There is a Conrail GP20 in the new Lionel catalog just for you! MSRP of $140!!!
Higher end Conrail offerings as well!
Jerry does listen!
Jim
And a Conrail caboose for $40!!!
Is today your birthday, Brian?
Jim
Yes Jim. And we shall see if the Lionel copy writers will once again be wrong and this loco will actually come with the dual motors the copy says it does not have. The WP and CSX U36B’s were all listed as single motor units, but in reality came with dual motors. The previous Conrail U36B was listed as a single motor unit and that’s what it really was. That loco is the reason I made the statement I would NEVER buy another new Lionel locomotive. The ON RS-3 was also cataloged with a single motor, yet came with dual motors.
So I will resevere judgement until I actually see the product and see how they made it. I do prefer the blue handrails of the prior CR U36B over the white ones on this new GP-20, but the break line for me will be does it come with dual motors or not? The other engines I mentioned and didn’t want all came with dual motors… so will Lionel screw up again?
AND NOW FOR AN 027 TAKE ON THE NEW CATALOGS:
*Again, no modern roads on the Lionel starter cars, but there is a CP Rail gondola and there is a CP Expansion Pack that will probably end up as break-ups, so there is some reason to be happy. But I don’t know why they repeat things so much. Atlas IR is offering a D&H red tank car, and now Lionel dupicates it. Both Lionel and Atlas IR have had New Haven box cars recently, yet Lionel offers the Waffle Box Car in New Haven… How about this one in NORFOLK SOUTHERN or CONRAIL or CPR or BNSF???
*Yes, there is the CR GP-20. Dual motors = sale. Single motor = no sale unless a major blowout. I was pleased to see the continued expansion of the Dockside switcher… Lionel has a hit with this one, as if Allan Miller and I couldn’t have predicted that one years ago.
C’mon Lionel… lets see some more offerings in this vein. Budget priced items with compromises in scale and detail. Hate to tell the industry leader that they could take some real advice and learn some valuable lessons from the little g
Brian, I wish you could feel the excitement I feel right now over the 2 new catalogs. My only complaint is not having enough money to buy all the things I’d like to. Lionel has done an outstanding job of offering something for everyone in my opinion. It’s like that old mafia joke - “just when I think I’m out, they pull me back in”! Here is just a short list of the things I liked. I will buy many of these items, much to my wife’s dismay:
Lionel:
Mavis
General set with Lincoln Logs
El Capitan streamliner diner
Lionel Lines docksider
Lionel Lines Mikado
Conventional Santa Fe F3 A&B units
PFE reefer
Moe & Joe log car
Barrel unloading car
Lionel Lines Trainsounds tender
262 tinplate passenger set
K-Line:
Hudson (conventional)
PRR Box cab electric
Rutland box car
ATSF boxcar
Boy flying airplane/kite accessory
Santa Fe Midnight Chief AA Alco set
New Haven AA Alco set
Milk car
So much great stuff to choose from. I’m very pleased with the offerings. Kudos to Lionel!
Jim
Jim I thoroughly agree with your reaction, thats mine too. What a wonderful catalog, it made me feel five years old again as far as being excited and wowed by it goes. I wish Dad was still around though (god bless you) now I can only drop hints to myself!
Brian - I have to say I was a little bit surprised at your reaction. You’re usually the one that says (paraphrased) things like:- ‘get real’ and ‘its the toy train market that matters’ when others nitpick about what’s on offer. Besides the catalog says that the loco you mentioned DOES come with twin motors, even though in its own seperate description thats not mentioned.
But still whats wrong with one motor anyway and why would you be on the outs with Lionel about it? Heck I contradict myself all the time, I just wondered if we’re seeing a change of direction from you?
Don’t get me wrong Jim… I am happy with the job Jerry Calabrese is doing, ane he’s not even a train guy as was Richard Kughn or a previous Lionel executive like John Brady or had the extensive industry experience like Dick Maddox. Calabrese seems to understand things that none of these others understood and HE’S NOT a train guy!!!
But for example with the re-issued K-Line Train-19 cars under the K-Lionel banner… why would I or anyone else want to buy cars that they already have??? Yeah, Lionel saved a few cents on paint masks and will end up losing more than that on lost sales. Had those cars been offered this time around in Norfolk Southern, Conrail, BNSF, CPR, CNA etc. I’d have every one of them on my list. As it is, no one is on my list. That IS just dumb thinking in my book: penny-wise and pound foolish. Again, hard to get excited about cars I have already. And I’m not buying new cars at near list or a reasonable discount off list only to have to repaint them… there’s plenty of bargains out there on used stuff.
I am excited about the re-issue of my favorite loco of all time, the K-Line S-2. And am glad to see the Alco FA’s and MP-15 in the catalog. And yes, I would absolutely without question HAVE TO repaint the new S-2’s but at least they are being made. NO way am I running those moth-eaten road old hat over-issued names on my layout, even though that WP is attractive. My previous K-Line WP S-2 looks 1000% better in solid black Norfolk Southern and probably attracts more attention when on display someplace, than that WP ever would.
Yes, I agree with you Jim, there are some great choices. But almost every thing that grabs my attention would head immediately to the repaint shop, including the neat box cab loco. NO way do I ever want another PRR loco… yuck!!! Now Penn Central… yes, now we’re talking!
Brian,
We agree much more than we disagree when it comes to toy train philosophy. I think it’s unfortunate that you didn’t find anything you like in either catalog. Is your blood type O-? [;)] I seem to have found too much! I will pour over those catalogs for hours when I get them from my LHS. I might even need a part time job (or sell bodily fluids) to pay for everything I want!
As for the single motored/double motored Conrail loco question - like Thor, I don’t see what the issue is. You operate trains on a small layout, correct? So a single motored locomotive will surely be able to pull a small layout-sized train effortlessly. Heck, our anemic James the red engine can pull 6-7 cars easily.
The Conrail caboose is lighted and looks reasonably priced. No paintshop work required there!
Does any one here know what the going price for bodily fluids is? I think I’m O+ . . .
Jim
Have all of you forgotten about Maine Central and Boston & Maine Waffle-Sided Boxcars?
Many have been repainted in the Guilford Industries scheme during the past 15 years.
Those are Northeastern Railroads that would add variety to O Gauge Layouts.
Andrew Falconer
And now getting repainted into this Pan Am scheme. Wish I could see one of them.
Say what, Doug?
Jim
Hello All! The Prewar 262E set /w the 600 series Gray/Maroon Passenger Cars looks good to me![;)][:)] & I will pre-order it as well. Glad to see another prewar set to grace the catalog pages again & I see that Lionel is offering the “Sam the semaphore man” operating accessory & that looks like another possible buy. The Flyer guys have no reason to complain with what Lionel is making this year & the same applies to the K-line Collectors as their prices seem to be more in line with reason & as has been noted above there is something for everybody in any price range to boot! Brianel- I very much respect your opinions & advice. However, I agree with Jim A- What is your blood type?[;)][:P][:o)] Lionel has some very affordable offerings this year & with the Conrail Name on them also. Maybe you’ll change your mind after you see them & buy them. The trains modeled on railroads pre-Conrail look nice too.[;)][:D][:o)] I see there are no Superstreet Corvairs in the Catalog. I’ll bet Bruce will fabricate one or two for himself.[;)][8D] He’s good with that type of thing.[;)][:)] Take Care all.
Well, Brian, I have to say that it is refreshing to see Lionel focusing more on their next generation of clients with more low priced offerings. I understand your complaints about road names, but for me it’s no big deal as I’m not a stickler for what I run on my rails, and neither is my little guy Tyler. He’s only 3 (well, almost 4 - birthday is 03/03), but he gets an incredible joy out of stopping the trains and switching cars around. Doesn’t matter to him what they are - he could sit there all night with me and do that.
As for the catalog, some really good stuff in there. #1 on my list is the #6660 Lionel Lines Boom Car - I have the original one that came in my brothers old set, #1593 available in 1958. This was the only year they produced this, and unfortunately it did not survive my oldest brother and I unscathed - the upper boom arm was broken a long time ago. So I can finally replace this, or maybe just replace the boom arm on the original.
Others that I’m interested in are:
-
#6561 Lionel Lines Cable Reel Car
-
Trick or Treat Aquarium Car (For my wife’s Halloween layout - the sacrifices I make)
-
Halloween SpookySmoke Boxca (ditto)
-
Formaldehyde Tankcar (ditto)
-
Northern Pacific Ore Car
-
Lionel Lines Flatcar with Bulkhead
-
CSX Flatcar with Pipes
-
New York Central Flyer Operating Freight Expansion Pack (for my nephews)
I’m sure there will be more, but I haven’t gone through the catalogue in detail yet.
By the way, it’s nice to see Lionel expanding on the Thomas brand - there’s definitely a market there. I’m really surprised that they didn’t do a Hogwarts train a few years back (I know they’re supposed to be producing one soon). They really could have capitalized on the Harry Potter mania back then.
Hey gang, PLEEZE don’t misread me. I DO think these are good catalogs that have much to offer. I have my tastes and my preferences, so my likes are based on that.
Jim, the single motored larger Lionel diesels with single truck mounted motors are lousy pullers. That’s it. I have several Industrial Switchers, heavily modified and revamped and they are now incredile pullers that do as well as much bigger locos. I do a couple single truck mounted motored diesels that I have modified myself. But I tested the motors first (the Mabuchi DC can motors all perform a little differently), have modified the truck mount and have carefully weighted the locos. They don’t pull as well as others, but mine do much better than the Lionel ones out of the box.
If I were to find one of those single motored Lionel longer diesels as a blowout where I could justify my out of pocket costs and time to add the second motorized truck, I would do that. The Conrail U36B was never a blowout. For me $140 for the Conrail GP-20 or $75 for the K-Lionel Alco S-2, the answer is easy. And if Walter ever does a normal cataloged run of the BEEP in Conrail, the decision just got easier.
But it seems to me there’s plenty of variety in the new catalogs and I’ll have no problem showing them to newcomers to the hobby and making recommendations.
Having had just about zero exposure to K-Line, I flipped through the catalog and saw lots of fun stuff.
I could see this on my layout:
Seems to me Lionel is doing a reasonable job of trying to meet everyone’s needs at least a little, prewar, postwar, modern, scale, toy, accessories, track, command, non-command, starter sets for the modest budget, starter sets for the extravagant budgets. A price range on sets of more than an order of magnitude (10 fold for you non-science geeks). From $100/150 to over $2000. There’s no postwar set, but there plenty of postwar rolling stock. Prewar is new and they’re taking baby steps. They do need a Prewar Celebration Series logo instead of the Postwar one for the prewar set (ooops). All in all, a pretty decent catalog (or catalogs if you include K-Line by Lionel) focusing on the modest budget/beginner end of things, which is clearly where they assess the market growth to be now. Compare this 200+ page catalog with one from only 10 years ago and you’ll see an astonishing increase in the range of products. Not bad for a company fighting off constant lawsuits from their biggest competitor and dealing with high interest rates and legal fees from their bankruptcy ;).
Have to agree on the General set with Lincoln Logs I think that ones a must. Some very nice items in both catalogues.
Though I still like the look of the MTH big boy freight set or a Williams Scale hudson… oh dear so many choices[:)]
Nick
Kieth,
We’ll have to wait for SS to miniaturize their running gear for Corvair cars. Then the possiblities are endless. Maybe even enough room for TMCC ( Transmission Master Clutch Control ) and RS ( Rod Sounds ). [;)]
Bruce Webster
Frank, I have several of these in different liveries. They are very cool[8D]. The only problem I have had was that the handrails are free floating and can easily be lost. A dab of silicone would be good to keep them from falling out. One other problem that I read about, it is difficult to replace bulbs. I don’t know this from personal experience though. I really like these. I have the Wisconsin Central set, NYC set NJC set and a few others.
I am very excited about a few of the offerings. I am especially happy to see the Watchman shanty, though renamed, it is there.
Dennis
I will definitely be getting at least three of the boxcabs–maybe even more if I want to repaint a couple–and possibly the General set to grow my fairly large collection of Lionel 4-4-0s.
I’ll pepnd some time in the near future going through both catalogs in more detail to see what else I may want, but I’m still waiting for some items from the last catalog and don’t want to go overboard on this stuff which will likely be many months away.
The Lionel catalog is great!! I think it’s the best one yet. Can’t wait to get it from my LHS. I know I’ll be ordering the Southern Berkshire…and a lot more.
Stan.