The soon to be released Lionel AF Challenger is 1:64 scale. I haven’t, measured the prototype, but it looks like to be correctly proportioned to my naked eye. The only things not appealing to this S-Scale group are the large flanges and coupler.
The Lionel Big-Boy was nothing more than an inexpensive way for Lionel to test the S scale waters for newly tooled offerings. Recently Mike Reagan of Lionel said that Lionel saw the Big-Boy as a low cost investment into S because they already had the K-Line tooling so all they had to do was re-work the running gear. The overwhelming success of the Big Boy has led them to offer a newly tooled scale Challenger. The first two Challengers cataloged sold out quickly. I tried to pre-order one of the last road names to be cataloged and I was told that it was sold out from Lionel. That was just today. So obviously these new offerings are finding a welcome market. The Lionel AF U33C is being offered with scale wheels in the box like SHS models. My hope is that Lionel will see the popularity of these new scale models and continue down the path towards scale fidelity. Perhaps someday they will offer a scale steamer with scale flanges? One thing is for sure... They won’t build that model if these current models don’t sell. So far it seems like they are selling pretty well and they haven’t even been released yet. In my opinion Lionel offering more scale like offerings is only a good thing for the hobby. Jonathan From: Christopher Borgmeyer Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2011 6:30 PM To: [email protected] Subject: {S-Scale List} Re: Lionel SnS Gauage I'm afraid we can add the "Challenger" to the list of monstrosities. I don't really believe the conspiracy theory that Lionel produces exceptionally embarrassing models under the AF name to keep the O gauge guys from switching to S but those two models add evidence to the case. We know they can produce better. You see it in O and with their S gauge Mike. I'm sure as long as the Flyer boys keep snapping them up Lionel will continue to feed the lemmings. Just makes our job of promoting scale modeling at 1:64th all the more difficult. Chris Borgmeyer Lionel SnS Gauage Posted by: "Rusty" mailto:thebrassbasher%40yahoo.com thebrassbasher Tue Sep 27, 2011 8:18 am (PDT) Lionel did an S Gauge Big Boy that is 4 foot too tall, 20 foot too short and is the only model I have ever seen that will run down two side by side tracks at the same. It was Lionel selling a 1000 of these things (started by K Line)that prompted Sunset to even think about building anything in S Scale again. I met with Scott about this and he was very excited about getting into S again. I can understand his excitement. If this was that acceptable to the S crowd than just about anything should sell. Once again, confusing the Scale guys with the Flyer guys. I warned him up front that these Big Boys were considered junk by the Boo Rim buyers and he could count them out. Sadly Sunset is still sitting on their SP Mogul that they did while Glaicer Park sold out their SP Mogul as soon as they arrived. Sunset's is under $1000 and Glacier Park's is over $2000. All of the TCA guys that drifted in here from the S Trains list should remember the showing of the Lionel scale GE "U" boat in York and that was when, a year ago or so. J. Rustermier [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Regards, Jonathan Blogs: http://RailfanX.blogspot.com and http://cloudvirt.blogspot.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/jonnyspeed Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jhatfield [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
