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Video: O gauge LionChief Plus GP7 from Lionel
It seems to have a nice slow speed. I’m wondering if it can be used on a TMCC layout. I would like to run this engine, using it’s remote that it comes with on the same track as my TMCC and legacy engines. Any thoughts?
I too would like to know if these Lion Chief (plus or not) work with TMCC. Guess I will have to do some researching but thinking if it did Bob would have said so. Still also wondering when Lionel is ever going to make O scale 2 rail engines, but that’s another story. Nice looking model in my favorite paint scheme.
You cannot use a TMCC controller to operate a LionChief Plus locomotive. However, since 18 volts of power are going to a TMCC layout, you should operate the engine with its own unique LC+ controller while TMCC-controlled locomotives operated elsewhere. The two command systems are independent of each other. Early on there was some confusion where people thought the TMCC controllers could operate the LC+ engines, which is not the case.
Bob Keller: The Consumer Reports of toy trains. Have you ever given a bad review on a train. However, I thought that you a little kind to some things on Lionel Burlington engine. I thought that the horn didn’t sound good. And they didn’t have the engineer facing forward instead he was standing to the side. Otherwise, I always look forward to your reviews. Has CTT ever consider turning your reviews as a book or a DVD?
Jim, have I ever written “This stinks, don’t buy it,”? No. But I have pointed out stuff like $1000 engines that walk off O-72 curves, four of six motors in a multi-unit set not working, and radical flaws in paint, and so on. I have just found two products so bad that I wouldn’t waste the space to review them (one was a stamped aluminum roadbed for tubular track, and the other was a battery powered O gauge diesel, remote controlled, came with plastic track and had so much torque the engine would flip itself on straight track).
As for a book, back in 2001 John Grams compiled a book of 100 (mostly my) reviews from CTT called “Buyers Guide to Toy Train Locomotives.” It was dated, presuming sales would suggest future volumes. It was reasoned people might want it for finding stuff on the secondary/re-sale market. Sales were about as bad as our “Greenberg’s Roadname Guide to O gauge Trains” (all manufacturers and sorted by road name) and the experiment was not repeated.