Budkole posted:I was thinking the same thing...
kinematic pilots would be great but on all the newly offered diesels.
sd70
e8/9
e6
f3
....on and on
Yes, the feature would be nice on all the higher end diesel products. However, I was thinking of the F3 in particular since it was a smaller locomotive where the kinematic pilot would not impact the minimum curve of locomotive too much. The SD70 and E's are much longer locomotives and would probably go from an 036 curve to an 054 curve; as least officially. Besides, I have the F3's on order (call me selfish).
Hot Water posted:Personally, I would much rather have a fixed pilot, with the ability to change it out to a more scale pilot, which would accept a Kadee coupler. That is what Sunset/3rd Rail does on their 3-Rail models, i.e. they are delivered with a fixed pilot and the large electro-coupler for 3-Rail trains. They sell, as an optional piece, the scale pilot, which accepts the Kadee coupler gear box assembly.
Those "Kinematic" draw-bars sure work great for the scale steam locomotive models, and I'm surprised that Lionel hasn't up-graded their top of the line Vision Line models with that feature. Take a high end SCALE large steam locomotive model, which should be limited to 072 curves anyway, yet the tender is ridiculously far away from the cab.
True, a fixed pilot would loot better. However, I have the ES44AC and F40PH which have the kinematic pilot and the separation between chassis and pilot is very small and not noticeable when operating. Natural, the swinging pilot limits the handrails on the ES44AC, but that is not a problem for the F40PH and would not be a problem for the F3. The kinematic pilot is a nice compromise which allows for operation on tighter curves.
Besides, Sunset/3rd Rail is already doing fixed pilots so the kinematic pilot sets the Lionel units apart from that as well as all the other units that have the pilot attached to the truck.
