If this is in the wrong forum sorry but this seemed to be the least out of place of all of them. I have always wondered what became of some of the late prewar tooling, but especially OO. I remember hearing somewhere that Richard Kughn looked into reissuing OO back in the 90’s but obviously it never happened. I know that any chance of reissue is nonexistent, but dose the tooling still exist, and if so is it still in Lionel’s possession?
Thanks!
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I sincerely doubt that any of Lionels' OO Tooling still exists in any form. Most likely, it was probably scrapped during World War 2. I also doubt that OO will ever come back.
I sincerely doubt that any of Lionels' OO Tooling still exists in any form. Most likely, it was probably scrapped during World War 2. I also doubt that OO will ever come back.
...And its too bad. Lionel's OO Hudsons and their accompanying rolling stock were great trains. They looked great and ran well to. Everything about them makes them desirable. I wish I had an operating set. If only they had made the post-war cut.
Why would Lionel have scrapped less than 10 year old tooling? They ran the 700E tooling into the ground until the 80’s when it was worn out, and that was about the same age as OO would have been and received much more use. I also thought that Lionel made a special run of OO hudsons as display pieces in 1950 for their 50th anniversary. Was that just left over inventory from the prewar era or was it made in 1950? If so that means the tooling survived the war.
Why scrap the "OO" tooling? - because they knew they weren't going to use the tooling again.
That written, Lionel did save all sorts of tooling that they were not likely to ever use again. Some of the arbor presses from the factory auction that I had the opportunity to examine probably had not been used since 1950.
I think the tooling was very expensive and may have represented a significant portion of the value of the company. The accounts may have had a lot to say about when tooling was retired. Tooling which they had no intent of ever using again may have been kept for years to take advantage of the deprication on taxes every year. Or tooling may have been scrapped early to generate a loss to offset some unexpected income.
Another question is when exactly did Lionel decide not to bring OO back after WW2
I would imagine that Lionel decided to focus on revitalizing their O-gauge line after WW2. They could perhaps see that HO was going to supplant OO in the American market.
If no Lionel OO tooling still exists, what about Scalecraft?
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