Where will Lionel be while we're at York in October?

If you want to take your kids somewhere, its comic con. That is why Lionel is there. Plant that seed in their head now! Right now its comics, films but later on they will remember what they saw if looking for a hobby.

Pretty smart I say!!!!

Dave

If one is thinking logically your idea of planting seeds has merit.  However out of sight, out of mind.  Without product placement in the movies, videos, and games that young folks are watching, it may register as oh I remember trains....

It is hard to imagine a licensed RTR set with a bevy of Marvel characters or latest blood and guts combat game leading to a life long enjoyment of a $2000 + VL engine collection.

But then again I have been wrong before; just ask my wife.  Then again don't.

As I mentioned in another thread, the sure fire way to fail is not to try.

So kudos to Lionel trying to sow new seeds in a nontraditional marketing area for model trains.  It would be interesting to see what they are promoting in their 'booth'.

Lionel and the TCA are having issues or so I've been told.

At a local suburban DC area school drones, 3 D printers and racing robots (whatever they are) are new resources for the classroom. No mention of model trains. Maybe the train from Back to the Future 3 would be a start?

What should be featured is - a flatcar with Batmobile, box car with the Joker running around, a tower scaled by Spiderman, and an accessory that puts a Superman figure onto the track that stops the train by cutting power. I would suggest more; however, I am not familiar with the newer comic characters. What should the Hulk be doing? Alfred (I should not have divulged these ideas before the patent and tradmark papers went through.)

In the movie Big, Tom Hanks as a kid grows to be the stature of an adult as the result of a wish to be big at a magical coinop Zoltar machine on Coney Island. He get's a job with a toy company as part of their product development team. Heh it's fiction!

The hot new item planned for production is a building that turns into a transformer or visa versa. Does it really matter?

After fumbling around with this toy a bit, Tom asks 'what fun is that'? Much to the chagrin of the suit promoting this new toy Tom's character comes up with a more intriguing idea.

While any O scale model train business tries to straddle the void between toy like and prototypical product lines don't they have to answer the same question?

Is it fun? If not why bother?

This is especially true for younger folks or those who are not train experts and never heard of a rivet counter, let alone a bean counter; which strikes me as a reasonable expectation for most Comic-con attendees.

Oh and BTW atsda, you need to update your characters, Wolverine and Deadpool would be good starts!