Ok MODS - can someone remove the post above - it's incomplete and for some reason the board won't let me edit it.
Anyway - here below is the complete post:
Locoboy5150 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 08, 2020 1:47 pm
Other Burnsland members that have hands-on direct experience with getting officially licensed Disney theme park train merchandise made and sold have mentioned in the past how much of a headache it was.
Michael Campbell has certainly done more than I, but I worked on two Railroad related merchandise items for sale within the parks in 2017/2018 and I'm
STILL taking Advil for my headaches!

Does that tell you how hard it was?
Roy wrote: ↑Tue Apr 07, 2020 6:48 pm
S. Towler wrote: ↑Tue Apr 07, 2020 2:36 pmI'm surprised Disney/TDR/TOMIX haven't done a second run of those trains since they seem to be quite valuable.
These things were rare from the get-go. My guess is that there was some serious tool failure involved. I've heard there was a licensing problem with Disney, but I doubt that's the story. You don't invest tens of thousands in production tooling, unless you have all your i's dotted, and t's crossed.
So I can actually shed some light here. The WRRR has always been my personal love within the Disney rail empire...
I own each of the models produced by Tomix for the park in HOn30 (HOe), as well as the Die Cast toys from Tomy, the "O" scale static model kit, and various other WRRR offerings. (Including a fabulous unauthorized g-scale engine from China!) Collecting the WRRR is my jam.
The HOn30 products were produced under license for sale INSIDE the park. They were considered quite expensive at the time (no change there in Disney Models for sale in a park, eh?).
As such, Tomy/Tomix began to offer the models for sale outside of the park, through catalog sales in Japanese hobby shops. (See Tomix 7008, '84 page 105). This apparently did not break the licensing agreements, however some ingenious overseas shops / importers started to buy in bulk on the Japanese domestic market, and then offer the models for resale - and this DID break the terms of the agreement. One of the biggest importers in the US was Mokei out of St. Louis, and he went so far as to advertise the models for sale in MR. This was the beginning of the end, as the relevant Disney group that licensed the rights to Tomy wanted further monies for them being sold on the US market, and Tomy/Tomix was more than a little miffed that they were the Attraction's (paid) sponsor, and were being asked for yet more "fees" by the mouse.
In the end, Tomix decided to discontinue the line rather than paying additional costs to sell the models worldwide. Apparently sales within TDL didn't constitute enough to keep going.
For those contemplating building a WRRR model, might I suggest the plastic model from Tomy? At 1/45 scale, these can be found on ebay with about the same frequency as the HOn30 models, but typically are much cheaper.
Cheers!
Josh