Hi all, Just purchased a 394 beacon. I allready have another so I was like what the heck. This on uses a bayonet style bulb. The one in it has no dimple, Where can I find one, I have looked all over. Also there is no cover housing over top the area where the bulb goes on like my other. If anyone has seen the new lionel beacons with the vibrator it is almost like that, but this is a old post war model. Everything looks untouched and the rod still comes up and powers the bulb…Any thought? Everywhere I look I can not find a pic or parts for this type…
[#welcome] Lionelover to the forum !! You should be able to get that at Olsenstrainparts. I can’t post the link now, due to some changes in the software recently here. Also a place caleed The Traintender can fix you up. Just try todo a search for these 2 companies.
Hope this helps !!
Thanks, John
Thanks, I have gone to those sites, they have screw in type dimples, but no bayonet. Did Lionel produce a 394 with bayonet dimple? This is all original so they must have.
461 DIMPLE bulb is the one you want.
Check CTT advertisers, also Olsen’s, Town & Country, and Train Tender for the bulb.
Rob
Thanks, nope thats a screw in type, this beacon only takes a bayonet style (the bulb w/ two nubs at the bottom, you push in and turn, it locks into the base)
Does anyone know where I can buy one?
lionelLover,
Is it possible that you have a “hybrid”? Perhaps a combination of an old 394 which definitely took a screw-base dimple lamp that a previous owner has “kitbashed” with parts from the newer 494 which used a bayonet-base 53-300 lamp with no dimple?
Lionel has been known to issue variations with little notice, but I have been unable to find a bayonet-base dimple lamp.
Maybe it’s a Marx? [}:)]
the vaiation idea sounds likley, I can tell it was not kit bashed. So what to do? How did the 494 operate without a dimple bulb. The tower came with the lense cover w/fins and balance pin like it should, I just cant fiqure how to use it without the bulb? Is this a rare type or a screw up?
wolverine,
Its without a doubt a lionel 394, it is exactly like my other 394 but without the cover over the bulb base (looks like a fake gear system) and a few different mounting holes in the top where the bulb base mounts to the top)
wolverine,
just looked at a 494 and i see how they do it, it is manual and you adjust it like a spot light right? its weird cause the lense cover its supported by the two side supports and the lense has little bumps to align with the brackets. It has no air fins but my lense has fins and no bumps. Should I just forgo the bulb search and try to get the 494 support bracket?
I have no personal experience with either the 394 or 494, but I think the 494 represents a “give up” by Lionel. The air-powered 394 with the indented bulb was unreliable at best, so I am told. Eventually Lionel brought out a variation with a “vibrotor motor” with eliminated the need for an indented bulb and used the bayonet-base 53-300 lamp instead.
A pictorial diagram for the 394 is available at the Library at Olsen’s Toy Trains; whereas a similar diagram for the 494 is available at www.lionel.com. If you can’t find it under 494 or 2494, try 6-12831 or 6-12720. Lionel’s website boggles my mind!
I believe the 494 is still in production, or at least was until quite recently. I’m not at all certain that your lens will fit the newer model. Take a look at the pictorials and compare appearances and part numbers.
I don’t know anything about a “manual” one.
There is no “manual” 494… they have a vibrotor mechanism… with only one moving part. The base is a coil, the lens housing is vibrated & spins due to a 3520-16 6-fingered washer stuck to it with a 3520-42 adhesive washer. The bayonet base bulb is a GE 53. Same mechanism as the 3520 searchlight car.
Rob
LionelLover,
It seems to me that this thread got off to a confusing start, due to your understandable but apparently erroneous belief that you had a new-old-stock model 394. It’s most likely a 494 or some variation thereof. I think we now agree on that point. Lionel calls it a Rotary Beacon.
The various towers with the rotary beacon lens all looked a lot alike, and Marx made a very similar one. The early ones used a dimpled lamp and were numbered 394. Later the rotating mechanism was changed to employ a compact “vibrotor” motor and the screw-base lamp was swapped out for a bayonet type with no dimple, and the device was renumbered 494. Somewhere in this process the same or similar devices were numbered 2494. 6-12720, 6-12831, 6-12966, 6-12965 and possibly others.
The owner’s manual with some illustrations is 71-2720-250 and is available for viewing and/or printing out at the Lionel website under “Customer Service,” "Owner’s Manuals. It shows a tower with an entirely new lens assembly (relative to the 394) which employs a “horseshoe bracket” and has a lens housing with two little projectings out the sides that fit into the bracket. It looks like the beacon can be tilted up or down a little. The rotational power is provided by a compact vibrotor motor. The old 394 series lens certainly will not fit.
As for the individual component parts, it is my understanding that the first time Lionel used a part it gave it a number, which often begain with the number of the device in which it was used followed by a hyphen and suffix. If the same part was used later in a new and different device, Lionel retained the original part number as long as the part was unchanged. As far a the designation of the device itself, there is some consistency over time, but overall Lionel has used different numbering schemes, with various numbers for the catalogs and different ones for its internal inventory system. This is
thanks alot, well it is a 394 body with a 494 engine! Does the vibrator vibrate quietly and gentle or rough, I tested it and you can feel a slight vibration, wondering if thats fine before I go out and buy the parts to make it complete.
Does this “slight vibration” make the shaft rotate?
I pulled the shaft out to test it and when I touch the bulb and coil area I can feel a slight vibration. You mean the rod that sends power from the base to the light and a wire off that to to motor? How much should it vibrate
the only part on the tower is the unit with the coil, a plastic washer and the lamp holder, thats all it has. trying to find a place that sells the rest
“Does the shaft rotate?” The beacon top rotates around the light. Unless modern versions are very much different from the 494 (and I don’t believe they are), there’s no shaft that rotates.
On the issue of “how much vibration?” I’d say “very little” until you put the top on it. Then the vibration (and noise) is very apparent; loudness depends on the surface it’s sitting on – I usually put a piece of thin foam under it to quiet the buzz/hum significantly. Also, some examples seem to buzz more than others – it may have something to to with the age, etc., of the rubber drive ring.
Just BTW, there are several somewhat different tops. The postwar 494 had a metal one, and then when MPC/Fundimensions re-issued it as the 2494, they redesigned the top in black plastic. I think all the modern tops are black plastic, and they have a separate metal “collar” (either silver or black) that sits beneath the top to conceal the vibrator mechanism. The postwar metal top doesn’t have a separate collar – the bottom part of the beacon top is sort of a cup-type thing that fits (upside down) over the vibrator mechanism (hope that makes some sense).
I don’t have a digital camera, or I’d try to post some pictures. maybe someone else could – I think that would be a real help with this thread.
This is a newer one, I think made in the 90s.
Thanks, John
well that answers it, I dont have a top for it so I really cant “test it”, but you aswered it for me, so i will go out and find the parts i need. I was just confused cause its a 394 base with a 494 mechanism and it looked like it was never touched. So basicly without the top it should have very little vibration, maybe just enough to feel if you touch it. Thanks…All I have is the coil and light bracket part, might you know what else I need. I know i need the bracket, the refletor top, the drive gear washer and a coil cover…anything else. It also has a clear washer over the coil that rides up half way up the light shaft.