TOKELLY posted:When the 2019 images were up, the Santa Fe WAS in the blue and yellow colors in the warbonnet paint scheme. As Rusty pointed out, all but the Gilford version would use the previous paint masks but have different lettering. For example, Illinois Central Gulf is the same orange and white as the IC was, but "Gulf" and new road numbers have been added. The blue sky blue/black/white scheme of the Great Northern is the same, but the road name is Burlington Northern as it was shortly after the merger. This reuse saves Lionel money. It also brings up two questions: 1) are the electronics "new" Legacy that handles AC/DC/TMCC/Legacy/DCC; and 2) are the pilots revised to pivot as in the SD70ACe and ES44AC, or are they the original swinging pilots attached to the trucks?
The more I learn about the original, first run of the American Flyer U33C, the more I admire the effort that went into making so many road-specific differences that reviewers failed to mention and Lionel failed to promote. The too-fast response and the swinging pilots got all the press (the former corrected in the second run; the latter corrected in the modern locomotives). It must have been discouraging to the teams that worked on that first U33C.
Actually, I expected the U33C's to come back as FlyerChief locomotives...
I really can't see Lionel removing the DCC code from Legacy as a lot of effort went in to developing it. Now that it's there, it costs nothing to keep DCC compatibility embedded in the code. But, one never knows...
As to the pilots, I suspect they will still be attached to the trucks as in the first two runs. I've read where some of the scale guys that "fixed" the pilots had to remove some material either from the truck side frames or back of the pilots to provide some clearance on curves, and they're not using R20. While truck mounted pilots are less ideal than the swinging pilots of the SD70's and ES44's, it's a vast improvement over the big, gaping cut-out Gilbert used.
Rusty
