Since Lionel moved away from continuing their classic tinplate product line, I liked the fact that although MTH and Lionel are competitors and former legal adversaries, both sides came to a mutual agreement to allow the "Lionel Lines" to continue on via MTH product production. Although I don't like the thought, I do understand the possible reason why Lionel might not want to extend the current "Lionel Lines" licensing agreement if Lionel believes that any licensing fee received does not help Lionel in the sale of their current and future products. Since there is a lot of overlap between modern tinplate and modern regular/scale operators, it could also be argued that a sale of a new MTH "Lionel Lines" product reduces the potential amount of money available in the market to be used to buy a current Lionel BTO product.
You never know... depending upon the finer details of the contract and possibly before the end of the licensing agreement, M's factory had a large production run of "Lionel Lines" name plates that will end up in the MTH service/parts bins for later resale to customers that might have a damaged nameplate to replace.
