A book could be written on the debates of this subject. I do believe that a great many of the operators of pre-war and post-war Lionel have passed on. However, there has been a slow influx of folks who are attracted to those areas for reasons of size and affordability.
I have my Dad's postwar trains, and added a few cars to his trains he could never afford, as we had one wage earner and 10 children in my family.
Dick Maddox is the GREATEST CEO Lionel EVER had in my opinion. He really brought Lionel into the scale market arena. A lot of the posters here have never heard of Dick Maddox. He and his follow on, Bill Bracy are responsible for ALMOST EVERY scale engine's tooling in Lionel's catalog. Comic book man did little to nothing new as far as engines are concerned. The current CEO has add nothing new except $140.00 cabooses, using MTH tooling. Ridiculous! But I digress! My favorite trains are indeed scale detailed and sized pieces. At the same time I am an early baby boomer. I love the electronics, because my entire career was in the electronics field, first as a technician, then as a degreed engineer. Lionel still sell stuff from the Clyde Coil/Lou Kovac era as LCS stuff. Most of you have never heard of Lou Kovac! Yet LCS lives on. TPC 300 and TPC 400 are still great ways to run conventional locomotives. So one can easily run the old with the new.
I agree with many - under Howard, Lionel is pricing themselves off the market, and if they don't restructure their prices, they may as well close their doors. Sales will not generate enough net profit to keep the doors open. Lots of fresh overhead in Concord, NC. Just look at the customer service center for an example - understaffed with relatively unskilled (for Lionel Electronics) personnel. Their entire staff comprises young people, so Lionel can keep their payroll overhead to a minimum. This isn't to bad mouth Dave, but at his age, he IS in charge of engineering! Would you guess 25 to 28?
I may not post often, but I have been here forever!
