This got by me. When did this happen?

From the TAS website:

Train America Studios will no longer offer installation or aftermarket sales of any products manufactured or sold by Train America Studios.

Train America Studios will still honor the warranty for any products or installations for the one (1) year as set forth in our standard warranty, with a copy of sale receipt. Warranty Information is available at http://www.tastudios.com/Warranty.htm

To obtain warranty you will need an RA number, no shipment will be accepted with out a RA number. For warranty information please contact our warranty department at warranty@tastudios.com.

Wow, wonder what happened. Called the number and its a recording of the same thing.

WHAT???!!!

must be a conflict of interest between Lionel and Mike

THis is very wierd, all of a sudden just like that..I am sure the boys in Poland, Ohio are on the case and will get us a answer..

And Norm, I was just watching Lionel Nation 2 and was listening to you talk about the smoke upgrade on your Lionel PRR Mountain and was going to do it..

I just received my Lionel Mohawk 6-18009 with complete upgrade from TAS. I was going to send them my SP Daylight from early 90's for upgrade. I hope they work this out. I have been very pleased with their work.

Many thanks,

Billy C

I was on the TAS website a few days ago and did not see that. It must have just happened.

maybe Lionel bought them? That would be something, first ERR then TAS.

Keep an eye on Digital Dynamics! They are the only other one selling aftermarket sound and command control stuff right now.

Probably just the result of another Lionel buyout deal as their main man is now a lionel employee
Larry S

quote:

Keep an eye on Digital Dynamics! They are the only other one selling aftermarket sound and command control stuff right now.

OR, you can send your smokeless, lurching TMCC engine into a MTH service station for an easy P-2 upgrade and be done with it..
Joe

So, it says no "aftermarket sales or installations." I hope that means continued availablity to Weaver, Atlas & 3rd Rail. I would hate to think they would be impacted by this.

I wonder if TAS is still going to do PS2 installs as they have for the past year? No mention on the website of that either.

Glad to get the news before I sent the GN S-2 in for the conversion. All packaged and ready to go. Have to change the shipping label.

Ouch, I just purchased some upgrades for my Commodore Vanderbilt, I hope I can still at least get some Tech Support, looking at the directions I am going to need it

So they sell upgrades, but will no longer install them?

quote:

So they sell upgrades, but will no longer install them?

Train America Studios will no longer offer installation or aftermarket sales of any products manufactured or sold by Train America Studios.


Apparently sales too. Don't everyone get yer panties in a wad, I'm sure we'll hear what's going on soon.

quote:

Train America Studios will no longer offer installation or aftermarket sales of any products manufactured or sold by Train America Studios.

This is the type of sentence you feed to a computer to get it to self destruct? It is self contradicting. Does not compute!

WOW, I was on there yesterday looking at things. Now you get big bold type saying that, wow, just plain wow! Guess I'll be shopping elsewhere.

quote:

Originally posted by penn station:

quote:

Train America Studios will no longer offer installation or aftermarket sales of any products manufactured or sold by Train America Studios.

This is the type of sentence you feed to a computer to get it to self destruct? It is self contradicting. Does not compute!

Yes I thought the same thing. I wonder if this is supposed to say "will no longer offer installation or support of any products...."

i just called to pay for the EOB installation they just finished. the impression i got was going out of business. honoring existing warranties, but no new business.

if something else is up, i am certain they can't talk about it.

Since the web site is now made up of two web pages:

Main Page: http://www.tastudios.com/

Train America Studios will no longer offer installation or aftermarket sales of any products manufactured or sold by Train America Studios.

Train America Studios will still honor the warranty for any products or installations for the one (1) year as set forth in our standard warranty, with a copy of sale receipt. Warranty Information is available at http://www.tastudios.com/Warranty.htm

To obtain warranty you will need an RA number, no shipment will be accepted with out a RA number. For warranty information please contact our warranty department at warranty@tastudios.com.


And a Warranty page.

It appears to be pretty clear - Train America Studios is:
1) No Longer Performing Installations
2) No Longer Selling any products that
a) It Manufactured
b) Or it Sold (not manufactured by them)
3) They are only providing warranty service for existing sales.

Now based on this - I would say they they are currently now longer in bussiness except for the Warranty Service they are going to provide. Since they are not have a going out of bussiness sale, someone must have purchased their current stock. Since the Font on the main Web site is pretty large, there is no small print there.

I would hope that the personalities involved with TAS, many of whom have close associations with many faithful customers on this website, would offer a more personable update of what is going on. That would be really nice. And this forum is the place to do it.

I agree that a more complete explanation is in order. Perhaps TAS will still use other products other than TAS products for upgrades? Would Lionel buy out TAS products and then do their own marketing of those upgrade products? Just a thought.

I hope AtlasO locomotives will still have EOB...

I'm sure that we will get some details eventually. Whatever happened seemed to have happened swiftly. A bummer it is.

quote:

Originally posted by pennsynut:
I agree that a more complete explanation is in order. Perhaps TAS will still use other products other than TAS products for upgrades? Would Lionel buy out TAS products and then do their own marketing of those upgrade products? Just a thought.

I'm wondering if Lionel is planning on starting a subsidiary or sister company to do upgrades to their product and installs of TMCC and maybe even Legacy? There are only so many trains they can sell, but there are thousands upon thousands of items out there that can be upgraded. After purchasing the Electric RR Co., purchasing TAS would be the next logical step.

I guess we will just wait and see (but it is fun to speculate).

Andy

Just a rumor mind you but I heard somewhere that the owner of TAS now works for Lionel and that Lionel was allowing him to still operate his company. Maybe they are ironing out the details and until then...

Just a rumor mind you!

mike

quote:

Just a rumor mind you but I heard somewhere that the owner of TAS now works for Lionel and that Lionel was allowing him to still operate his company. Maybe they are ironing out the details and until then...

Just a rumor mind you!

No rumor. Former owner Mike Reagan is the head of customer service at L.

quote:

OR, you can send your smokeless, lurching TMCC engine into a MTH service station for an easy P-2 upgrade and be done with it..
Joe

Good point. Now folks who own or purchase the Williams trains will have to go that route since Bachmann does not offer any upgraded electronics.

quote:

I hope AtlasO locomotives will still have EOB...

Very good question. How does this affect others like Atlas O.

Does anyone know if Lionel is going to continue to license TMCC & Railsounds to 3rd rail and Atlas O? If not, then this could be the beginning of something bigger.

It will be interesting to see how anyone can put a positive spin on this development. My major concern is how this will impact 3rd-Rail.

I just spoke to them Monday. I have spent around $1500.00 with them in the last 8 months. I even have a Proto 2 upgrade in transit back to me.
Scott Smith

This message has been edited. Last edited by: scott.smith,

quote:

I just spoke to them Monday

Scott - How did you get a hold of them? Needless to say, I'm freaking out right now as I JUST read this thread and have heard NOTHING from them since they received my 3rd Rail Niagara on 12/3/08 (I verified with UPS they signed for it - someone named "Tusi"?).

Nobody has called or emailed me about the status and their website says NOTHING about what is happening to those of us who sent them $$$$$ locomotives for service/upgrade prior to this development.

After all the glowing things I've heard about TAS, this is my first experience with them and as you can imagine I'm a little distressed at this point.

Rob

Unfortunately, the likeliest explanation is the worst case scenario. Anyone who reads the business pages knows that banks all over the country have been cancelling long-standing lines of credit to businesses, especially small to medium sized ones such as TAS. A business of this kind is totally dependent on credit to finance its daily operations, keeping a substantial outstanding balance and paying the interest out of cash flow. The sudden shutdown of the retail operation and the uninformative, semi-literate nature of the announcement suggest an abrupt, unplanned shutdown of operations. If the bank called in its line of credit, the company would be forced to close for lack of operating capital. This has already happened to thousands of businesses in the current economic crisis and the worst is still ahead of us. Banks have cancelled or reduced lines of credit to many businesses that were doing just fine - if this is the explanation, it doesn't necessarily mean that TAS wasn't positioned to survive. The banks are cutting their lending to protect their capital, and there are a lot of innocent victims out there.

If, as some have speculated, something is happening involving Lionel, it would most likely be handled the same way as the Electric RR acquisition, with no disturbance to the business. An acquisition does not fit with the abrupt change.

This could be a big problem for 3rd Rail, Weaver, and Atlas. Ideally, perhaps one of them (most likely Atlas) might be able to recapitalize TAS and get it back in business as a subsidiary. However, that would take a lot of capital, and capital is scarce in the current economic environment.

Keep in mind that I am speculating here, but applying Occam's Razor, it is a simple explanation that fits the known facts.

Re Casey Jones' point above,

quote:

Good point. Now folks who own or purchase the Williams trains will have to go that route (DCS) since Bachmann does not offer any upgraded electronics.

Williams owners can still convert their engines with Electric RR products. That's what everyone I know does anyway; Williams is an inexpensive product and ERR pricing fits the market niche.

Can DCC be used for three rail operation?
That would solve WEAVER, Atlas, 3rd RAIL, potentiial dilemma.
If I were building a new layout with command control, think I would prefer DCC because of it's universitallity.

OEM users of EOB (including Atlas) will not be affected by this change.

This is very disappointing news!!!

I had several engines that I wanted to upgrade (and some projects that still need to be completed).

I hope Lionel or someone is able to continue to offer the service that TAS offered with TAS products. Mike, then Phil, and the rest of the gang did an outstanding job with customer service and will be missed by all.

I hope the business did not fall into financial troubles!

THIS SUCKS! I wanted to get those special speakers for my Dummy GP30 so I can run sounds from the powered A unit into the Dummy A Unit! Now where do I go?

quote:

Originally posted by Southwest Hiawatha:
Unfortunately, the likeliest explanation is the worst case scenario. Anyone who reads the business pages knows that banks all over the country have been cancelling long-standing lines of credit to businesses, especially small to medium sized ones such as TAS. A business of this kind is totally dependent on credit to finance its daily operations, keeping a substantial outstanding balance and paying the interest out of cash flow. The sudden shutdown of the retail operation and the uninformative, semi-literate nature of the announcement suggest an abrupt, unplanned shutdown of operations. If the bank called in its line of credit, the company would be forced to close for lack of operating capital. This has already happened to thousands of businesses in the current economic crisis and the worst is still ahead of us. Banks have cancelled or reduced lines of credit to many businesses that were doing just fine - if this is the explanation, it doesn't necessarily mean that TAS wasn't positioned to survive.

...Keep in mind that I am speculating here, but applying Occam's Razor, it is a simple explanation that fits the known facts...

If TAS is being closed, due to whatever reason, it still does not explain the continuance of coverage to the warranty claims.

Time will tell as to what is going on. As of Atlas, Weaver, and 3rd Rail's possible cruise control predicament may be saved by E.R.R. unless Lionel prohibits the technology to go directly to competitors.

Obviously all companies are concerned with their current business environment, this may be the time when Lionel decides to keep more of its technology in-house as opposed to allowing competitors to receive the technological benefits which leads to some customers buying the competing product instead of the Lionel product. If you want TMCC and cruise (ERR) in your train then you MUST buy Lionel. Some may disagree with the idea or the practice, but I bet this topic was discussed at some level at Lionel.

quote:

Posted by amhobbies:
OEM users of EOB (including Atlas) will not be affected by this change.

Buyout???

quote:

Originally posted by pennsyk4:
Can DCC be used for three rail operation?
That would solve WEAVER, Atlas, 3rd RAIL, potentiial dilemma.
If I were building a new layout with command control, think I would prefer DCC because of it's universitallity.

From what I know about DCC I don't see why it couldn't be used. In fact a few yars back when I thought I wanted O scale the first time, I planned to use DCC. If I were to do it I would keep the current power set-up. Power to the center rail and common on the outside. You just have to be a little more careful in making sure you equipment does not short out through switches. DCC does not like occasional shorts that are no big deal with TMCC or DCS. DCC gives you the advantage of being able to use many manufactures components as needed. It still has its quirks, as all the systems do but I feel it also has advantages after looking at all the options for my 2 rail layout.

quote:

Originally posted by threerailnut:

quote:

Keep an eye on Digital Dynamics! They are the only other one selling aftermarket sound and command control stuff right now.

OR, you can send your smokeless, lurching TMCC engine into a MTH service station for an easy P-2 upgrade and be done with it..
Joe

LOL!! You never miss a chance to take a shot .. do you Joe??

Well, before this thing gets too weird, let me express my appreciation for what TAS provided to the hobby. I hope Phil, Brian and everyone are doing well and I'm hoping there will be more details forthcoming.

In the meantime, here's what TAS was all about:

http://norm.beesky.com/video/CentiDecaM1a.wmv

Don't write them off just yet. There will be a new informational webpage put up within 12 hours or so. Be patient!!!

This is really too bad. I was looking to pick up their smoke unit. It is definitely weird since I just spoke to Mike Reagan just yesterday and told him I was going to install the TAS smoke unit in my Niagara and he never said anything about this. He even told me how to go about doing it.

I just received an email from Mike:

quote:

The wrong page was posted on the site. We are essentially trying to offload the installation services we have provided in the past. Products will still be available. Support will shift from the phone to email in a few weeks to allow these guys to get caught up on existing in house work, etc.

Looks like they're a little overloaded and someone posted the wrong information on their site.

Scott Smith

Interesting, but why was such a page prepared? Don't think this fully explains what's happening.

This is good better news. All the past tense was bumming me out. That is some horrible flaw in their web posting system by the way, but it goes to show you (based on the responses here) how well respected and needed they are. DCC? My God what where we caving into in the six short hours since this post originated? Thanks for the update Scott!

the page has been changed it now reads:
Train America Studios will no longer offer installation of aftermarket upgrades, sales of any remaing products manufactured or sold by Train America Studios can be purchased via email at orders@tastudios.com.

The terminology has changed a little from the original message:

quote:

Train America Studios will no longer offer installation of aftermarket upgrades, sales of any remaing products manufactured or sold by Train America Studios can be purchased via email at orders@tastudios.com

Still just as ominous. Sounds like either insolvency, or a cease and desist letter for manufacturing of product. Although you can still purchase anything they have still in stock.

quote:

Sounds like either insolvency, or a cease and desist letter for manufacturing of product.

I can tell you this much (because this is all I know) stay tuned

Something big is brewing and....

quote:

It will have a very positive effect on everyone in the industry

Scott Smith

Wow, I just spoke to them also about a week ago about upgrading a few PS-1 locos to TMCC & Cruise Control.

At this point in time, I can only afford $400 upgrades to existing engines and not $1600 for new ones. HMMMMM...

I hope things get resolved, they (TAS) seemed really friendly and business oriented when I spoke with them.

Cesar