Nice catalog. Lots of variety... must be someone is buying brand new trains.
My only quibble - for several years now - is I do not understand Lionel's pricing. The scale guys complain about high prices, but I guess they fail to notice that the prices for the traditional stuff are only a few dollars less than the much more costly to produce scale items.
The new style SP caboose is $75.00. A much more costly to produce scale caboose with detailed interior is $99.00. Huh? A newly tooled scale box car for $99.00... they're giving that away if you compare that price to a traditional box car from years old tooling.
A couple years ago when the Lionel Junction sets were cataloged, a separate sale Lionel Junction car was $45.00. Huh?? The new Standard O cataloged cars list at $45.00. Huh??? I just don't understand. For all the grumbling the scale guys do, it sure seems to me like Lionel is bending over backwards to keep the prices on scale rolling stock as low as possible. Ryan said as much at one of the recent TCA museum presentations.
As I told a Lionel rep some years ago, I want to buy a traditional train car and pay for that train car, not subsidize tooling for scale items, which in reality, need to be priced a lot higher.
Well, Lionel is free to do as they wish, just as I am. They can price the traditional cars as high as they want... which I'm sure is part of the logic for so many licensed tradtionally sized items. But I'm not obligated to buy them though, and am not going to. The one deal is the ore/hopper car six packs... too bad more dealers don't break them up.
Luckily for me there's still the used market, so the Brianel Repaint Shops will continue to be very active for the foreseeable future.