I don't think this is a big deal. All Lionel said is they are moving away from Aluminum to plastic. The 21" cars are the ones they are doing this year. They never said on the podcast or anywhere else 18" cars would not be made anymore. Perhaps next year they will do some 18" cars. We just have to wait and see, but all these crystal balls everyone has, have been wrong before. There are tons of MTH cars out there if you only want 18". Lionel is trying new things. I'm interested to see the Kinematic couplers on the cars like the auto carriers, flush fitting windows, etc, so they are stepping up the features. We will just see how it pans out. At least they are doing new things which is what everyone always says they want. I don't have any scale 21" cars so for me I am excited to see the finished product.
Sean, well stated.
I had the MKT E8's on order and along with the 18" alum passenger cars. The 21's are just too big for my layout. I called my dealer and cancelled the E8's. No reason for them now. Hopefully we'll see 18" plastic passenger cars in the future.
Well after seeing all the pluses and minuses on this thread, I still am going to order the Texas Special 4-pack, 2-pack and Stationsounds car.
The big minus for me is that there are no figures, but I bet there is no more than 4 to 6 screws to remove the shell. I would take off the shell anyway to add even more figures.....so this is kinda of a mute point with me.
But the BIG PLUS for me on these cars is the LED lights, I bet I will not have any more flickering with these cars.
I will take the costs of LED and replacing the LEDs any day over the cost and replacement of the figures.
Bring them on, I cannot wait to get these on the layout.
Its a convenience to have the LEDs already installed for sure but the cost is far less than figures if you pay 50 cents each. It costs me about 3 bucks and 20 minutes to convert a car to LEDs. I suspect you will be putting far more than 6 figures in your cars especially now that there are more seats to fill.
Pete
Originally Posted by NVisich:
I had the MKT E8's on order and along with the 18" alum passenger cars. The 21's are just too big for my layout. I called my dealer and cancelled the E8's. No reason for them now. ...
I will likely be following down the same decision path. 
Lionel did a great job on the E8/E9 sets in various roadnames. But without the MKT 18" aluminum cars, I have no need for the MKT E8's.
David
I tend to agree with Sean, in that it is nice that Lionel is trying new things. I too don't own 21" or closely coupled cars, so on the one hand I am intrigued. And the complaints over length seem like sour grapes. Is it justified to complain every time a manufacturer issues a scale locomotive that only negotiates 072 curves, simply because you have 054 or whatever?
Having said that, the lack of passengers might be a deal-breaker for me. Unfortunately, the guy who posted above (scoffing at the notion that anyone could be seriously considering these 21" cars if he/she is unwilling to buy them due to lack of passengers), just doesn't get it. I bought the VLBB despite the inaccurate (curtains rather than a closed cab) cab, so I'm not an accuracy stickler. But looking for some degree of realism to capture the essence of real-life. To me, the inaccurate VLBB cab neither adds nor detracts from this essence. Passenger cars devoid of passengers, however, is not only contrary to fostering this "essence" but a step backward from the water-mark set years ago for the high-end aspect of this industry.
Sure, I can dismantle brand-new fragile, expensive cars and add my own passengers, but why would I want to? This is sort of analogous to buying a high-end luxury car at a high-end price, getting some new bells and whistles, but then needing to go out buy and install my own air condition system or power windows.
Plus, even if one were inclined to add their own peeps, it's difficult to find passengers that actually fit. You may recall I had a thread months ago where I experimented with passengers from a bunch of different manufacturers for fit. The hands-down winner was the bag of 100 unpainted Railking passengers. Sorry, but undertaking to hand-paint and install 40 -60 little passengers to high-end passenger cars (that, to be consistent with what's already been established as a "given" for the high-end market, should already include them), is such an incredibly poor use of free time.
Peter
Didn't the early cabbed version of the Big Boy have curtains as well as the exposed oil cooler piping on the pilot the bifold enclosed cab was the later model? Hot water would know for sure.
Originally Posted by PJB:
I tend to agree with Sean, in that it is nice that Lionel is trying new things. I too don't own 21" or closely coupled cars, so on the one hand I am intrigued. And the complaints over length seem like sour grapes. Is it justified to complain every time a manufacturer issues a scale locomotive that only negotiates 072 curves, simply because you have 054 or whatever?
Peter
I don't think anyone is complaining that Lionel is going to offer 21" cars. Personally I think its a good thing. The disappointment is with the end of the 18" aluminum cars. They were arguably the best of the 18" by far, much better than MTH, K-Line or Weaver. Why? When the prototype was a Pullman Standard as in the case of the Early SP Daylight cars, Lionel made Pullman Standard fluted cars with full width diaphragms. When the prototype was Budd as in the Empire State Express Lionel made them in Budd style also with full width diaphragms. MTH made neither style and never full width diaphragms. I think K-Lines are based on Budd cars but also never with full width diaphragms. These kind of details are what set Lionel's apart.
Now, according to reports from the the WGHOT show, Lionel has no plans to reintroduce 18" cars in the future plastic or aluminum.
Pete
Originally Posted by aterry11:
Didn't the early cabbed version of the Big Boy have curtains as well as the exposed oil cooler piping on the pilot the bifold enclosed cab was the later model? Hot water would know for sure.
All of the Union Pacific "Big Three" steam locomotives were delivered with the UP designed fold-away rear cab enclosure arrangement, i.e the FEF2/FEF-3 4-8-4s, the 3900 class 4-6-6-4s, and the 4000 class 4-8-8-4s.
The first 20 4000 class 4-8-8-4s (4000 thru 4019) were delivered with the exposed air cooling piping on the front deck area, while the second order of 5 locomotives (4020 thru 4024) were delivered with the more modern appearing air cooling radiator behind the front shielding arrangement. The second order air cooling arrangement was so successful that the first 20 locomotives (4000 thru 4019) were all modified by the end of 1946, to look just like the last 5.
Originally Posted by Norton:
Have you guys tried searching for Lionel 18" aluminum streamliners at any of the big vendors? Grzyboskis, to name one has dozens maybe hundreds of 15" cars but only a handful, literally, of 18" cars.
Pete
Wildly off. They don't have anywhere near hundreds. And the reason there are more 15" cars is because Lionel has been making them for about 5 times as long as the 18" cars.
In fact, in aluminum cars, they currently have 62 listings for 15" cars, and 14 listings for 18" cars....which is 23% as many 18" cars as 15" ones - a little more than 1/5.
