@gunrunnerjohn posted:Past tense for MTH, all they do now is remake existing products with a new paint job. There are no new designs coming out from MTH.
Actually, I don't ever see that happening. MTH is a shadow of it's former self, and Lionel picked over their tooling for stuff that they wanted already. There's no upside for Lionel to acquire MTH that I can see.
Unfortunately Lionel is basically doing the same thing. 2020 Vision Line steam was the SP GS class, which except the GS1 has been done multiple times by MTH and Lionel. 2021 Vision Line steam was the N&W class A, which has been done multiple times over the years by MTH, and the Lionel model in the early 2000s. New electronics does not make something never done before, it just has new electronics. So if Lionel announced a Vision Line Triplex in 2024 based off MTH tooling it wouldn't be new at all, just a previous model with new paint and smoke coming out a couple new holes 
.
Here's the kicker: steam tooling is way more expensive than a diesel. Both MTH and Lionel have pretty much made every well known steam locomotive in diecast that will turn a profit. Don't expect any new diecast tooling from Lionel either. Probably anything new will be brass hybrid. So, yes, while there are multiple steam locomotives that haven't been done I'm sure they haven't been done because they won't turn a profit. There hasn't been a WM 4-8-4 built because the market isn't there for it, but the market is there for multiple runs of SP 4-8-4s. But WM F7s are easy to make a profit on because they are just a paint variation on a model that will work for multiple roads, so you can still make money on it.
