Plarail in its present state - What are your thoughts?

KNDYNT2099, you've clearly put a lot of thought and effort into this. I appreciate it.

It definitely is a sad state of affairs with Tomy, but they are in an awkward position in some ways. Everything is getting more expensive, partly due to general increases in raw materials, but I would say mainly the increases in cost of manufacture in China and similar places due to increased worker wages combined with the shipping costs from there to their sales market(s). Also to be fair I think people have had Plarail at such low prices for so long that now the prices are becoming more realistic they think they are expensive when in fact they are still pretty cheap. I mean if you want to see expensive look at the price of proper N gauge and HO/OO gauge ranges by pretty much any manufacturer. They make the prices Tomy sell at even for the real range look cheap still.

Of course the mixed messages their marketing department is giving people combined with the Advance debacle and other dubious decisions are bound to hurt their market as well. If people have to pay higher prices and invest more in a collection they want to know that Tomy/Tomix are in it for the long run and not just trying to make a quick buck and when it fails to meet sales expectations they cancel the range. For example they did have that maglev model as well which was sold at a truly premium price, but it was quite high tech and was built very well so the cost was justified. They could have taken that and improved it by making more track pieces and even maybe additional trains which they could have sold at good profit margins. But did they? No, not to my knowledge, apart from the basic set the only additional tracks sold were the standard straight and curved pieces you got with the basic set and even those were difficult to get hold of. A chance definitely missed I reckon...