Lifelike is still around

I wish they were still around. Their steam was great once you take care of the traction issue. Imagine if they kept up with the other steam manufactures these days. Like tires and white leds and diecast boilers. If they kept up their pattern, thered likely be a quality USRA light 4-6-2 and 2-8-2 in N scale.

 

There was, and Kato made it.

 

I remember the BL2's they did early on. I think the N scale one was a follow up to the really nice HO one they did. I bought 8 or nine of those wonderful BL-2's and I still have a couple. I have a couple ABBA sets of Penn FA-s and I wouldn't trade them for a Kato !! At the time they would pull my entire freight roster of about 80 cars without effort it seemed.
These were followed by reliable engines like the E-9 and the wonderful E-7. At the time theirs were the only E-7's to be had and they were smooth runners and strong enough to pull the walls down. I still have 10 of their Milwaukee painted ones. The SW1200 was quite the leap , I have a dozen of them! The DL109 was a fantastic engine, as was the SD7. Bottom line is I MISS THEM !!!

Randy Stahl

 

Kato USRA light 2-8-2? Never happend. They have the heavy mike. And MP has that overpriced, impossible to remove molded on handrail units. LL's version would've been bananas if it existed... in an alternate universe.

 

Walthers hasn't really done much with LifeLike, at least in N scale. They did improve the Y3b mallet with traction tires and I think one other diesel. That's all that come to mind except their prices were excessive. Haven't followed the HO scene so I don't know what they did there so far but I suspect that Walthers, being HO-centric, would have more product available. If I recall correctly the acquisition of LifeLike by Walthers came right after Horizon bought Athearn and shut out Walthers from a source of locomotives and rolling stock. Buying LifeLike was maybe essential to Walthers staying in the game. It remains to be seen if we will ever see another locomotive from them.

 

Walthers is a black hole that buys up companies and then never re-runs their products...heck, they even do that for their own product line. They come out with plastic kits, run them once, and then they seem to vanish. I just don't understand their business model...unless it is to get everyone to switch to HO

 

Walthers is N O T the place I go to look for N Scale...period !!!

 

I thought I was the only victim of that, but now I know not. I have an N Scale LL Lehigh Valley SW that runs great, but I was saddened one day to see the front headlight casing had somehow been lost. I've not been able to find parts on the Internet, so my li'l unit will have to stay that way.

 

The Treble-O-Lectric layout in my avatar (larger picture by clicking on it and even larger on my site) was made by Life-Like for Montgomery Ward and I got it for Christmas of 1963. It was expanded styrene beads and I eventually donated it to a youngster getting started in N scale.

I have had many items from Life-Like through the years including scenic materials, some of those Mehano (formerly Atlas) locos and several of the newer locos too. I don't think there's any other regular loco that will outpull a plastic-framed E8 or E7. They are smooth-running beasts.

Doug

 

Lifelike filled a modeling void for me when I had far less disposable income by having some decent N scale power and cars. While the FA-2 was old school basic it worked well and could pull the room the layout was in. Then they raised the modeling bar when they released the FA-1s that had separately applied details, a new split frame mechanism, and could still pull the layout room off its foundation. And four of the little SWs are still anchoring a fleet today. And until recently those SW mechanisms provided the power for some of my critter fleet. Then came the sale to Walthers, and black day if there was ever one not to mention the end of any parts support.

As far as for that source of things in N scale about the only time anything gets acquired from them is when they manage to have a sale and I think the last thing I bought from them was some TomyTec fishing boats since they have the marketing of TomyTec products in this country locked up as the exclusive distributer.

And the little catalogue I get from them had only two pages out of the catalogue that had N scale in it compared to pages and pages of things HO and other larger scales as compared with previous editions that had at least four or five pages out of sixty or seventy for other scales. And don't even get me started on ordering things from them. They may have had a big flashy N scale catalogue years ago but my experience was to only be able to get about 50% of what I ordered. I got basically turned off years ago and found other sources for things and never looked back.

 

Did Walthers buy the tooling and produce them today? This thread reminded me of a little company called Bev Bel also that made pretty decent running locos back in the day

 

I lost the headlight on my SW as well. Love that engine. So I made several out of FIMO modeling clay, baked them on a ceramic tile and picked the best copy. Drill two holes for fiber optic and WA-LA............new headlight. cant tell it from original

 

Bev Bel mostly bought other companies rolling stock and engines and printed road names that the original company didn't choose to do. They were a nice company, but I don't think that they actually made anything from scratch (I could be wrong). I had several freight cars from them in HO and I still believe I have an N scale F unit that they did.

Walthers bought up LL (and other companies) lock, stock and barrel (including molds) but choose not to produce the models any more. As for their 'business model' being one of making money...I don't understand WHY they would spend large amounts of money to buy a company only to kill the products that company made. That's NOT making money, just decreasing the market size.

As for the Walthers catalog, for as long as I remember (from the time I bought my first one in...1988?), I always thought it was a wish book or indication of what was available than a list of things you could ORDER from them (seriously, for years I didn't even know you could order from them because they NEVER seemed to have anything in stock). It was nice to see what was available, and I remember waiting like a kid on Christmas Eve for the new one to come out, but I can't even remember the last time I have LOOKED at one, let alone buy one (and I have a complete set for maybe 25+ years until I stopped buying them). With everything seemingly being limited run, by the time the catalog came out, the things in it were WAY out of production and out of stock.

Funny, it sounds like I'm saying that they couldn't even do their own catalog right...wait, I am.

 

I remember Treble-O-Trains. They were sold in some Osco Drug stores in Chicago and I remember as a kid buying some Treble-O trees for my new Arnold Rapido N Scale set. I still have those trees somewhere. They were made of a soft multi-colored plastic and looked pretty good.

 

I would love a bit more insight on how to do that, or if you were willing to manufacture some, you might find a small niche market on this thread, .