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What are people’s thoughts on these? I am not super hung up on scale like some, but I do like having things look nicely proportional and have noticed they are a bit tall compared to boxcars ect. ? I am mightily tempted by the postwar Wabash GP7s... but was wondering what roadnames MPC offered them in? Did MPC ever do the Wabash again? Don’t know what the going price for either vintage of loco ought to be.

How do the Lionel GP7s & 9s preform on the track compared to, say, Lionel RS-3s or K-Line Alco FAs? My FA is double motored, they do a good job with the long grade on my layout and I consider them the ones to beat of performance. The pulling power and reliability is what matters most to me in locomotives... found that out with my Docksider which while a lovely engine is also not the most reliable in my fleet. 

My little freelance Pike has a definite preference for ALCO products (Currently we Roster 2 FA & an S-2). But I think having a Wabash loco pared with some of my N&W rolling stock and my NKP caboose might look good too. Call it the ‘64 merger special! I’ve also considered a Milwaukee scheme to match my Baby Madisons... but from what I hear the postwar Milwaukee’s are hard to find in good condition. So I’d probably be looking at early modern or MPC geeps for that.

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MPC made a lot of colorful GPs. Mich. Lionel did do a Wabash for JC Penny. They are nice engines but will not perform as well as later 2 motor engines do. They are close to scale with exceptions being made to fit a price range and run on 027 track. They have one major flaw, many of them have off set drivers that make them wobble. 

Traditional Lionel GP7/GP9 models are scale sized, hence why they are taller/larger than most traditional freight cars and 027 Alcos. My recommendation is to either buy the Postwar versions or late MPC/LTI/LLC versions with the pullmor motor and Magnetraction. These are good runners with separate motors and trucks. The early MPC units with a combined motor and truck assembly with traction tires are wobbly and don't run well. Avoid those. The later 90's units with TMCC and Railsounds can usually be had new or like new for less than $150 and run very, very well. 

Last edited by Lou1985

I agree with Lou1985 on the GP engines with TMCC and RailSounds from the late 90s into the 2000s. Great sounds and bulletproof operation. Lionel also did 3-4 GP7s or GP9s in the earlier 2000s (I think) that had two DC can motors. Very smooth operators. All those are conventional (not TMCC), I believe. As Lou also said, Lionel conventional Geeps are scale-sized, so they look a little taller with traditional rolling stock, as the OP observed, but they still look fine together.

In the Wabash road name, Lionel also did TMCC/Railsounds equipped tradtional GP engines in a 3-engine set (two powered and one dummy. Item no. 18872. Very nice, but with three engines, a bit more money.

Picture 3 of 8

Last edited by breezinup

I like the PW/MPC GP9/7's, I dunno there's just something about them. The roadnames and colors. So far I have the Illinois Central 8030 my second diesel from when I was a kid in the late 70's, but more recently I collected 2 ea PC 3 ea CR, 3 ea CNJ, 1 ea Great Northern( A very nice re-paint), 1 Ea CN.  The reason I collected 3 of some is because I forgot I already had two! LOL!! I would like to get a second IC, and two each Erie Lacawanna, GTW, Rio Grande, and the list goes on. So much for collecting two road names, NYC and CR.

Redshirt214 posted:

Did MPC ever do the Wabash again?

 

MPC never did a Wabash GP.  However in the Kuhn era there was a  J.C. Penny's special Wabash GP9.  The paint on the long end was incorrect, the white stripes should go all the way around instead of having the white bib. (Trainz auction photo)

Image result for lionel wabash jcpenney

They made the same mistake with the J. C. Penny's Wabash Train Master.

Rusty

Rusty Traque posted:

MPC never did a Wabash GP.  However in the Kuhn era there was a  J.C. Penny's special Wabash GP9.  The paint on the long end was incorrect, the white stripes should go all the way around instead of having the white bib. 

They made the same mistake with the J. C. Penny's Wabash Train Master.

Rusty

They did that part correctly on the 3-engine set pictured above, though.

Last edited by breezinup
harmonyards posted:

not trying to muddy the waters on you, but you may take a look at Williams GPs …..they are real stump pullers, and good runners, and sometimes can be had on the cheap...and most are twin can motors with flywheels....

I second this suggestion. In fact there are a couple of Williams Wabash GP9s—really a GP7—on Ebay, including this one. (Note that they have the same paint-scheme error that Rusty Traque points out in the Lionel J.C. Penny version.) They are well-built, heavy, and has harmonyards says, they are real stump-pullers. I have a K-Line MP15, with two truck-mounted can motors, and there is no comparison, the Williams GP9 wins hands down.

(If I have one criticism, they are geared a bit too high, so I re-wired it in-series, but that is pretty easy to do, and there are threads here that describe how. I ended up doing the same to my K-Line MP15, too.)

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