Any 2-railers getting the Lionel Excursion sets?

Wow, I did not see that they had KD pads. There is some good discussion over how well detailed the Lionel cars will be. I have not seen them. I was tempted to order the Amtrak ones. It is now even more tempting that they have the KD pads. Adding wipers for lighting, should be straight forward. I am growing tired of all the work I always seem to need to do, converting to 2 rail. It takes the fun out of the hobby for me. Every step forward in the process helps.

Are they shorties?  How will body- mounted couplers work on 54" radius?

I would love to follow your progress if you do a '2R conversion' thread on these-thought about that myself.  With the KDs and the NWSL wheels, you should be able to quickly get the set on your RR. 

I gave serious thought about buying a set to 2R but I don't have any Excursion era motive power and they are well outside of my modeling era.

FYI, Lionel has stated through an indirect source that the Flag & generator cars will be 18" models.  They will be beautiful, I can't wait to see them delivered. 

bob2 posted:

Are they shorties?  How will body- mounted couplers work on 54" radius?

Two of the six will be 18", the rest 21"

Well I bought the Atlas CZ cars and they go around my 54" radius with ease.  I don't see how it will be a problem with the Lionel.  I can even buy long-shaft kadees if need be.

We'll just have to wait and see.  Preorders are due in a few weeks.  I'm guessing end of this year would be the quickest they will get delivered.

What's the price range? 

$689 for six cars if you pre-order at charlesro

I wonder how their American Freedom Train set will turn out?  I have a Sunset 4-8-4 GS-4 in 2rail and the train went thru my farm.  I would to get it and find out it looks like a tacky toy.

I didn't see these. The UP set is of particular interest, but the sound diner is kind of a waste for me since the sound unit requires Legacy and the locomotives I'd use with the set are DCS/DCC.

AGHRMatt posted:

I didn't see these. The UP set is of particular interest, but the sound diner is kind of a waste for me since the sound unit requires Legacy and the locomotives I'd use with the set are DCS/DCC.

I'm with you.  When I mentioned the price of six cars above, I was leaving out the seventh - the station sounds diner.  With an MSRP of $299 to buy features I can't use, that was an easy dismissal.

I did compare the illustrations of the other cars to prototype photos, and they seemed to match up pretty well.  At least the windows' size/placement/type looked correct on each specific car.

AGHRMatt posted:

I didn't see these. The UP set is of particular interest, but the sound diner is kind of a waste for me since the sound unit requires Legacy and the locomotives I'd use with the set are DCS/DCC.

Same here, DCC... Was going to investigate if the sounds weren't too bad to trigger them via an on board decoder function?   If all else fails will install a Tsunami Soundcar decoder for sound and lighting.

I preordered a set too.  I am concerned about Lionel dumbing these down from the illustrations.  I haven't seen any of their latest and greatest passenger cars so I don't have anything to compare the possibilities to.  The 86' box cars are very nice but the 89' auto racks are very disappointing.

If they are as nice as the illustrations I may be looking for a second 4 car set for an additional dome coach unless it does well enough in presales that the next catalog has some add-on cars with differing names.  If I do keep them I will just be changing out the trucks.  I have some old Kemtron 41-CDO kits lying around to build that would work perfectly.  Even though the illustrations show 41N trucks under several of the cars I believe they should all have the 41-CDOs and who knows what will actually show up.

I got a kick out of the illustrated diner being the called the "City of Los Angeles"  and the description calling it the "Overland".  My guess is the pics are HO brass cars.

The odd thing about this "excursion set" from Lionel is that they are not making/offering either the boiler/dormitory (Howard Fogg) car nor the Tool Car (Art Lockman) . Both such cars are always at the headend of the consist, especially when it was/is a steam excursion.

rdunniii posted:

and who knows what will actually show up.

That's my major problem right now. I learn what's supposed to be there. I try to maintain it. Then it bits me in the.....

It usually becomes 4 times as much work as I was expecting. So I would skip these normally. Then I learn Lionel is touting that the lights won't flicker and will be LED! That's a major step forward. They should have KD mounts. That's #2 to the positive! They are 21"!! Getting hard to ignore unless they look too toy like? The pictures posted of the last release look pretty darn good. I think I'm talking myself into ordering!

If I'm not mistaken, aren't the vast majority of the current Union Pacific "executive cars" of riveted construction?  I wonder how Lionel will reproduce that unusual appearance.

I've seen the generator baggage car up close and personal and the one thing Lionel may miss is that the generator car was reinforced to carry the generator and fuel and has one three-axle and one 2-axle truck instead of a pair of 2-axle trucks illustrated on the Lionel site.

Martin:

Forgot to mention in my earlier post. I think they'll get through 54" radius fine, but you may want to use long-shank Kadee 700-series couplers to give you a little more swing. I think the diaphragms will touch with the long-shank couplers.

Matt,

That is the Boiler/Dormitory car I was referring to. Originally, those cars did NOT have an HEP generator set in them, just a steam boiler for additional steam supply on those very UP "City of Everywhere" passenger trains. Those Boiler/Dormitory cars would sleep quite a few crew members also. They were never any kind of "baggage car", as that side door on each side was for work access for the big steam generator in that "heavy end" with the three axle truck.

All that HEP generator equipment, and fancy stainless grill work, was all added by the Steam Crew.

Also, I'm not so sure that the car you pictured above (#209 'Howard Fogg') is the power car that Lionel plans on producing. I thought their catalog listed it as a "Power Car #208", which is NOT the Boiler/Dormitory" car #209, the Howard Fogg, pictured above.

Thanks for Kadee advice Matt.  I hope the long-shank will be sufficient, but I plan on testing with the short and medium ones too, just to see what I can get away with on each car. 

Here's a pic of the 206 generator car 1:1          click here

Hot Water posted:

Matt,

 

That is the Boiler/Dormitory car I was referring to. Originally, those cars did NOT have an HEP generator set in them, just a steam boiler for additional steam supply on those very UP "City of Everywhere" passenger trains. Those Boiler/Dormitory cars would sleep quite a few crew members also. They were never any kind of "baggage car", as that side door on each side was for work access for the big steam generator in that "heavy end" with the three axle truck.

All that HEP generator equipment, and fancy stainless grill work, was all added by the Steam Crew.

Also, I'm not so sure that the car you pictured above (#209 'Howard Fogg') is the power car that Lionel plans on producing. I thought their catalog listed it as a "Power Car #208", which is NOT the Boiler/Dormitory" car #209, the Howard Fogg, pictured above.

Thanks H-W. I'll re-check. It was over 20 years ago that I saw the business train parked at the old UP East LA Depot east of the Commerce yard. I remember the odd truck pairing which stuck in my mind.