Thank you Lionel & MTH for trains that do MORE!

Yes, thanks to MTH, Lionel, Sunset and Atlas and all the others. We are lucky, especially here in the USA, for being able to buy these products for a lot less than in Europe and Asia.

It is OK to comment/complain and to give constructive feedback to the manufacturers, it keeps them honest and makes them add features that we, customers, want....

I agree 100% Don.  There are plenty of things that we complain about, but there are also plenty of really cool things being done in the hobby.

Don,

   Great post, to many times people dwell on the negatives around them.  Here in the USA we are free to have our hobbies, and earn enough money to participate in them. However without the good engineers that work for companies like Lionel, MTH, Williams, Weaver, Atlas and others, our train hobby would not have trains that as you point out, due more, I agree with you 100%.  Glad you like your trains so much, in our family we have built life times of memories around them, hope you are able to do the same.

PCRR/Dave

I could not agree more with you, Don.  Personally, I think Lionel and MTH are both doing a lot that I like and very little I don't.  (Well, okay, I do wish Lionel would bring back Lionmaster, and I wish MTH would actually ship some of the locos I have ordered in the last two years, but . . . 

Many of the people who complain and suggest that Lionel and MTH should do this or that should just go out and start their own company: if they are correct, they would prosper asnd take over the market, and if they are wrong -- well, they'd learn why those two companies are doing it like they are.

I run conventional on my layout......but found a scale MTH PRR 2-10-4 Proto 3.0 and I will say even in conventional it is impressive.  But only because I do not have to worry about a battery did I even consider buying it. A fantastic piece for sure.....

Although I complain about complexity in favor of simplicity it's tongue in cheek. Plus I complain about everything. Bottom line: I absolutely would NOT be in this hobby without PS2's 3's and now Legacy. I NEVER get tired of watching and hearing the steam engines and diesels come to life, blare their sounds, puff smoke, shine lights (my Legacy GP9 is almost blinding) stop, go, couple and uncouple and talk. Do I wish MTH would add a tender roller? Yes. Does that stop me from buying and enjoying PS3 steamers? NO WAY. Do I wish Lionel Legacy steamers cost less? Yes. Does that stop me from buying them . . . well, yes but after my wife gets that second job and I sell my daughters car sign me up!

Great thread Don and I really like the timeline!

Don I agree 100%

Thanks so much for sharing your train history with us, I really enjoyed reading it!

Don:

Thanks for being one of those "the glass is half full" guys. Indeed, there is much more good coming from the manufacturers than otherwise. I am with you.

Good post about the good side of things for a change. I re-joined the hobby a couple years ago and have been amazed at the offerings in O-gauge ever since. What a change from 30 years ago!  I have some MTH and Lionel and now have some Atlas in my sights. I think they all do a great job with their products.  I am quite pleased with all of the things I have, no complaints here.  It's really a great time for O-gauge trains and we should all be thankful for what we have and what we can afford to purchase, I know I sure am.

It's been awhile since I've heard a very extensive, detailed story of a train guy experiencing the past 40 some years in this wonderful hobby. And I agree Don that all the highlights you brought up are definitely ones that are worth telling as a story. Both Lionel and MTH have both come a long way and I too feel greatful that they both, as well as all the other companies, continue to get bigger and better with every year.

Agreed. When it's all said and done -- and despite the "issues" that get discussed here ad nauseum -- this is a pretty great time to be involved in the hobby.

Like most things in life, a two-sided coin:

I have both Lionel TMCC and Legacy Command systems and a Vision Line 700E Hudson which I DO appreciate! I also operate DCS with MTH trains.

The DOWNSIDE to all these great technological assets is the current cost for out-of-warranty repairs on these ultra-sophisticated products, and future availability of both parts and circuit boards/chips.  

Whether or not "cottage" industries will emerge to supply these components remains to be seen! 

It's the progression and evolution of the O Gauge hobby that ignited and expanded my fanaticism with the hobby as a whole.

I've always loved trains.  In my grade school years we had four Lionel post war sets and a Marx set.  I was fascinated at how they moved by themselves on the track and I was the one controlling them with my ZW!!

But I never liked the O27 track.  It looked nothing like what I saw outside.  I perked up a lot when my Grandfather bought Super 'O' track, that looked much more real!  But the trains weren't like any of the real trains I saw either.  Growing up in Northeast Philly and not far from the Northeast Corridor I saw lots of trains, mostly freight.  I had no idea what I was looking at, but I knew none of them looked like my silver Union Pacific Alco's, or my General set, U.S. Army #44 rocket launching engine or even my (still favorite to this day) #60 trolley.

After we got the Super 'O' track the O27 track was put in a cardboard box along with my other toys for me to play with between Christmas layouts.  Even with the joy of playing with trains outside of the Holidays O27 track still seemed bland.  Sometimes it was more fun watching the sparks from putting a screwdriver across the rails at 20 volts!

Then in the late 1960s during my eleventh Christmas, I was gifted a couple 'N' Gauge sets.  Here we had some PRR, Santa Fe and B&O F units, just like I always saw in the hobby shops and catalogs!!  I could do something with this!!.  However, most of the 'N' stuff at the time was limited, and most of it was German/European style trains, rolling stock and buildings.  Still not like what I saw in my neighborhood.  No matter what I did with my limited layout skills it didn't look like the trains and scenery that I had witnessed.  (Meanwhile, my friend down the street had a BEE-YOOO-tee-full Lionel Santa Fe A-B-A set with gleaming silver passenger cars)

The love for trains still burned inside me in spite of all this.  My father taught me basic electrical skills so I would respect it and not burn the house down, so I could wire the layout myself every Christmas.  Through my teenage years the layouts alternated between O gauge and N gauge depending what I felt like each year.  Even after entering the workforce, I didn't spend much on trains as the offerings were too expensive or looked too toy-like, nothing like I still saw on the real rails.

Then I discovered Williams Electric Trains.

On my very first trip to the York Meet in October 1981, as a guest of my cousin, I saw a set of trains that looked just like what I saw running alongside I-95!!  In the Yellow Hall I saw a four car Amtrak Metroliner set made by Williams that I bought from a younger gentleman who looked very much like the gentleman wearing the purple shirt at the current MTH booth now. The set was so much bigger than the post war sets I had!!  Sure, it only had a single forward moving motor and no horn, but it was a long set!  This set would be for my son, who had just been born the previous April.  His first train set.  From this point on, Williams locomotives dominated my slowly growing collection.

After my three children grew and more Williams engines began to appear on my Super 'O' layouts (now year round).  One day I took a trip to Nicholas Smith Trains and my whole O Gauge life changed forever.  Enter MTH and K-Line.  Are you kidding me!!  Look at those details!!! (As if I knew what was on the real trains, but they were better than post war and even Williams)  And then Lionel even started making scale locomotives more often!!  And what's this remote control thing?  Nah, don't need that, my layout isn't that big.

Then on a subsequent trip to Nicholas Smith I wanted to buy this cool looking Lionel Union Pacific SD-90.  At the time Lionel made some engines with and without TMCC.  I wanted the conventional, he only had the TMCC version.  "Oh, yes, it can run conventionally from your ZW too."  Ok, I'll take it.  I had all kinds of trouble with running it.  Being a young guy at the time I didn't read the 'destructions', it should run with the ZW, right? (I had no idea about Odyssey control)  Back to the store it went.

The salesman placed the SD-90 on the track (that O27 stuff) and picked up this remote control contraption.  All of a sudden, all these sounds, horns and bells blared from the engine and it ran like a Swiss watch around the store layout!! 

Shortly after, MTH was producing the ProtoSound 2.0 engines before DCS was released.  Bought a few of those locomotives too, and after hearing them, even in conventional, I HAD to get into this command control stuff.  But not yet.  I wanted to see if it was a fad that would fade away before I invested.

Once DCS was released and I saw the demos at York of both DCS and TMCC……. BOOM, the floodgates had opened!!  I became a living and breathing Joe McDokes!!

Lionel, MTH, K-Line, then Atlas O appeared, still liked Williams trains too.  I bought trains, my wife was on board, she bought trains, Atlas O track was born!!  All this also led to learning about the prototypes to a degree.  Started rail fanning with a friend of mine, we took our first trip to Altoona, Pa. and thought we were in heaven!!  Discovered their Railfest and the excursions around the Horseshoe Curve.  WOW!!  What fun!  

And then shortly after it began, I discovered OGR and finally joined after lurking for a couple of years.

And this is just one of my hobbies, but the one I enjoy the most. It was how this hobby evolved that kept and fueled my interest even further over the years.

Thanks for reading down Memory Lane with me!