"It is a minor miracle that Lionel has gone so far as offering scale wheels and couplers. The 3RS and 2 rail O crowd have been screaming for these features for years".
I think Lionel realizes that O scale is over bought and limited in it's upside. They probably recognize the trend to older folks downsizing to smaller house and want to be at the forefront of the movement? Since flyer is an old and tired concept the best chance of growth will come from O scalers downsizing to trains that can fit in a typical space and HO scalers upsizing to trains that are a lot easier to handle as they age?
HO guys and 2 rail O guys are gonna demand a scale oriennted product before handing over their money. I think Lionel needs to study the SHS and American models lines to understand how to build models that appeal to both scale and highrail/flyer guys. The lionel U33 and cylindrical tankcar look like a great start for a quality scale oriented line of products, both can be fairly easily converted to scale but will please the high rail guys as is. As the growth of S proceeds it would make sense to move more to the scale side by offering ready to go models with scale wheels and couplers but these two are a good start....DaveBranum
