Was browsing some furniture and decided to type LIONEL in the search area. This really cool Alco A passenger set popped up with 3 matching silver/blue passenger cars. Not bad at all for $199.99.
Has anyone seen this and the other sets they got coming? Looks like they are only available at TARGET because that passenger is too cool and I have never seen anywhere else.
Cut and past this link!
(If you put anything at all after a link, like just a carriage return, it becomes clickable.)
Wait a week or two into November and then visit your local Menard’s, if you have one. (If you don’t, think of Lowe’s or Home Depot with a little less DIY and a little more Bucket Boss and Carhartt.)
If your store is like mine, and judging from the prior four years, they’ll put out a Lionel .027, a beginner’s set, but a nice one with steam engine, whistle and figure-eight track and it will cost around $150 or less. Every year I’ve seen the set, it had a Wisconsin Central engine and caboose in correct (pre-Canadian takeover) livery.
Because Menard’s is the third-largest American home-hardware chain, below the two I mentioned above but still pretty huge, it may be possible they commissioned the Wis. Central outfit. I can’t even guess because, despite its large size and unlike HD and Lowe’s, Menard’s is not publicly held; therefore, a lot less SEC and Annual Report-type information is available to the non-expert. But I have been told they’re strongest in the upper Midwest. The Chicago area plus Merrillville, IN, has a number of them. Merrillville
The Alco set is a beauty. I noticed that Target sets are quite a bit less expensive than they were last year. Looks like another winner for Lionel.
Jim
Wow,
I just found otu a week ago that Target had Lionel sets. I was impressed. 2 steam sets, diesel alco set, polar express in O and G, Thomas Set, and Fastrack and G track packs. Not your major shop, but still impressive.
A Google Photo search of Lionel at Traget showed a young lad in his home playing with a steam set, which according to the website (a family blog) he got if for his birthday, as he had been wanting a Lionel for years.
It seems as though Lionel is succeding in getting trains into homes nowadays. I myself want the 4-4-2 set, but I’m buying it from Gryziboski’s, they have it for $150. Still, I might support Target and get the Alco from them.
Cheese
I thought the “Polar Express” was a 2-8-4, but looking at the Lionel web site the photo of the “G” size engine appears to me to be a 2-8-2… but the photo is pretty small, so maybe I just can’t see it well enough. What is the engine for sale at the stores now?
The G set is also a battery operated set not electric
The Target set looked pretty crude. Possibly a bad picture. Maybe possibly this is a K-line set? Also note that Hobby Lobby also has a few Lionel train sets as well as track and a few other pieces. I keep an eye out for sales.
Nope,
The G-scale Polar Express is Lionel. But its a 2-8-2, not a 2-8-4. Oh well, I guess we can’t have everything. But we can try to. LOL.
Cheese
I guess a Polar Express mikado would make for a Merii Kurisumasu.
Gilbert & Sullivan would have put people to death for lesser puns than that, dude. - a.s.