Reply to "Lionel cancels Mechanical Reefers"

 As modelers age and if enough want larger trains but don't want to maintain the space required for O scale we might see S come into it's own without help from Lionel, perhaps MTH will get it right or perhaps it will be a new company like Atlas S or Athearn S( which would be great from my standpoint as my first toy trains were early athearn HO products) :&gt ......DaveB  

 

What growth of S that took place over the past 30 years happened without Lionel.  What stunted that growth was the result of an external force, the actions of one builder in China (Sanda Kan) essentially firing their customers.

Until the last decade, S has been on it's own without Lionel's "help" for the most part. Lionel stuck to producing traditional Flyer and didn't start making the "scale" products unit around 2002 when the Mikado's first came out.

It's hardly been considered a scale company either before or after.

If there were to be an "Atlas S" or "Athearn S," they too would have to address the "Flyer side" and offer their products to be Flyer compatible if they were to survive in the scale.  (Athearn and Atlas also suffered from Sanda Kan firing customers but had deep enough resources to recover more quickly...)

SHS did, American Models does, S Scale America does, Pacific Rail Shops did.  You'll even find Flyer compatible brass 2-8-0's and 4-4-2's from Southwind Models, UP Turbines and Pioneer Zephyrs from River Raisin running around out there.

Even in the olden days of wood and metal S Scale kits of the 50's and 60's, Flyer compatible trucks and couplers were offered, or the modeler simply used Flyer trucks.

I'm also pretty sure Atlas O sells more products to the 3-rail crowd than to the 2-rail crowd.

It's the simple fact that if true S Scale could survive on it's own with out Flyer, it would have.

Rusty