While I have no business responding to these "What the mfrs. should build" threads, as it is been a long while (years) since MTH put out a "What would you like us to build?" questionaire...and have you ever seen one from Lionel? I do not believe anybody but potential customers read these (and the site hosts). Weaver has done custom runs so that makes them responsive to the buyer. ((MTH has, too, in the past, done custom runs, for I remember a shop (long defunct) outside Lafayette, Ind. that offered that little 2-6-0 from MTH in Monon and Wabash?? livery.))
I want scale length cars. I do not want shorties. I do not remember what was the
diameter of the track on a childhood Hafner windup, but I think it was tighter than
0-27. It is better that both scale and shorties be offered for the market, as there is
a demand for both ,(Walthers knew that at least in the 1940's, for they offered their
passenger car kits in short and scale versions) but if I was going with shorties, I could run six inch Marx cars on that Hafner track and really pave my trainroom with track, OR have an O gauge coffee table layout to run while sitting in front of the boob tube. Many, of course, so down to a smaller scale...Z gauge in a brief case, running
scale length cars.
(I compromise by modeling a short line/branch line and can run prototypically small
engines and short trains, with scale cars, on broad curves)
Speaking of Walthers, their scale length (39 foot) Sierra Branch passenger car kits
and somebody's pricey brass models of same show up on the internet. Now those are
prototypical shorties.