Lionel’s new Legacy train control system delayed. Why all the fuss?
There’s been a lot of chatter in the O Gauge world about Lionel’s delay in delivering the new TMCCII Legacy train control system. The first sign of a delay surfaced back in October of ‘06 when it was rumored that Lionel was supposed to demo the new system at the Fall ‘06 York Train meet but didn’t. Rumors hinted that the meet organizers wouldn’t let Lionel demo the system at the meet. Turns out the real reason was that the system wasn’t quite ready. Lionel representatives presenting at the TCA Museum’s open house addressed the rumors by announcing the system wasn’t ready and that Lionel was doing all they could to get the system out the door by the planned delivery date of the end of 2006. You can listen to Lionel’s statement at the bottom of the post located here.
Recently, speculation as to why the system was delayed started surfacing in the O Gauge forums. O Gauge Railroading Magazine contacted Lionel about the delay and received a response from Neil Young that they posted here. The response included the following excerpt.
Click on the link below to read on
"Things we have discovered during testing have led us to make
improvements that are increasing the amount of fun you can have with
the system. We are incorporating these improvements now and not after
Legacy is released because we don’t want you to become after launch
testers. We want you to enjoy the system from the first day you use it.
The Lionel Legacy Control System is about having a good time with your
trains in ways you never could before.We have also found that
Legacy has stretched the performance of our locomotives so much that
certain standard components needed to be strengthened and modified to
take full advantage of the benefits of the Legacy system while
maintaining levels of durability that will keep users happy."
So is this a big deal? Not really. Any new system will encounter
problems and delays. Just ask Microsoft. Lionel is doing the right thing by trying to get
everything running properly before it releases TMCCII Legacy to the
public.
Lionel went wrong by not openly communicating
the reasons for the delays to the train buying public. It shouldn’t
take an inquiry from OGR to get the status of one of Lionel’s biggest
product releases ever. The smart approach for Lionel would have been
to issue regular status updates on their web site to stem any
speculation about what’s going on. In the end, Lionel will eventually release the system, Lionel fans will be pleased with the results and all will be forgiven.
Related posts:
- Lionel Updates New Legacy System Software….
- Watch A Short Video Demo Of Lionel’s New Legacy System
- Lionel’s Legacy System Finally Shipping?
- Lionel’s TMCC II Legacy in the hands of a master modeler
- TMCC II Legacy
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3 Responses to “Lionel’s new Legacy train control system delayed. Why all the fuss?”
I am the one who asked the major magazines to inquire about Legacy’s status. Why all the fuss? No fuss about the delay but the fuss is as you stated the lack of an official update. We all, well most of us, want it to work correctly when it hits the market but updates from Lionel work better than rumors from folks who want nothing but to see Legacy fail.
Posted by: MartyE | Mar 15, 2007 at 12:48 PM
MartyE, it’s a shame that some folks probably want Legacy to fail. Nothing wrong with getting everything working even if it does push the delivery back 3 - 6 months. Hey, I visited your web site, nice photos. You should add some of them to the OGaugeWatch Flickr group.
Posted by: Dave | Mar 15, 2007 at 3:01 PM
So after reading the response from Neil Young regarding the Legacy delay a few thoughts came to mind. He talks about Legacy stretching the performance of Lionel’s locomotives so much that certain standard components needed to be strengthened and modified to take full advantage of the Legacy benefits??????
Would anyone know what he might be referring too and in addition should there be any concerns for running our older non Legacy locomotives with Legacy and stretching their components?
Sure would be nice to have Lionel post information on their website about Legacy in respect to status and/or anything pertaining to performance and component concerns.
Have heard there are plans to provide upgrade kits for pre-Legacy engines, anyone know anything about that? Tks. Larry Brown
Posted by: Larry W. Brown | Mar 23, 2007 at 3:38 PM