I don't think that Super-O was a failure at all. 1953 was Lionel's biggest year in terms of sales and profits... then, everything changed in very rapid succession. Automotive sales exploded while James Dean and Marlon Brando didn't know what a train was and the Interstate Highway System left rail travel in the dust. Simultaneously, the rest of the world began exporting again and competition heated up while Levittown sized homes couldn't accommodate O gauge. Super-O may have been the wrong answer in a changing world... but, it certainly was not the problem.
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