I scored a 1966 Western Auto catalog at the flea market. Has lots of trains in it--MARX, LIONEL Will try and post more in the days ahead. In the meantime:

It always amazed me that they were still selling sets headed by steam locomotives in the 1960s. Dieselization had pretty much eliminated steam from the nation's railroads by then, so the locomotives that people were seeing on a routine basis were diesel-electric profile. When I was a kid in the 1960s, my friends and I wanted diesel locomotives, so I'm guessing the continuing manufacture of steam-profile toy trains was a nod to the nostalgia-driven adults who were buying sets for their kids.

Today, a high percentage of O-gauge locomotives are steam, but these are now geared toward hobbyists, not sets for kids at Christmas (putting aside the Polar Express sets, which feature a Lima Berkshire locomotive, one of the last great steam-era locos).

Paul II