LIONEL Hi-Cube boxcars

Roger, 

 

Those cars look great!  I'm heading out to my LHS this weekend to pick up a 2-pack. 

 

Thanks for sharing!

Michael

Thanks for reminding me. UPS tracking says they should be here today. Oops looks like they are running late. Maybe tomorrow or later probably due to the weather. Not in a hurry.

Mine are still on the way.... CA is faaaar!

They look so cool. Sadly, not for my 036 Fastrack layout. 

Roger,

   Those big long Box cars do look real cool, what are they rated to run on?

PCRR/Dave

My gosh that is HUGE! the catalogue doesn't do that one justice.

Nice looking car. Have some ATSF's on order.

Roger,

How in the world are you gonna make those monsters work on your 036? Ha!, Ha!, You Betcha, I know you got the right stuff . Nothing beats a brand new "Super-Car" Congratulations  

0-54. Thanks to the telescoping couplers.

 

---PCJ

Layout shrinkers for sure, but boy are they cool looking.  Enjoy them, Roger!  Wish I had a space to run some of these.

As much as I love them they might still look funny going over my O-72 curves.Nick

I am still waiting for mine to come. I already have the scale auto racks and as rockstars1989 say about 0-72 I have 0-89 and 0-96 curves and there is still overhang there too..................Paul

My NS cars are on the way from Brian at Legacy Station.

 

Neal Jeter

The intercom just rang and my wife said there are two big boxes from Charlie Ro. OMG, the fleet has landed! Seven 2 packs. I thought I had ordered 3 two packs and 4 singles, but I'm not complaining. They are gorgeous. Now I just have to finish the Ford plant so I can unpack them.

When you get these unpacked, how about posting some photos ??

My 7 car order from Nassau Hobbies arrived on Monday.

 

And while I'm very happy with the cars overall, there are a few things that bug me. I'll post some photos with my pros & cons later tonight.

 

- RICH

 

I will Roger. I've spent the last few days drawing the final track plan for the upper deck, and prior to that I was working on wiring. But this has me re-energized for track laying. I'll get you (and everyone else) some later this week.

Ok, here's my review of Lionel's new 89' HiCube Boxcars

 

First of all, if you had told me 5 years ago that Lionel was going to make scale auto racks and hi-cube boxcars, i would not have believed you. Apparently Lionel has decided that there are enough of us who want these cars to produce them and they've done a fantastic job. So thanks for that Big L, we've been waiting a long time and it was worth it. They're very nicely detailed replicas of the prototype .

1. Car Length:

The cars scale out to the proper 89' scale length, about 23"

 

 

 Here's a shot of the end details:

 

 

Here's a side by side shot with a 50' car for reference. Also, these cars are light just like the auto racks. That 50' MTH GTW car weighs just a bit more than the hi-cube!

 

 

They ride nice & low too.

 

 

These cars use the same special coupler system that the auto racks use. It allows the coupler to extend slightly while going around smaller curves (054 is minimum I believe) and also to remain "close coupled" to get a more prototypical appearance (as much as giant lobster claws can anyway) They will indeed negotiate 054, but they'll look really funny doing it.

 

Here are the hi-cube cars going around 072 and 080 curves so you can see the couplers and overhang.

 Here's a shot from the front (sorry for the blurr)

 

 

Here's an overhead view (top to bottom) of 102, 096 and 090 curves. 

 

 

 

 They do look pretty good going around the 102" curves.

 

 

Here's my only problem.

I'm a graphic designer by trade so I might notice things many other guys wouldn't. Things like color, typography and artwork really matter to me and go a long way towards making our models look "accurate". It's especially important to me when I'm paying a premium price for an item that is purely a luxury like these cars.

Let's look at the Norfolk Southern Car.

1. Color - The brown is too "green". All my other NS cars from many other manufactures all look more "red". It's hard to show this since everyone's computer screen will vary, but I made a rectangular selection in Photoshop and adjusted the color to match my other NS equipment. The Conrail cars use the same brown. Again, not a "make or break" thing, but Lionel could do better. 

2. The NS Logo is awful.
It's so easy to get this right, that getting it wrong is really bad. A simple internet image search would get you what you needed. A better idea is to contact Norfolk Southern and get a style guide for their branding.

Over all these are great cars and I'm looking forward to the 8 door model when it comes out next year.

 

- RICH

 

The NS looks improperly sized, like they had the right graphics, but the dimensions were pushed and pulled accidentally.

 

It is noticeable that there is not enough red in the brown.

 

Thank you for the review.

 

 

Andrew

At least the NS logo is in the right direction unlike the NS Genset Vision loco I was so looking forward to haha.

Hi Roger: These boxcars look great. I will check them out at my local, LHS.

The factory in China will have to make new NORFOLK SOUTHERN High-Cube 86' Boxcars with corrected red-brown paint and NS Norfolk Southern graphics.

Very nice looking Roger.

"Yeah Right"

They will not be free. You will have to buy the new road numbers.

You will have to keep buying new NS 86' boxcars, hoping each time that it is just like the real ones.

 

Andrew

Here ya go Matt Jackson  I got my 3 SF cars today. I think I'll put the long shank Kadee couplers on them. They weigh in at 25.4 ounces, and per NMRA standards, they should weigh 26 1/2 ounces.... so they feel light, but actually are only an ounce light based on what they should be.

 

Hey doug, what is the third piece in the parts bag? I didn't use it. It looks like a shim. But the draft gear box was at the proper height all by itself.  Love the direction Lionel is headed.

Yeah its a shim. Has centering pins on the top that fit into the 2 holes close together on the bottom of the car.

 

Right direction for sure  The weight is really close, a very low profile ride height, scale coupler compatible (and easily at that), lots of nice detail including the door guides that are not way over sized.

 

Great job on these cars Lionel!  

I agree these cars are awesome. Very low profile on the ride height, Lionel scores a big one on these plus the auto racks! 

Man, those are some cool, huge monsters!! Can't wait for the first guy to post a huge unit train of these bad boys on a big layout. It sure will look impressive.

Sorry it took so long to get back to you Roger. Here are all 14 of them packed into the Ford Plant on my layout, along with 7 auto racks.

 

There's still a little room. I still need to open the auto rack set from 2013. I didn't buy the set with the box cars.

 

 

Thanks Roger, it's my pleasure to share them with you and the gang. I'm glad I got them out of their boxes so I can at least see them. There's still a fair amount of construction to do before they can go anywhere though. No new ones in the 2015 catalog, but I did order all the new auto racks. Even with a layout as large as mine, I'm becoming very aware of the total capacity of the railroad.

And that's certainly saying something, Elliot!!! 

 

David

Elliot - That really looks great!  You say Ford plant and when you put these cars on the track it immediately looks like it.  Few of us have enough room to make that look correct, nice job.

 

Art

Thanks Art, I tried to allocate enough space to do it justice.

 

If you would like to see the real location in all its glory, Google maps street view has some old photos dating back to 2007. Here is the 2009 shot, the yard is almost full. The plant closed in December of 2011, and was demolished last year. Most of the tracks are still there.

 

I took this one last week.

 

Elliot, are we looking Northwest in that photo?

Mostly straight west, they hook a little north as they curve around. Cleveland Ave runs north south. Tracks are perpendicular to the bridge.