@Madockawando posted:- The first thing is the state of Lionel back in the early 1990s. To quote: "An internal memo noted: "Prior to Wellspring's purchase of Lionel, the company had not invested substantially in new tooling, and had no ability to do so. The company had no internal electronics ability, inadequate vendors for major components, and an understaffed engineering department. As a result, Lionel was saddled with an aging and unreliable product line at a time when competitors were improving their offerings."
My comment: Lionel was running on fumes and nostalgia back then.
As a consumer at that time (albeit a young one), I never felt that Lionel was "on nostalgia and fumes" until after Kughn sold it. Lionel of the early '90s was steadily evolving toward more realism, and each year brought at least one product involving some measure of new tooling. Not to mention many new paint schemes--real railroad paint schemes for the most part--on older products.
By contrast, I remember the first years of Lionel, LLC as saccharine-sweet with nostalgia and light on innovation. The flood of new products did not appear until production moved to Asia between 1999-2001. In other words, my memory has Lionel taking a step backward, not forward, in the years immediately following the sale. Which is what usually happens after a company is sold, it seems.
Obviously, the split with Mike hurt Lionel. But this internal memo is less about how important Mike was, and more about Wellspring puffing themselves up.
