Just a quick response. I am in an O scale club that does have younger members (<60). The issue is two fold IMHO. MTH has not a lot of respect among the 2 railers as some of their products are quite nice and some aren't that good as far as scale accuracy. With all its issues Atlas for value and Sunset/3rd rail are far more popular among the membership. Last I heard was that nearly half of Atlas' sales were in 2 rail.
I think I'm the only one in the club who has purchased MTH engines, which in the case oft he GP7/9 is too high off the trucks and has handrails painted wrong and starting in the wrong locations - I could go on but I have the skill so correct and build a scale pilot. On the other hand the 2 rail MTH Trainmaster was excellent as was the 3 rail only Alco S2 (which I had to convert with MTH scale wheel sets which are set up wrong for the S2 and must be modified to fit.) The other issue is that the vast majority of 2 railers are DCC and are never going to be interested in DCS. The early MTH PS3 modules didn't work well with DCC but they have improved though they are still no where near Soundtraxx or ESU. She time ago an MTH sales person actually came to club to demonstrate an early version of PS3 on the club's HO layout, it was a disaster. I know it is now improved.
Atlas cancelled some O Scale locomotives because of problems with their vendor(s). Their current vendor is supposed to expand and rectify the problem in the near future - we shall see. The instability of the US - China relationship of recent years is not helping.
BTW, Beth I'll go for an Atlas SW in either B&M or SP if you can get Atlas to make them (2 rail with DCC).
J2M
