I was told that Long's (and some other shops) will be discontinuing Micro Trains products. Does anyone have the reason for this?
Longs for some strange reason seems to be getting away from N scale.I don't see the logic in this move,but they are in California.
Has anybody thought to ask someone at Long's if 1) it's true they're dropping the M-T line, and 2) if so, why?
I spoke to a person at Long's and all I got was that some new policy from MT has caused Long's (and other shops) to drop the MT line.
Not knowing the specifics, I'm going to engage in idle speculation. I have been told that some distributors (Walthers, eg) have minimum purchases that scare away retailers. I have also heard that MT has mandatory purchase requirements that have the same effect. It is also possible, as Long's is, I think, a heavily mail-order dependent business, that N scale specific stores, and direct sales by manufacturers, cut into the business too much.
I used to stop by Longs when I drove up that way for business. When the manager who started the model trains section that took up at least 15% of the entire store (Bill, forgot his last name) left to start his own hobby shop about two years ago, it was the beginning of the end for N scale at Longs. They really never focused much on N anyway. I mostly purchased scenery, paint and scratch building supplies. They did have a huge supply of locomotives though. Mike
Eagle2, I asked the owner of my LHS about any restrictions and he said they don't have any. What he said though is the small guys like him are at the bottom of the list when it comes to filling orders though. I mainly buy cars to run and don't consider myself a collector. However, I am going to get the 50 state series cars. So far 2 are out and my LHS has had no problem with an order of 1 MT car at a time. My speculation is that maybe Long's is really wanting to get away from stocking a lot of product.
