I had to wait for the DCS system but that was OK as I was still teaching and I basically had no free time. Once I retired it was game on as I finally had the time to do what I wanted when I wanted. I took my time and found that the DCS system was a piece of cake to run and when I wired my layout it was star wiring so perhaps I was in the right place at the right time.

I found the MTH Realtrax incredibly easy to use with all the options they offer, I have not had one problem with connectivity, ever. With that said however, if I were to do it all over again I would go with Gargraves track and Ross switches -- before I knew what had happened I was past the point of no return. I have a lot of money invested in MTH track and switches and I'm not willing to replace it all PLUS I've never had a visitor say anything about the track, yes we did ballast it.

I do have several operating Lionel accessories that look great and work well along with several MTH accessories that look great and work well. I also have a few Beeps and some old Lionel engines that are shelf queens. I also have a few MTH proto 1 shelf queens, I wish I were handy enough install the conversion kits.

So for me, I don't hate Lionel and I don't hate Harley Davidson because I ride a Honda. It's about choices and what makes one happy. Change is difficult for some and I can accept that. I have great respect for those that run post war, their lives have to be easier but I gotta tell you, I really enjoy DCS and what it has to offer AND on my next and final layout I will also have Lionel Legacy. Life is way to short to harbor hate in any form.

Jon

So many roads, so little time.

chuck

• Member since
  July 2006
• From: Plymouth, MI
• 1,615 posts

MTH uses and use a simple prefix in the number system to identifyeverything.

This is only true for locomotives and only works one way. Premier locomotives are scale but the rolling stock is another matter. RailKing is usually undersized (except for some 1800's material that may be oversized). Some Railking subway sets are scale. Atlas O is always scale, even the streamlined passenger cars.

Why buyers have loyalty to one brand or another is personal. Why dealers have "issues" is often more complicated. Some feel they were burned by policy decisions made by their importer/suppliers. A lot of MTH's problems with their dealer network began with the way PS-2/DCS was announced/introduced. The announcement by Lionel of licensing TMCC to Atlas, K-Line, Weaver and Sunset 3rd Rail appears to have pushed up the announcement of PS-2/DCS. The initial announcement was after the release of the first catalog for 2000. Dealers placed orders and then DCS/PS-2 was announced in the followup catalog along with the lack of support/upgrade for PS-1 equipment. The dealers were stuck with product in the pipeline that they then had issues selling because their customers no longer wanted the "older" PS-1 product. When you couple this with the battery problems that happened about the same time and MTH's poor initial resonse and the delays with release of the DCS control equipment (Note the PS-2 loco's were delayed only a few months) you have a recipe for discontent. Lionel suffered some of the same with the original Odyssey motor and some teething problems with Legacy.

Other sore points for dealers (and this is not limited to a specific vendor) have to do with ordering policies, finance terms, or ancillary issues (operating layout, store front requirements, pricing). Warranty repairs (and issues of compensation for same) has become another sore point when coupled to lack of parts and the complexity of modern "toy" trains. Bottom line is if a dealer feels he's been "wronged" he's usually not going to be quiet about it.

BTW, there are a few dealers who can't seem to get along with anyone. I've often wondered why these guys are even bothering to open the store in the morning