Pick-up shoes on Lionel trolleys

It's less expensive to manufacture the trolleys with slide shoes.

Cost.

The last trolley set I purchased was just track and two bumpers, not even a loop.

At some point during the modern-era, Lionel switched from a design which was essentially identical to the postwar version, to a complete re-engineered can motored version. If you look at the parts list, the newer trolleys are of very different quality. The chassis, motor and pickup are essentially the same as the modern era handcar. The sliding shoe you reference looks like the exact same part used on modern handcars. Up until the early 1990's the handcars used a copper sliding pickup with a rounded edge that wouldn't pick switches and crossings. Then they switched to a chrome version with a square leading edge that snags everything.  See the difference in the photos below.

Incredible!

I found that those copper, postwar style shoes wear very quickly.
When I had used track on my layout, the problem was even worse.
There was so much drag, sometimes the 8401 hand car would not even move.

I replaced all the track with new stuff, and the handcar ran much better.
The shoe still wears rather quickly.

GregR posted:

At some point during the modern-era, Lionel switched from a design which was essentially identical to the postwar version, to a complete re-engineered can motored version. If you look at the parts list, the newer trolleys are of very different quality. The chassis, motor and pickup are essentially the same as the modern era handcar. The sliding shoe you reference looks like the exact same part used on modern handcars. Up until the early 1990's the handcars used a copper sliding pickup with a rounded edge that wouldn't pick switches and crossings. Then they switched to a chrome version with a square leading edge that snags everything.  See the difference in the photos below.

Thank you for your very informative reply.  I ran your answer by "House of Trains"--Lionel # 749 and they agreed with your answer 100 %.  The newer shoes are lousy.  The plastic piece under the trolley can melt, the Service Tech told me.   I'll stick to MTH.  Maybe try to convert the sliders to rollers someday.

KRK