Roundhouse Bill posted:The fact is S Scale is only about 15% of the S Gauge market and that probably won't change. When some new products do come out in S Scale the best you can do is support the producer and buy them.
Oh boy, yet another platitude...
The 15% number has been tossed around for as long as the 30+ years I've been in S. It's nothing new. Yet, somehow during it's lifetime S Helper Service managed to inject excitement and new products every year suitable for both the scale side and the Flyer/Hirail side. AM, although not as aggressive as SHS was in releasing new products, also manages to sell successfully to both markets. This fact seems to escape the thinking at both Lionel and MTH.
There has to be S Scale products available to purchase to entice the Scale Guys... Not warmed-over Gilbert Flyer or re-purposed O27. The Flyer wood reefer duplicates the SHS/MTH reefer, (only not as detailed and costs more.) While the 40' waffle side boxcar has possibilities, but is such an odd duck few Scalers are interested in it.
Scalers were looking forward to the 57' mechanical reefer, but Lionel pulled the rug out from under that one. Had Lionel not screwed up the trucks on the cylindrical hopper and done more "real" roadnames and not all those silly NS fantasy paint jobs, they would have gotten a better reception from the scale side. (I guess it's the Scale Guy's fault for not snapping them all up...) I've converted 4 cylindrical hoppers to scale, BTW...
As stated earlier, something like the upcoming Legacy Berkshire is useless to a Scale Guy if there's no way to convert it to scale wheels (and it's a little more involved that attacking the flanges with a file...)
If Lionel were to start seriously duplicating some of their O Scale rolling stock in S, they would surely find a home on quite a few S Scaler's railroads.
Rusty
