" $600 to $3000 for a TOY Train Engine??? Customers 50 years and older; Pandemic cutting or eliminating people's income; Products made in China; Using many predesigned parts; Over pricing everything they import."
I agree with Marty (as usual 
). There are plenty of locos below that price in every catalog I've seen previously. I buy the occasional $600 loco, but mostly I've bought locos for one-third or one-half that price with LC+ or LC. Customers get older whether Lionel or the customers like it. 50 is young. Lionel doesn't control the pandemic or unemployment, obviously. MTH's prices aren't much lower and they are going out of business for whatever reason.
Bottom line, unless you believe in toy train conspiracies, Lionel is just trying to sell products people will like, and to make a profit. That's reality, whether any of us like it or not. If toy trains could be made much less expensively, someone would be doing it. They aren't. This is a niche market with no economies of scale, using hand assembled products. Expensive compared with other products.
By the way, sounds like a fun catalog to look at. May even buy a train or two, but I already have more than any rational human being would want.
