leapinlarry posted:Ok, just curious, how much did Lionel save by eliminating the orange module, now eliminating the Odyssey switch. ....
Very good question, Larry. And it also leaves us wondering WHO is making these decisions: Lionel Stateside or their Chinese Factory. 
The orange module thing is purely a bean-counter move with no really significant impact to buyers. But the elimination of the Odyssey switch (also a bean-counter move) already has a significant ramification that we know about from a user who has reported the new Legacy locomotives w/o the Odyssey switch cannot be used on "automated" layouts with relay control. Admittedly, that's not a huge segment of the population. But nonetheless, it shows how these kind of decisions can't be made in a vacuum. And certainly shouldn't be left for buyers to discover AFTER they've made a purchase decision -- only to realize their new Legacy locomotive needs to be "modified" (and probably void the warranty) in order to work in those environments. Not good.
I take a lot of heat here on the forum for shining the spotlight on an importer, when they don't follow good business practices. But this is once again another example of the left and right hand not knowing what's going on at Lionel. Another example is the fact that the instruction manuals for these locomotives have not been updated, so they're still showing the Odyssey on/off switch as being on the locomotive when in fact it's no longer there. It begs the question whether somebody here at Lionel Stateside is making these kinds of decisions. Or whether the Chinese factory is acting on some kind of overarching direction from Lionel Stateside's CBC (i.e., that's a new C-level acronym for Chief Bean Counter) to trim costs wherever possible. Or worse yet, whether the Chinese factory is just making these changes willy-nilly, and Lionel Stateside discovers what's going on after the fact. Whatever the case may be, none of those scenarios leave us with a nice warm-and-fuzzy feeling. But I think we're all getting accustomed to that feeling nowadays. 
Building toy trains is not an easy business (anymore).
On the plus side of things... at least the new S2 locomotive appears to be a winner in all other respects. Love the swinging bell, and the smooth running operation. The former is just a cool feature, and the latter is ever-so-important by today's standards. Nobody wants jerky, slow-speed operation that's plaguing the latest Lionel Mogul... nor do we want locomotives that start up at 40mph. We've all moved past those days.
