Hey Lionel!

They should also acquire some Premier tooling such as the N&W A Class and Auxiliary tenders.

Scale Dreyfuss

That MTH scale steam tooling is also gold mine. Lionel could solidify its potential as the "only game in town", by aquiring it.

The L3 and 4 Mohawks, the H10s, pacifics, the L1s Mikado just to name a few....the list goes on and on.

Then they could dump some of the older inaccurate tooling.

Would like to see Lionel acquire the MTH Premier steam molds, especially the “1218” & the Dreyfuss.

I have a gut feeling Lionel will announce some sort of purchase soon.

Would the scale models be equipped with Legacy? It would be nice to get a few new models from Lionel that I could run on my layout.

Latest I've heard is that the remaining scale and non-scale tooling will remain with a reconstituted M-T-H.  But I must add that you should take this rumor with a hefty grain of salt.

Jon

If Lionel could pull off the buy and acquisition of MTH's remaining Railking, Premier scale steamer and electric tooling it would analogous to the Standard Oil Company buyouts and monopoly of J.D. Rockefeller and Henry M. Flagler fame, well, not quite, but it would be a tremendous asset

I am surprised that nobody has purchased the Railking Line of structures. To my assessment, they blow away Menards and Lionel structures in terms of quality and variety.

@KOOLjock1 posted:

Latest I've heard is that the remaining scale and non-scale tooling will remain with a reconstituted M-T-H.  But I must add that you should take this rumor with a hefty grain of salt.

Jon

That’s what my butcher told me too.

@romiller49 posted:

I have a gut feeling Lionel will announce some sort of purchase soon.

I don't think Lionel ever announced  "aquiring " the K Line scale tooling did they?

There were just some Mikados, Shays, K4s, berkshires, an 0-6-0's etc. that appeared in catalogs  with an uncanny resemblence Oh, and this:  

@KOOLjock1 posted:

Latest I've heard is that the remaining scale and non-scale tooling will remain with a reconstituted M-T-H.  But I must add that you should take this rumor with a hefty grain of salt.

Jon

I really hope MTH stays around in some form.   Perhaps the uncatalogued MTH releases indicate Mike's desire to stay involved but on much more limited scale and with products he favors.  Sure has been interesting to watch this roll out.

Does the tooling have to stay in the factory MTH was using?  I have always heard that such tooling is the property of the factory and is essentially licensed to the manufacturer.  Or either subsidized...i.e. the factory will develop the tooling for you if you use the factory.   But that may not be the case here.  Lionel has certainly moved some tooling around.

Also wonder what will happen to the tinplate tooling?

Rick, yes, Lionel did announce the acquisition of K-Line tooling via OGR magazine ~ around 2006 or 2007 as I recall reading.

I would like to see them acquire some of MTH's small steam engines like the 0-4-0 switchers and H-9s for openers.

@Paul Kallus posted:

Rick, yes, Lionel did announce the acquisition of K-Line tooling via OGR magazine ~ around 2006 or 2007 as I recall reading.

I must have missed that Paul. At that time, I was just getting my feet wet in O guage.

It seems people have questioned the similarities along the way.

None of that matters though. If not Lionel . Hopefully Mth's tooling will be picked up by somebody. It would be a shame to for it just sit in a warehouse.

Rick, my memory isn't that sharp...the reason I know is because I am culling my back issue collection of OGR and CTT dating back decades and going through each issue to see which is worth keeping...and recycling the rest (that issue being one of them), and I happened to be going through 2006-2007 years this week. Although not in the article, I recall there was a legal debacle between the two companies...and eventually Lionel came out on top and marketed a new brand "K-Line by Lionel."

K-Line made some neat stuff at decent prices...but like MTH always seemed to lag behind Lionel in terms of robust and superior technology...but they did license TMCC from Lionel yet they struggled with a speed control system and were reliant on older Railsounds. It seemed to be the legal troubles/infringements that did them in, though.

I read somewhere that Atlas bought a lot of it. 

This would be neat. However, I might prefer mth continuing in a smaller capacity or another company coming forward. Lc2.0 looks awesome, but I might prefer a large portion of the mkt not being owned by the orange and blue crew. I have nothing against Lionel, as all my engines are Lionel, but a large acquisition would put them in complete command of the hobby.