I don’t think I would compare Tyco with Lionel or Marx. Yes, both Marx and Tyco were built to be cheap so the average somebody could afford them, but Marx trains (to my knowledge) were always made to last. The Mantua era Tyco was very good quality (so perhaps that time is more comparable to Marx), but the Power-Torque driven diesels and Chattanooga Choo Choo were in fact engineered to run for around 40 hours. Of course, the gears may have stripped before the motor’s 40 hour life-span on some. I have a couple that I bought just for the fun of it. But they did at least maintain most of the original Mantua quality in almost all their steam engines.