I'm Done With Lionel

Don't worry; after losing the patent suit to MTH, Lionel is hurting financially so badly, that MTH will be buying them out. I'm surprised it hasn't already happened. They plan to keep the name, but SERIOUSLY improve on quality

Lionel is alive an well!

Appeals courts basically threw out the MTH suit based on they found MTH's "expert", totally unqualified and estimated damages to be, if applicable at all, a fraction of the original court award. Read the following found elsewhere yesterday:

Of course, you know that that verdict was thrown out, right?

Which patent suit is that? As reported in Lionel's newsletter, on 12/14/06 the US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a decision overturning MTH's victory in a lower court. Has there been some decision since then? The whole issue really seemed like an attempt on the part of MTH to litigate Lionel into a buyout. Corporate snakes.

Lionel has experienced record sales for the past two years. It sounds like people are speaking with their wallets. I don't know the current fiscal health of the company, even given the record sales, but Lionel has something going for it that MTH doesn't - the name and the history. A train enthusiast may recognize MTH, but much of the general public seems to have "Lionel" encoded into their DNA. E.g. a lot of older people who received Lionel trains for Christmas when they were children aren't even going to look at anything else when buying a train for their own kids.

Quality? A lot of people seem satisfied with the quality of Lionel and will buy nothing else. I only own the Polar Express set at the moment which, I gather, is part of Lionel's lower end. The quality of the train seems every bit as good as the Lionel train I remember from childhood.

I guess this is stuff for the real die-hard modelers. Personally, not having an actual 4-8-4 Berkshire in my living room for comparison purposes, I can't really tell the difference.

I can't tell the difference with rolling stock either. But given that almost all real trains I see are complete eyesores pulling long consists of dilapidated, grafitti-ridden cars, I'm not sure I want to care about real world dynamics. I'm more into aesthetics. When I build a permanent layout, it will be more idealistic rather than strictly in adherence to real world dimensions.

And to think I'm usually very Obsessive-Compulsive. But I have no desire to go Monk on a train layout.

Except maybe with the lake. I need to build something that really passes for an actual waterfront. I like lighthouses so obviously the layout will have to have one, or more if the waterfront runs the entire rear of the layout. I have already ordered the Lionel Big Bay Lighthouse. But I have other lighted lighthouse decorations that may or may not pass for O scale. No problem. If they are a little small, we'll just assume that it's intended for little people.

I'm going to be running an HO layout within the O scale layout anyway (I'm dreaming of the HO train one day climbing a helix.) How does a real modeler reconcile that scheme? Or do they just not do it?

Another dream? Many, many acres of property to build an actual train, like the kind they use in zoos for tours. I think I'll need a lottery win for that one.

Good God. All I did was knock up my wife and have a child. I didn't realize it would turn me into one again.

In my experience, the higher end Lionel is even better. TMCC is what lured me into switching from N back to O (in addition to aging eyesight and a bit of a tremor). I was enthralled by the sounds you could get in addition to enhanced control capabilities. Now if Lionel would rework all of their accessories so that their devotion to electromagnets would be replaced with boards which produce a less toylike functionality, it would be even better. Such things as the new crossing guards are a step in the right direction.

I don't call myself a rivet counter. But, when there's a substantial disparity in size, running both in the same consist just looks funny.

I'm sure that a rivet counter would definitely raise an eyebrow when seeming me running multiple eras at the same time, let alone my F3 set with the "Heinz" paint scheme. (Love that Clover House.)

Carl

AND:

OOPS!! Sorry, I guess my info was about 3 mos. old. Those were the plans in late summer or early fall. The way I understood it, There was some uhh.."Hanky-Panky" from Lionel going on w/ patent infringements and MTH thought they could parley it up. Sorry for the mis-info.