Model Power Out of Business

[Brakie]

A $3-400 hybrid now has sound, comes painted, has DCC, and is a much better runner. There really isn't too much of a comparison.
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Depends the Genesis locomotives has well known QA/QC issues just enough to make me back off and not buy them..Some Athearn RTR has QA/QC issues as well BLI,MTH,InterMountain have their problems as well.

The brass steamers of the 50/60s was the best running locomotives of the day not so much for brass diesels with KMT drives which were and remains true coffee grinders..

I stopped buying todays locomotives altogether exception being Atlas and the newer DCC/sound on board Bachmann.

I much prefer the older P2K locomotives which seems to be the best bargains..

And Kato.

I will add my other choices that slip my mind last night-that's a getting old thing...

Atlas red and yellow box locomotives.. Those are still nice locomotives.

[Mike Kieran]

Atlas without a doubt. Especially since a lot of their older drives were Roco and Kato. When I belonged to the old West Island model railroad club, my Atlas S-2 pulled 15 50 foot cars around the layout with grades and everything without hesitation.

[radivil]

With the internet and technology accelerating exponentially, 3D printers will soon replace manufacturing (when's the last time that you saw factories on Star Trek) and many more manufacturers will succumb to closure. While people will argue that last point, just remember that the technology used for a basic calculator took up an entire city block; to the size of a room; to the size of a brick; to the size of a watch (in fact I had a Casio touch screen watch with a calculator on it 30 years ago in 1984); to a free app for smart phones. We are seeing 3D printing in it's infancy. Sci Fi movies refer to them as replicators.

Actually, an episode of the Next Generation specifically refers to a factory in Senegal that makes nanomachines! And there's the five or six shipyards, which are just factories that make starships, that have turned up along the way.

I think 3D printing isn't going to be the revolution people think it is. It will, in broader life, but not hobbies. You're still going to have a whole lot of people that lack the skillset to design the actual model in the first place. Then the machines will probably end up having some sort of license controls so you buy the license to print one boxcar. Basically, you're doing the company a favor! YOU have to provide the materials and YOU have to put wear and tear on the machinery! What will be interesting is the people that do have the skills with CAD that are hobbyists doing garage industry designs to license or contract work. People with the ability to do the design work for one-off things that have virtually no commercial appear will do some very, very interesting things. I could never, in a thousand years, build a model of the Fort Wayne Bridge in Pittsburgh out of strip styrene. I could put a CAD model together if I took a couple days off work and have the printer humming away making truss assemblies for a few weeks while I slept.

[Brakie]

I think 3D printing will be more for things manufacturers won't touch like vintage cars,trucks, modern railroaders with their safety vest and other small details like lawn chairs,industrial details etc..

[railohio]

Rescued by MRC:

MRC and Model Power enter licensing agreement

Model Rectifier Corporation has announced that they will produce and market Model Power’s railroad products under the Model Power brand. Model Power and Mantua railroad and accessory products will now be available worldwide from MRC.

Source: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://mrr.trains.com/news-reviews/new-products/2014/06/mrc-and-model-power-enter-licensing-agreement">http://mrr.trains.com/news-reviews/new- ... -agreement</a><!-- m -->

[shortliner]

May be out of business, but not quite gone - see <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?3,3452117">http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/r ... ?3,3452117</a><!-- m -->

[nachoman]

I figured this would happen. And my guess is some of the MP items will be discontinued, or the tooling sold off to other manufacturers. But anything that turns a profit will continue.