The other day I was at the local shop picking up some Lionel repair parts. I noticed a book on the counter that the repair guy was using. It was open to a page on ZW transformers and IIRC it had wiring diagrams and section drawings of Lionel equipment. Does anyone know if there are any books like that available for sale that cover postwar and or MPC type Lionel trains, & accessories??? Would like to buy one of those books for myself. Thanks in advance.
-Brian in Bflo.
Service manuals for the post 1969 stuff can be downlaoded from the Lionel web site. Customer Service area. The older bulletins have been collected into book form. A full size version was available under the K-Line “brand” and a smaller paper back version is available from “Greenberg”.
I bought the K-line postwar edition from Davis Trains in Cincinatti for $12. It’s a nice hardbound book that’s around 700 pages, and has been extremely handy. If you want one, it would be best to grab one while they’re still available and before new K-line items disappear completely.
Amazon.com has the K-line but they want $45.00 for it! [:(]
They also have the Greenberg manual by Roger Carp for $15.72.
If you can find the K-line on somebody’s shelf, I am sure it will be less than $45.00.
It is listed here for $19.95
http://www.hobbysurplus.com/search_result.asp
Hope this helps.
Anyone have ISBN #'s for those books, or full names for them? I’m going to go looking.
-B in B
Modern Toy Train Repair & Maintenance (Classic Toy Trains Books) (Paperback)
by R. D. Teal
Greenberg’s Repair and Operating Manual for Lionel Trains, 1945-1969 (Greenberg’s Repair and Operating Manuals) (Paperback)
by Roger Carp (Editor)
Complete Service Manual for Lionel Trains (Hardcover)
by Maury D. Klein
Lionel Modern Era Diagrams and Parts Lists: 1977-1991 (Paperback)
by Cindy Lee Floyd (Editor)
i bought the greenberg version, rather cheap – under 20 with s/h – on ebay. Keep in mind it is no more and no less than the instruction sheets that came with the accessory/train assembled in one manual in shrunken size. There isn’t more info in the book than you may already have on the sheets.
as for post 69 www.lionel.com info, i have found it very difficult to find diagrams or info for these items. maybe it just me, but i think the site STINKS and the help on the phone – except for one guy —helpless.
ralph
The most complete reference for Postwar trains (and of course, out of print) is the four-volume Greenberg’s Lionel Service Manual. I kick myself because I didn’t get one while they were still in stock and the fact is that the set in my office is the only one the magazine possesses. This is the big one, but even so, I’ve been surprised that there were many items for which there were no disgrams, just parts listings. For modern era trains, the available info is pretty mixed or doesn’t exist in a form for public use.
You can find a lot of this stuff at Olsen’s web site, when its working:
The Greenberg version of the Post War material is the half page format of the complete compiled original service bulletins for 1945-1969. It includes all sorts of repair tips as well as exploded diagrams and part numbers. The K-Line version is in original format (8.5x11) but is not the complete service manual. The PDF files on the Lionel site cover Modern Era Service Bulletin Supplements 1-47. This means a) they are about 18-24 months behind produced items, b) they make heavy reference to previous SB’s that are often hard for a non tech to decipher, c) There are no repair tips or extra infor, these are straight orthographic projections of the exploded item with ocassional photo’s, circuit diagrams and occasional block diagrams of system components (aka you have to know what you are looking at to make sense of it). This is why Dick Teal’s book is important if you are going to try and repair a modern electronic locomotive. If you only get one or two, get the Greenberg 1945-1969 and the Dick Teal book if you are working on new stuff. K-Line is easier on the eyes and if you can get it cheap, great.
Olsen’s site does have this info and they also have the Pre-War but the site isn’t always up/easy to navigate and some of the diagrams won’t print.
I should add that some of Olsen’s links are wrong or misleading; so it pays sometimes to try a few similar links if you don’t find what you expect.