@Bob Bubeck posted:"Unfortunately, the Flyer albatross isn't going to go away. "
Thank goodness it is not! Without Gilbert, its philosophy, historical contribution to the hobby, and number of enthusiasts there would be next to nothing (NOTHING!) in S. Hardly an albatross, without Flyer and its high rail descendants to generate some market volume, S would be like TT. The O scale folks do not complain about Lionel, nostalgia, and 3-rail track. They just get on with it.
Bob
I wonder how many "newbies" there are today that got into S these days solely to collect Gilbert Flyer. The ranks of the Gilbert enthusiasts is thinning out. Now, I have a modest collection of Gilbert Flyer, but it's not my prime interest in S.
The problem is, most folks still appear to associate S with American Flyer only, totally ignoring the more progressive companies that followed.
Lionel/Flyer keeps surfacing with forays into non-Gilbert designs, then retreats back to traditional style Flyer. Ol' A.C's. (bless his soul) has been gone for 60 years. Gilbert has a rightful place in history, but it's time to move on. It's been time to move on for several decades.
The BIG problem is: Nobody ever offered serious competition to Lionel/Flyer in the manner that MTH rose up and literally forced Lionel to get out of the postwar funk and come out with more scale oriented products in O. Not American Models, not S Helper Service and certainly not MTH after buying SHS. I'll wager that even Scale Trains won't be serious competition for the Lionel/Flyer juggernaut.
@Jacobpaul81 posted:Clearly didn't read the threads about the Lionel ATSF Brass Hybrid Mikado. EVERYONE complained about that from 2-rail to 3RS to the Hi-railers. And it was a pretty nice locomotive.
Complaining is what model railroaders do.
That's because O Gaugers love their die-cast metal, suitable for use as blunt instruments. Take a look at all the Vision Line locomotives they fawn over (even with the outrageous non-prototypical paint schemes,) the most recent being the Santa Fe 2-10-10-2...
Rusty
