I just finished setting mine up on the dining room table (haven’t made it upstairs to the layout yet!). Here are my initial thoughts:
Locomotive is real nice. Excellent detail on such an inexpensive piece. Wire handrails, nicely detailed painting, lots of separate detail pieces attached (nameplates, etc.) even a rubber hose (brakeline?) attached on the front. Incredible detail for the price.
Tender- pretty, unique, and nicely detailed. plastic and very light.
Cars- on initial glance they seemed nicely detailed and very handsome. After unwrapping them I realized they are wicked light and all plastic. I had never seen plastic couplers before. That is a real disappointment for me. They are sprung with plastic clips that will not allow them to couple except on a straight away. That will be frustrating, but they are handsome.
Fastrack- This fastrack seems different than my other stuff. I own three sets that came with fastrack and this set seems lighter. It is moulded differently (with more open space underneath) wich must use less plastic. On the bright side, it is much easier to connect anddisconnect than my other sets, but it also seem slightly flimsier.
CW-80- I’ve had good luck with my CW-80’s although they all seem different. This one is no exception. It too seems a little cheaper in feel, but works fine. I need to give it A LOT of juice in order to get the train going. I don’t know quite what that mean yet (sluggish engine, or underpowered transformer) but I do know I still need to lube up and then break in the engine. Perhaps that will loosen things up.
Noise- gotta comment on the noise! I don’t know if it is the new fastrack, the super light cars, or the thin tablecloth on the table, but this set is LOUD! I find lighter cars are louder on fastrack than heavier ones and this new fastrack also may have less density causing greater vibrations. I’ll see what it is like when I bringit upstairs to my layout.
I have the same feeling. Great detail to the engine and then you get to the cars, no interiors!!!. That was the biggest dissapointment. Anybody know where i can get the insides? I was able to make them for one of my cars but would rather get from a maker than myself.
Grandaughter was over tonight for Halloween. She really liked the new Loco & tender. Put it through all the paces. Ran very smooth and a great puller [:D]…
I haven’t unpacked the whole set yet, so no input on the track or transformer, but did run the train for a while. It was real quiet on Atlas track, and ran smoothly. Other notes-
I ran it with a Z4000, and it did seem to start slowly
It blows perfect smoke rings, the kids liked that, sort of goes with the whole “magic” theme.
The passenger cars look good, but would be great with interiors
I wish the passenger cars coupled a little more closely together.
I ordered through Trainworld in late August. They never sent me notice that it was on the way, it just sowed up. Happy Halloween to ME!
Anyway, I do really love the look and feel of the set. Amazingly nice detail for the price. But those plastic couplers are going to kill me. I just don’t have faith they will couple well. I have lots of rolling stock with plastic trucks, but even those have metal couplers. And my Thomas set (Oooops, I should say my SON’s Thomas set) has gourgeous couplers and sells even cheaper than this set. But, of course, this loco is sweet. Really, beautiful for the price! I guess they had to make a trade-off somewhere.
Thanks Hopper, I ordered mine from Trainworld also. Called them today,said mine was shipped Yesterday.Looking forward to running it on my Super O track.That’s also 36" radius. Easter
What if anything did you oil/lube out-of-the-box?Nothing yet, As I said, I was just too excited, bu tI will lube the axels as iindicated in the manual.
Does the locomotive (drive system) seem to be overly tight?The drive wheels will NOT turn at all by hand, but I think my Thomas is that way too.
How many cars are you pulling?Just the three passenger cars that came with it. As I said, I haven’t made it up to the layout yet…
Are all of the pick-up rollers rolling smoothly and not binding?A-yup
Is your new CW80 powering anything in addition to the actual train?Nope
Are you seeing unusually slow acceleration from the throttle, direction button, or both?Both. and occationally the e-unit doesn’t seem to want to flip, but the slow acceleration just seems like it needs a lot o juice to get moving. When I get it up to the layout I’ll compare it with the other locos, but for now, it just seems power hungery.
Is the green light on the CW80 blinking when you accelerate the train?Nope. It’s happy [:D]
And about plastic couplers, all my stuff is either late 50’s or VERY recent (like last two years!). AS I said, I have plastic trucks, but not couplers. And these seem to be sprung with little flimsy plastic tabs that have no umph to them, unlike my docksider with a metal spring powerful enough to derail my lighter cars it pulls!
I seem to recall a Lionel review the CTT staff did on a engine that was incredibly tight. That may be the case here. I should think that good lubrication and proper break in time will solve most of the issues you have had. We like tight tolerances on precision machinery, but sometimes it can be too tight. Thanks for the review. My set should be here tomorrow.
“And about plastic couplers, all my stuff is either late 50’s or VERY recent (like last two years!). AS I said, I have plastic trucks, but not couplers. And these seem to be sprung with little flimsy plastic tabs that have no umph to them, unlike my docksider with a metal spring powerful enough to derail my lighter cars it pulls!”
Hopper, not to argue, but that one is almost impossible. The vast majority of trucks made for rolling stock today are either all plastic or all die-cast with the coupler being a part of the truck casting. So if you have a plastic truck, the coupler too will be plastic. Lionel does use different trucks for cars like passenger cars and some cabooses, and those trucks have the coupler attahced to the main assembly with a screw. But even in most cases there I am aware of, a die cast truck will have a die cast coupler and a plastic truck will have a plastic coupler.
The postwar plastic truck of the late 1950’s was a little better contructed truck with a copper plate uncoupling arm and springs still used inside the coupler for the knuckles. When Lionel came under ownership of General Mills, a new knuckle was designed… the one we still see used today… with a small piece of plastic molded off the knuckle which serves as a “spring,”
I won’t argue that the plastic trucks certainly don’t have the heft of a die cast truck, nor will the plastic knuckle “spring” hold out as well as the couplers that have metal springs. BUT I’ve been running cars with plastic trucks for ages and have no problems. YES, I do remove the factory rivet and remount every single truck on all of my train cars. But this just reduces derailment potential. The plastic knuckles are easily replaced, and I will add replacing a K-Line plastic truck knuckle with a Lionel one is an improvement for the K-Line plastic truck.
If the plastic thumbtack armature is “letting go” while pulling a train, there are two
Good review and good information, thanks for sharing! Ours showed up tonight while we were at parent-teacher meetings, but got it up and ran for about 3/4 hour and I agree with everything you said Hopper! Great set and the kids love it too!
It was VERY loud, but it’s on a bare wood table I just built in a big echo-y room, which might have made it worse.
brianel027- you’re 100% correct. I trudged all the way up to the attic at 10:45pm and grabbed my 6819 flatcar and was blown away to see that the coupler is indead plastic! It does, however, feel much more sturdy and “hefty” than the modern one on the new Hog. Exp. passenger cars. Given the advancement in technology, I’ll just have to accept that though they feel cheezier they will hold up just fine.[swg]
By the way, if they do continue to bother me, do you think it would be possible to swich just the coupler out? (They are attached via one screw onto the truck.) I assume the trucks are unique to the cars, but perhaps the coupler is standard to the “traditional” line of passenger cars? Then again, perhaps they are all plastic. These are the first passenger cars I have owned!
First off Lionelsoni is also right, I just didn’t want to be more confusing. Lionel made a sort of Scout verision truck that had a sheet metal main frame with plastic side frames snapped into the sheet metal superstructure. These came with both normal Lionel knuckle couplers and also the non-conforming “Scout” coupler.
Hopper, I’ve never done it but I am certain if parts are available that you could swap out the couplers. You could go to the Lionel website, go to the Grand Central link and then at the far right click on parts and service diagrams. Then search for passenger cars and see what you can learn as far as part numbers. Off the top of my head though, I’m not sure how many passenger cars had die cast couplers.
Another thought, if you can find them, is to swap them out with K-Line streamliner passenger trucks. Those are very nice trucks and are all die cast including the coupler. But there’s no thumbtack lever so you have to operate them over a UC track.
Believe me, I don’t think you’ll have too much trouble with the couplers you have to warrant immediate replacement. You’re right, you postwar Lionel plastic trucks are made with a more rigid and heavier plastic. The new ones are made with a plastic called Delrin, which is a lightweight, slippery kind of plastic which is good for the wheel points.
The worst plastic trucks are the Korean knock offs of the Lionel Symington style truck, used by Lionel MPC after 1971. And the K-Line plastic trucks are next on the list, though in fairness to K-Line, the quality of them is very inconsistent. Some operate well and some don’t. Again, you can replace the knuckle on the K-Line trucks with a Lionel one for improved operation, but you’ll need a Lionel kunckle rivet too as the diameter of the Lionel vs. K-Line are different.
As far as freight cars, and budget considerations, the best truck anyone has made in my opinion is the later die cast one made by K-Line and used on the Train-19
Excellent points, Brian. All those things can be done to make nice, inexpensive trains look better. I’d sure like to see some of those passenger car re-paints of yours.
