A few (or maybe a lot of
) random musings on the catalog: (disclaimer, I’ve only seen the on-line version, so if any of what I question below is actually clear in the hard copy, I am unaware as I write this)
I get that we are in the era of offering many different paint schemes on any given engine, but I can’t see how they offered 6 different Heislers (7 when you include the Christmas set), but no matching road name log cars for any of them.
While there are some Disconnect car offerings in the catalog, there doesn’t seem to be a good pairing of those offerings to any of the separate sale Heislers either (obviously the Christmas set is the exception here). All of the separate sale Disconnect cars seem to be holiday themed, so wouldn’t really seem to go too well with the 6 separate sale engines.
Many of the road names offered seem to be unique (or at least uncommon - Blue Jay, Middle Fork, Juniata, etc.) for logging engines offered from any manufactures up to this point, so it’s not like there are lots of options to get log cars from previous offerings from Lionel, or even other manufacturers (Weyerhauser being the only one I know for sure there have been lots of log cars made previously). Maybe they will include some in Volume 2, but I would hesitate to order an engine now and just “cross my fingers” that they may offer appropriate matching log cars later.
My last thought on the Heisler topic: The Christmas set looks nice, but Lionel neglected to include the “Set Includes” information. The picture seems to indicate there will be 4 Disconnect passenger cars and 3 freights. That would be fine, except one other set in the catalog (the 20th Century Limited Hudson Passenger set) was drawn with 6 cars, but the “Set Includes” text indicates it only comes with 5 cars. I guess my point here, is attention to detail is important (IMHO) for a catalog when it comes to being clear with what exactly is included with any set offering.
The Rocket Disconnect cars (USA and Acme) are interesting, but as shown, it looks like we need to have them coupled to a flat car carrying no load on either end of this car. The overhang of the Rocket load to an adjacent car looks to be quite significant. It certainly does not look like the USA Rocket car would easily be run as an add-on piece to the USA themed Disconnect set shown above it on the same page. Maybe they can offer bare Disconnect trucks as a separate sale item. Since both ends of the truck have a coupler, that could possibly help address this issue.
The Battery operated O, while I am not their target audience, I can appreciate the intent. I have seen someone post on another discussion board that he had purchased one (I guess there was a Battery O set previously offered, which I did not remember), and while the set ran OK on it’s included plastic track, the set did not do well on Tubular or FasTrack, as the non-flat rail head impacted how much traction the engine could get. If the intent of these is to start with the set and then also be able to run them on a regular O Gauge layout, the traction issue sort of defeats that purpose.
The “Bert’s Sweepover” track cleaner: Is this intended to be a Sesame Street reference? I would imagine it is, but it’s interesting that it’s not called out if so.
The Thomas Kinkade DC Comics boxcars on page 129 seems to have used the same images for both. I’m not a customer for those, so it doesn’t matter to me, but that’s an editing blooper. Presumably they can update the on-line catalog or at least include these items in the Lionel website so they can be looked up to se what is offered at some point before the pre-order deadline.
I do really like the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania 50th Anniversary Boxcar, I may have to include one of those in my order.
I was really excited when I heard that they would have Star Wars offerings when they announced it back at (I think) Comic-Con. Going in, I told myself I would consider most of it, unless they slapped SW graphics on Big Boys or Triplexes (which I was very happy to see they did not do!). I’ll make a separate post for SW items later, I’ve already rambled too long on this post.
I will likely go for at fair number of the boxcars and operating cars from the Star Wars offerings.