@Landsteiner posted:Lots of water over the dam to be sure. But Lionel was not static in the early to mid 1990s. While Mike Wolf was touting the greatness of PS1, a devalued product from what QSI was offering, in terms of user friendliness, reliability and capabilities, Richard Kughn and Neil Young were developing TMCC and Railsounds, which make PS1 look pretty limited and unfriendly by comparison. PS1 was a major kludge, in my view, having owned a few. PS1 had the infamous internal battery which could lead to significant problems, utilized the even less fun multiple button pushes and levers to control functions/sounds, and then some locos had chips that went south when certain conditions were met. Makes the quality problems of the 2020s look pretty good by comparison.
So it wasn't all brilliance and industry leadership at MTH and laziness and complacency at Lionel. Turns out Neil Young and Richard Kughn were every bit the innovators as Mike Wolf, but they get little credit due to the hero worship going on in the hobby. And lest we forget, Weaver, Right of Way and Williams had pioneered large brass scale steam locomotives long before Mike Wolf finished college. Wolf refined, expanded and main streamed their ideas, but the leaders of these companies deserve some credit for their efforts.
MTH made a huge impact no doubt, but give some credit to Andy Edleman and others at MTH who brought great common sense, restraint and leadership to the company along with Mike Wolf. And the simple fact is that when it came to control, sound, couplers, etc. Lionel did some leading of their own.
I don't know how important timelines are, but Mike in cooperation with Nicolas Smith Trains had taken over Williams' Brass production by the mid 80's absorbing the entire production and Mike spearheading refinements to the line. By 1987 Mike was producing most if not all of Lionel's Scale line and their prewar offerings.
In 1990 it was Mike who was behind Weaver's development of the Brass engine line and the related diesels and passenger sets with Franks Roundhouse and Weaver fronting the effort. The catalogs and related advertising was done in house at MTH. It was Mike's ongoing relationship with Samhongsa that gave us some of the best quality product that we had seen in the toy train market.
Everyone involved deserves credit for moving the hobby forward. Some more than others. Even we deserve a great deal of credit that I don't think we get. If Lionel was doing 80 Mil, MTH 60 Mil and others back down the line adding to the annual expenditures, you and I over the last 30 years have spent a whole lot of money for toys that appear to lose value faster than new cars.
