Why did MPC Lionel make the oddball Symington-Wayne freight trucks?

As I recall, the explanation was simply to "make something different."

Rusty

I like the look of them myself, have no clue why they made them. reminds me I need to pick up some Postwar trucks.

I have some of the early MPC Timken trucks with fast angle wheels. The surface of the trucks have a rather grainy appearance.
As I recall, awhile back Todd Wagner made some comments about the cause, and about Lionel's choice for the replacement truck molds. Perhaps he will comment again.

It's too bad that they wasted so much production on these odd trucks; they were fairly good replicas, and would have made a nice footnote addition to the product line, but, in real life they were rare. It is unfortunate that Lionel didn't make generic plastic solid-bearing ("Bettendorf" many call them) and roller-bearing truck designs during this period, instead of the mostly-improper plastic Symingtons. These trucks are often low-cost options for getting less-than-high-end RS back on the road.

But Lionel was anything but "accuracy conscious" - or healthy - when these trucks came out.

I think that whomever was tasked at designing a new truck for MPC was flipping through various press kits and spec sheets and saw this truck...not really knowing it was rare.  I think the 1:1 products with the truck were being promoted around the same time. They kind of resemble the trucks on modern European rolling stock.

I was thinking of changing the trucks on my REA refer, but they I kept them.  I saw some on a picture of a real REA car!

When they came out I bought a bunch of them. The 6464 type box cars could be had for well under $10. Remember we were all Lionel Train runners then. No scale look. They were electric toys. We were getting new stuff fast. It had been years with nothing new showing up. New engines, new cars, new standard "O" with fully strung Die-Cast trucks and even new Trutrack. Of course the track never did show up. I liked the trucks, they were different and new and they rolled like crazy. You could pull a really long train for the first time. Don

scale rail posted:

When they came out I bought a bunch of them. The 6464 type box cars could be had for well under $10. Remember we were all Lionel Train runners then. No scale look. They were electric toys. We were getting new stuff fast. It had been years with nothing new showing up. New engines, new cars, new standard "O" with fully strung Die-Cast trucks and even new Trutrack. Of course the track never did show up. I liked the trucks, they were different and new and they rolled like crazy. You could pull a really long train for the first time. Don

Interesting. The ad shows a new premium-quality die-cast sprung truck of a typical freight design, but not roller-bearing. That suggests the plastic Symington-Wayne truck was picked to be something distinctively different for lower-cost rolling stock. It seems both new truck designs were intended to appear different from the standard Lionel trucks of the 1960's.

I like them in a way......plentiful....usually cheap....and when painted dark color and weathered.....can't see them anyway!!! But yes.......an odd truck!