After reveiwing the internet, I have seeen several sites prasing Lionel MPC peices, or those made before 1999. And there are some that need to be roperly looked over and fixed before bringing them back.
One such example is the Lionel Torpeado (1999 I belive) I just now saw a lionel reweiw site after punching in Pennsylvania Torpedo Locomotive, and it had poor reveiws. The sound was not syncronized with the smoke and the wheels, it was rough rider and not a smooth rider. It was very jerky (most f them). Afetr seeing the 1999 Torpedo at my grandpas friends house ( we get to geather with the trainsofetn) and running it, it ran good eneogh, and the body and paint was exellent, so this is one lionel needs to bring back,
Providing thatthey properly syncronize the wheels, smoke, and sound, offer a traditional and Command version, Offer one painted in the 1999 shell and one blue, like the one fetured in the “Great Railway Adventures Book, TheTorpedo Run” There saying was, like a real live version of a lionel train,
put in the Oddesy Speed Control Motor, and have the sound fixed properly so it won’t quit like my friends.
AND PRICE IT THE SAME AS THE CAMEL BACK LOCOMOTIVES RECENTLY PRODUCED.
Nick
Feel free to say what you think Lionel Needs to bring back.
That torpedo was made during Lionel’s last USA days when they were trying to compete with the imports. The writing was probably written on the wall for many employess and I doubt the morale was very high. They were probably more concernerd about their future than the trains they were making. Only content employees produce a quality product.
They need to bring back the horizontal motors!! They are awesome pullers, easy to maintain, AC and very good at slow speeds. Can motors pull great too, but speed is far too high for normal layouts.
My F3 has nice speeds, even on 20 volts still quite normal. A lot of can-motor driven loco’s speed up quite fast and are rather uncontrollable at voltages where the F3’s barely move…(that’s a drawback of my rheostat control, a normal AC motor consumes power when starting up, and keeps consuming power when on the run. A can motor uses a lot of power to get it on the run, and after gaining speed it uses much less power, resulting in less resistance of the rheostat, thus in gaining speed etc.)
I like the AC power more, because it makes more sense to me when driving on AC, it doesn’t need momentum flywheels to halt nicely, has power and is sturdy and repairable. A can motor isn’t.
So, to make the loooong story a short one, a Lionel F3 with dual horizontal motors, with the original sound they make!
Pullmor motors, mechanical E-units, magnetraction, and electronic horns. No TMCC, no Railsounds, not even a single circut board. Just voltage hogging, amperage pulling beasts that make their own noise thank you.
This is a fun topic and probably fruitless as well. I’m sure the folks at Lionel (as well as the others) have heard these comments before. Companies have responded to requests only to find the items when made didn’t generate the sales to make them worthwhile.
I believe it was in the 1996 or 97 catalog where it was explained that Pullmor motors wouldn’t be dropped, but there was a cost consideration and DC can motors are cost effective.
Yeah, I like the 1033 type transformer too. Lionel could have done it I suppose, but now that they’ve done that CW thing that is with all the new sets, I’d say not likely.
Same goes for Super O track. With the introduction now of FasTrack, I wouldn’t put any money on Super O being back again any time soon.
And I like the basic, no electronic frills locos as some also do above. But being Lionel is the creator of TMCC, not likely that they would just stop using it. Which means for those wanting these more basic types of locos, the name on the box will say “Williams” instead of “Lionel.”
Sometimes when I hear these comments on what should and shouldn’t be made I wonder if the folks are considering the cost, developement and production factors (though that’s not the case here so far on this thread). New tooling is costly, even in China when one considers how many trains will actually be sold using that tooling.
I’ve long wanted to see some modern roadnames on the lesser expensive beginner types of trains. All things considered, this is an insignificant cost. Most of the paint masks are computer generated and many of the modern roads don’t have complex paint schemes, maybe other than CSX and certainly BNSF. But CP, NS, CR aren’t complicated… yet there has hardly been anything in the past 14 years. The last affordable Conrail set from Lionel was in 1993, the last CSX set in 1992. So I’m not holding my breath on this one either. Only now in the 2005 catalog is there a basic affordable starter loco in CSX from
I was working there at the time. I couldn’t speak to the level of benefits, as I still lived at home and was covered by my parents so I never needed insurance benefits. It was a UAW job, but the hourly wage for assembly workers was on the order of $6/hour.
I forget where in the timeline that engine files with respect to the change from *** Kughn to Lionel LLC, but I remember the contract negotiation that in retrospect must have been the contract that expired when Lionel manufacturing in Chesterfield closed down… I think also in retrospect, Lionel must have been trying to keep labor costs down to keep the company attractive for the impending buyout. There were rumors, but they were easily dismissed because there were always rumors.
The fact is, $6 isn’t going to get you skilled labor in Detroit. Half of the people working there were retirees, and for many working there the attraction was the employee store. Every other week, Lionel would sell surplus goods intended for the employees and their friends/families use at half of the retail price. Essentially, I was there working for Lionel with the trains I’d get at the employee store as my payment.
Job security was maybe not as much of the concern there as it would be with other jobs… And I would have to say that the people that were there more as a job would often tend to be the ones that would be put on the train sets, while employees who could do a good job and had some product enthusiasm tended to be put on some of the higher-end product (although things like the scale hudsons and aluminum passeng