This is written from the perspective of S Scaler who is very particular about the appearance of his equipment and the way it operates. My experience with Lionel in O made me skeptical about the company's entrance into our scale. I read with interest the posts on the list, but kept quiet until I could see the product for myself.
I was very surprised and impressed with what I saw at S West 8. Three Lionel scale locos were presented at a clinic presented by the S Scale SIG, and then demonstrated all weekend at Ed L's fantastic NYC layout. The lineup consisted of U33C in SP grey & bloody nose red, NW SD70 & Virginian Y3. The U33C was a second generation unit. The paint and lettering were very good. No blurred lines. The proportions appeared correct and the detail on shell such as doors, exhaust fans, etc, were sharp and crisp. The engine has scale wheels. The sound was excellent though it was too loud for my tastes an easy fix. I was disappointed to see that the engine still has the swinging pilots though it was not too noticeable on the broad curves of Ed' layout. I understand the biggest improvement was internal. The engine now has a Lionel Sound DCC decoder. It runs like a champ. The slow speed performance was impressive and acceleration was smooth and consistent. The SD70 was even more impressive. I am not a modern diesel guy, but if I was I would add this engine to my roundhouse in a heartbeat. The level of detail is consistent with the excellent diesel engines S Helper produced. Lionel has made a very clever improvement regarding the swinging pilot issue. Out of the box, the loco has a swinging pilot but Lionel has also predrilled two screw holes in the shell so you can fix the pilots with screws that are provided think of how S Helper had interchangeable pilots for their switchers. Same concept Don Thompson, did you talk to those guys? :-) As with the U33C, the paint and lettering on this model was sharp and crisp. The proportions of this model looked accurate. It is a spectacular scale model. The sound system which operated with DCC was excellent with the jet engine whine characteristic of model diesels, but again too loud out of the box for my tastes. The engine has a smoke unit which produced a significant volume of smoke. Lionel must have thought it was producing a 1st generation ALCO. The rumor is that the model is suppose to come with scale wheels, but the sample had hirail wheels and couplers. We did run the engine up and down Ed's yard and the performance was impressive. Very smooth acceleration and great slow speed. However the crème d' la crème was Lionel's Y3. I had heard that Lionel's Mikado was a great scale piece but I have yet to see one. I was told that Y3 has even better detail than the Mikado. In any event, the engine looked fantastic pulling 30 NW coal hoppers and a hack. I am an Espee steam guy so I do not know if the details were correct, but the engine clearly looked like an accurate representation of the pictures of the Y3's I had seen. The engine was built like a tank and very heavy. All the motor electronics are in the engine there are no wires between the tender and engine. Rather Lionel uses a very cleaver infra- red connection. Likewise, the tender is a stand-alone unit that has all the sound electronics. If there is a weakness in this product, this could be it not enough wheel pickups because the engine did stall on a few of Ed's dead frog turnouts. The sound is spectacular. Easily on par with sounds produced by Tsunami steam decoders which are the best on the market IMHO. Man does this beast smoke! And the cool thing is at low speeds the smoke puffs with the chuff. A shout out goes to Fred Rouse. He did a fantastic job machining the drivers on this engine which only comes in hirail as well as the programming work necessary for the engine to run on DCC. The engine tracked well through Ed's code 100 track work. Fred is an excellent machinist and his skill was very evident on this engine. If Lionel ever produced a cab forward that matched the detail of the Y3 (are you listening Lionel?) that only came in hirail, I would immediately ship it off to Fred. Well, that's all for now. I think Lionel's entry in the S scale side of the hobby is great news. However, do not take my word, go check these items out for yourself. John Gibson http://sscale.org ------------------------------------ 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/
