I was looking at various Lionel products on Amazon and found these two sets of reviews quite interesting.
From those who own and have used the two products, is the quality of the Polar Express train set that much better than the Penn Flyer? I was planning on giving several Penn Flyer sets for gifts but now I am having second thoughts. Should I buy Polar Express sets instead?
To cut to the chase, does Lionel put out junk?
TMT
Lionel makes all kinds of trains in levels of quality. The quality is most often reflected in price. While Lionel often takes a hit in side-by-side comparisons with MTH, the comparisons are usually between a Lionel set with a MSRP of $200 vs a MTH set with a MSRP of $345.
Apples & banannas
The Pennsylvania Flyer is the lowest priced regular production set Lionel makes. It comes with a die-cast 4-4-2 Atlantic steamer with F/N/R, smoke, headlight, air whistle tender, boxcar, flatcar, non-illuminated caboose. It also comes with a 40 X 60 inch loop of FasTrack, an 80 watt transformer with accessory posts, a bridge and ten telephone poles.
The loco is just about bullet-proof. The new CW-80 transformers are great too.
To get all this in at a lower price point, Lionel made the trucks on the cars plastic, and no light in the caboose. This has been regular practice since the 1950s on lower priced items and was the standard between the 1960s and 1990s. Some folks demand die-cast everything, others don’t mind as long as they run well.
As far as I’m concerned, if your price-sensitive it’s a great value.
The Polar Express contains the same track and transformer, but the 2-8-4 Berk it comes with is much larger, contains a die-cast frame as well as shell, the motor is mounted within using a worm gear to tramit to the axel, and the cars are all equipped with interior illumination. There’s your price difference.
Jon [8D]
The irony here is that one of the reviewers mentioned only buying a Lionel set from one of the former owners. Ironic since the Pennsylvania Flyer as Lionels entry level “Starter”, or “Ready To Run” set would have been the top of the line starter set by the Lionel of only 15 or so years ago.
The Penn. Flyer offers a good value, and has some Lionel traditions like an air whistle. Freight sets tend to be more popular with the kids as well. 2 “add-on” pacs are offered and the freight add on contains some operating cars, and accessories.
The Polar Express has a better engine, and is a more premium set in general.
But getting back to your question, Lionel’s quality today, is about as good as it has ever been.
Ken
PS After reading the reviews on Amazon, I have to question if 2 of the Penn Flyer reviews were “salted” by employees, or fans of some other brands.
Lionel’s quality is pretty high in my opinion. And the sets are priced lower than the competition. I have several starter and ready to run sets and can’t say anything bad about any of them. Both the Flyer and the Polar Express are very nice sets and can be added to. We have all seven passenger cars on our Polar Express set. It makes for quite an impressive train.
Jim
I agree, the negative reviews are thinly disguised disinformation from someone with an agenda. The Pennsylvania Flyer is a good value and one of the most, if not most economical sets available on the market right now. Lionel’s quality these days is superior to what it was 20 years ago, for sure, and as good as any I’ve seen in model railroading. That doesn’t mean they don’t ever have problems or turkeys. In any case, not everyone has the money for or needs command control, sophisticated sounds, etc. and the Pennsylvania Flyer provides an entry point in the hobby for many folks who wouldn’t or cannot consider more expensive sets.
I can’t speak of the PA Flyer, since I don’t own one (ever notice that some people have “expert” opinions on things they have no personal experiance with, like CW80’s and FasTrack?). I do have the Polar Express and the Harry Potter sets, and feel that the quality/price combination is excellent. Joe
I have and currently own the Pnnsy Flyer, NY Central Flyer and the Polar Express.
I had trouble with 1 CW80 Transformer, had it swapped out for another one and work great.
I sold the one from the Pennsy set, the new owner has had no trouble with it as well, and the Polar Express one is fine as well.
The Pennsy is a great traditional value set. In my opinion, it is a GREAT starter set & I run it a lot. I also recommend it to my customers that have smaller kids. It takes tha abuse and keeps on running. My FIRST MODERN set was the NYC with Train Sounds. Another great value, just makes more noise than the Pennsy. The Polar is a very nice heavy engine that reminds me of the PostWar engines I have purchased lately. The cars are very nicely detailed and the engine is a thing of beauty. I am not happy with the tender, sounds hollow, but I can fix that. It’s not a big deal.
I have yet to see any real problems with the above sets. The details are nice and the engines and tenders run very well. When my Polar is completely broken in, I’m sure it’ll run as good if not better than my 2 lower priced sets. Safe to say that I am very happy and pleased with my Modern day Lionels!!!
I wonder where these people stored their train sets…
My guess is:
I have had items in storage for years and taken them out and they still work flawlessly… betcha it is storage and or handling… as for the comment on FasTrack being difficult to assemble… ummm… yeah… right…
I switched to Atlas 21st Century O and where I really like it, it is much more delicate than I originally thought… see my review thread for more information.
I would agree with the replies above, the Pennsylvania Flyer is a very nice set. In direct comparision the the Polar Express, the PE locomotive is much larger and heavier, very much like the post war berkshires. My only gripe with the PE, and maybe mine just isn’t broken in yet, when you drop the voltage quickly or cycle the direction button is stops on a dime, sometimes enough to jostle the cars off track. I’ve had it apart and it does have a flywheel on the can motor. As I said mine either isn’t broken in yet, or the flywheel isn’t heavy enough. My pennsy has much more time on it, but it coasts much nicer on Voltage chop, as my 2yr old has a tendency to do. You can’t go wrong with either set. My PA Flyer was my way back into the hobby after years of running as a kid, and I have since purchased pre-post war and marx units, but the PA flyer still gets run. I’m would hope anyone you gave a set to would be greatly appreciative.
Our’s is 3 years old and it does the same thing. It never coasts to a stop, and I know for sure that it has the flywheel. It does start smoothly though and runs well at low voltage.
Jim
Yes, that would be correct. Most company’s that have been around for 100+ years mainly produce junk.
Lionel has put out some junk in the past 14 years even with the new owners, Jerry Calabrese, case in point is the #6-23010 O gauge tubular switch-as it is design flawed from the word go and keeps finding new ways to malfunction before it finally quits working. Also from that time is an uncataloged Illinios Central GP-7 that has only one motor and won’t pull more than three post war quad hoppers at a good rate of speed.
Not sure how any of the new stuff works and the quality of Lionel today as Lionel has scared me away from buying the new Lionel stuff because of the quality issues from a few years back.
Lee F.
The first set that I bought new, was the Pennsy Flyer back in 2003.
The store I bought the train from allowed me to trade the fasttrack for traditional O-27 track.
The transformer was DOA. It did not work. I traded it for a pair of smaller PW transformers to a freind who was able to fix the CW-80.
The cars still look very nice and run well, couplers still intact.
The loco and tender did not fair out so well. The tender’s rollers bounced around, making intermittent contact with the track, to the point where it could not traverse crossovers. The spring return on the rollers failed.
As this was my second O-27 loco at the time, I did not have any reference points to judge the loco.
The loco itself had several poor quality solder jobs, one of the leads to the motor came off, and leads from the reverse unit came off.
The loco still runs, but it has needed an extensive amount of work.
Since then, I bought a few more sets with the CW-80, and my wife bought a few more CW-80s at a train show, based on the solid performance of the CW-80 in the Polar Express set.
The Polar Express CW-80 works, another was DOA, and 2 more have fans that make a lot of noise.
Then comes the XMas sound boxcar, whose trucks do not care for staying on the car. (It was only run around the tree a few times, until I became too fed up with running it. I use Fasttrack for the Xmas tree, and for break-in use.
Then comes the Lionel Chessie GP-38. I bought it just over a year ago. For the first month, the loco ran fairly well. It liked to derail itself on curves, even on O-42. I compared it against my Southern GP-38, and I found that the front truck was on too tight. The washer used under the snap ring holding the truck on was too thick. I replaced it with a thinner washer, and it ran fine for a short while. Then the reverse unit failed.
Lightly shaking the loco up and down sometimes would get the unit to work. Emphasis on sometimes.
I checked the
All companies make some junk…I am trying to make sure that I don’t buy any of it.
TMT
Thanks for the comments.
You might want to look at this comment…is it believeable?
Also are there any other sites that have buyer’s reviews on Lionel starter kits?
Thanks
TMT
The Internet really amplifies the absolute deepest stupidity of the human race. I would not believe the comment for a second. The train doesn’t fit the track when the indiviual doesn’t install it correctly on the track.
I’ve had great service from “ALL” my Lionel trains.
MY opinion…he has no idea what he’s doing. I saw this set in Target and was not impressed.
The steam set seemed to be of better quality. I thought the diesel didn’t sit well on the chassis and looked just plain ugly.
I’m in the car business…and let me tell you, God don’t make cars(bad english, I know), 'cause ifn he DID, I’d be out of a job. It’s the same with EVERYTHING!!! Most times you get good stuff, sometimes a worker has a bad day. Nothings purfect 'cept GOD!
I agree, the internet amplifies man stupidity…[banghead]
Junk? Not really. Being the product of human beings, some of their trains will have problems, just as some of ANY product line will have problems.
I’ve got Lionel products that were made last year and some that were made when my Dad was a little boy (early '30s) and some from just about every decade in between. Some pieces have been flawed from the beginning, and some have been very good. I have gotten great service from just about everything I’ve ever owned with Lionel’s name on it. Probably the most hassles i’ve had came from late postwar era and Scouts. I’ve had great experiences with MPC and LTI (with the partial exception of a piece made by MTH under the Lionel name which came with a serious but easily fixed flaw).
The Target diesel ‘Super set’ (ironic name[sigh]) reminds me alot of the MPC-era junk I started out with- a stripped-down set with a cheap, underpowered engine, transformer, and unlighted passenger cars. At least the MPC-era passenger cars were lit. I could easily see how a newbie could buy this set, based on price, and discover the lack of quality present in other Lionel starter sets, past or present. The only good thing about it is you get a loop of Fastrack. I can foresee a pile of these sets coming back to Target after the holidays.
The Polar Express isn’t cheap by comparison, but judging by the newbie reviews they were definitely alot more happy in terms of expections and performance. And with all of media exposure, extra add-ons, and word-of-mouth referals this set has had, it will continue to be a good seller for Lionel for years to come.
I’d say most of Lionel’s starter sets are much better in quality than their offerings from 10-20 years ago (with the exception of the Target diesel super set).
It’s unfortunate the typical first time Lionel train set buyer doesn’t do a bit more research before picking up that set, so that they can get what they want and not feel ripped off or mislead. The defective transformers and engines don’t help Lionel’s reputation for first-time buyers who get a set with defective components, but this problem is unfortunately an all too common occurence with today’s cheaply produced consumer elcetonics.
I believe that alot of these newbies are also having difficulty just putting the track together, putting all of the wheels on the track, hooking up the transformer, etc. (based on my observation of three families whose train sets I helped set up), so naturally their trains aren’t running very well. But it is encouraging to see more folks using resources such as this forum to learn more about our hobby, gettting help from