Atlas' Acquisition of MTH Tooling

I doubt Lionel will regress, but let's face it, while they have some great talent, they don't really drive the ship.  The owners and board do truly.  I'm sure their ears have perked up at the changes going on in the industry, and business cycles what they are, I could see them relaxing on the innovation side of things.  I may be wrong - but history has proven itself time and time again that a lack of competition often leads to companies resting on the laurels. 

There was/is already talk about how very little development is going into new tooling, and there is a plethora of models that could not only use improving upon, but simply don't exist.  I'm hopeful Atlas will enhance and improve upon the MTH tooling they bought. Two improvements I'd like to see are on the SD40-2 model (fuel tank size and truck positioning) and putting proto 3-2 trucks on the E6/E8.

@Madockawando posted:

What? You don't think I am a typical TMCC/Legacy user? Well that's good to know for next time I head to the basement to run my Legacy locomotives. I'll say a few prayers before I start 'em up and and thank the ghost of ole Joshua Lionel Cowan himself when it all works and yet again I continue to be a lucky TMCC/Legacy user.

Come'on man!

What I mean is anyone who doesn't have problems with the 3 rail control systems is lucky. Sure I would agree that most users these days don't have problems but the ones who do have issues are not having any fun with their issues. They are experiencing real aggravation. You say you have had many layouts over the last 25 years with TMCC and they all performed perfectly? Were all these layouts 4' x8' possibly? I only ask because it is only logical that the more complex the layout the more the chance for an issue. That's great for you and I am happy for you but I stand by my comment that you are lucky to have all those layouts over 25 years and never a single issue or problem!  Come on man! I only had one TMCC layout and I had a whole bunch of trouble with the system. Locomotives with flickering lights and not getting the TMCC signal. The command base not responding to the Cab-1 and locomotives not responding (sometimes because they weren't getting the signal and sometimes because the Command Base wasn't getting the signal) and then responding but what made it so terrible was the inconsistency of it all. There was no rhyme or reason to it. It was so intermittent! And I had just one TMCC layout! It was 24' by 12'. At times I wanted to pull the hair out of my head. It was a horrible, horrible experience and extremely frustrating. This was 22 years ago and I had no one to help me. There was no forum then. In the early years of this forum there were a lot of guys who had trouble with the system. There was even an article in OGR some years ago about a guy who couldn't get it to work properly so he mounted antennas on top of all his locomotives! Imagine having to do that? Why do you think it drove some guys to be conventional only? However, I will say that through the wisdom and collective intelligence of this forum and improvements by Lionel the system has gotten more reliable over the years. Who knows maybe if it came it now it would work for me and I would be using TMCC today. And as for the innovation in the hobby ask anyone who was around in the '70s and '80s how much innovation there was without any competition.

"The hobby is going to be OK after MTH. There will be more locomotives for you to purchase then your wallet can cover.  Don't worry"

I do agree with you here but if someone is a fan of steam with scale wheels like me there will be no new locomotives for me to buy. At least as of this writing.

Now go have your parade that MTH is closing. I have never seen anyone so happy that a train company is closing down. You're a big Lionel fan, I get it, but I don't like seeing any train company close down. I still miss Weaver and K-Line.

@Hudson J1e posted:

And as for the innovation in the hobby ask anyone who was around in the '70s and '80s how much innovation there was without any competition.

This is why my dad nearly threw out his entire train collection in the late 80's. He pretty much gave up on Lionel at that point, the trains got packed away and the hobby died in our house. Then in 1995 he saw and bought his first MTH locomotive with PS1 and he was hooked again. He looks back on the stuff he bought during the MPC days and just shakes his now.

This topic was good until a number of you decided to make it another rant about Lionel and MTH which had nothing to do with the OP's original intent.  Topic closed.