In a sense GRJ is right, somehow Lionel has ended up where they were years ago, if not the last man standing, at the very least the predominant maker ( no offense to Atlas or Third rail, just their scope is different).
On the other hand as has been discussed many times, there isn't all that much choice if you are buying new stuff even with MTH around, in the sense that in an oligopoly the lack of choice means quality usually doesn't differ much and that is my impression. The US car industry was an oligopoly and until they faced real competition, their quality was indifferent in any real measure. Even w luxury cars that was a problem,Benz had/has a cachet about it, but for all the German engineering had real quality problems, difficult to fix,expensive to fix....but until Lexis and Infiniti came into being they had no reason to change,that scared them.
