This is very easy to answer. Just looking back at Lionel's catalogs from the 1990's you can start to see a change from what they were making. I can remember some time back in the early 90's, my then LHS was close by and Jack was the proprietor. Jack was a very nice fellow and he would tell me what was coming out in Lionel(since that was what I was buying). Well, he happen to have some of the Newest MTH scale stuff in and was telling me about it. Well, at the time money was tight for me and I didn't want to overextend myself but you could definitely tell that the hobby was changing for the better.
The scale Class J's when they first came out looked like Big Boys to Lionel's engines. I can remember checking out another store(which is my current LTS) and the MTH scale engines dominated the shelves. I did inquire as to what the makes were in my field of vision and almost everything was MTH. I really don't remember too much of what was on the shelves that was Lionel, but understand that the ideas were beginning to take place in what the next big thing was.
For my part, I did pick up a Railking Daylight, the passenger cars to go with it, some UP Coal Hoppers and the N&W passenger cars that would have gone behind the Class J. Unfortunately I didn't get it, but that's okay. Needless to say the whole market changed for the better.
