Lionel Mogul report?

I think this thing was shipped several months ago - I had pre-ordered and I recall getting it two or three months ago it seems, maybe more.

 

this is the only one of fourteen recent Lionel steamer purchases that disappointed me.  I just expected more . . . .  Part of this is that I had received only about a monthly earlier the conventional Atlantic and it was a home run, just fantastic. 

- sound was okay, but not as good as in the Atlantic and not nearly as good as in other recent Lionel Locos (however, some of those are Legacy models and cost twice as much - the Atlantic, on the other hand, was the same price.

- details and features and 'look' were good - nothing to complain about, but not quite up to that Atlantic.  No window glass in mine, little features like that

- mine did not run smoothly at low speeds, like the Atlantic and all the other Lionels I have (I run only conventional so even with the Legacy locos I bought, I am comparing apples to apples as far as running). Mine ran no better at low speeds than old post-War locos.  it just would not run at low speeds.   I think this was just mine - it took more voltage to get it moving and it did not run quite right at low speeds, varying just a bit in speed, as if it had a gear that was binding slightly every revolution or something like mis-aligned gears, motor to drivers. 

- Regardless, it looked nice, and it did run, and everything like sound, lights, bell, whistle, steam, e-board, etc., worked.  Thus, I judged I would get nowhere returning it to Lionel to get it to run more smoothly.  I do think about taking it appart and seeing if I could free up the gears, but I have so many locos that run well anyway, and some loco is going to sit on that siding . . .

- So I put it on a siding near my rural train station set up just for display, where it sits to this day. 

About two weeks later,  I took the wonderful small tender it had and converted that to go behind a bashed and detailed (updated to a late '20s look) Williams Baldwin ten-wheeler - basically switching the electronics and interconnections from the Mogul tender to the WBB tender and vice versa and using each tender on the other loco.  The Mogul still runs (I tested it once with its now much bigger tender and it ran just the same) but I never run it - still has that low speed unevenes .  The ten-wheeler, on the other hand, is awesome with a detailed die-cast tender more its size . . . so after two or three months of owning it, the Mogul probably has 20 minutes of run time on it  but the tender, maybe 25 hours.

Lee, can you post a video of your ten wheeler running? Mines on layaway still sealed in the box and would like to see it run...but I will have to wait. Thanks james

I am out of town for a few days so I can't post a video now - they are all at home (if I have one of the Williams - I can take one given time.  

 

Regardless, the Williams ten-wheeler is the best conventional steam runner I have bought in the last year.  As far as smooth, slow moving in conventional goes, only the Vision Hudson can match it - nothing can beat it.  I have three of them now, they are such good runners.

Thanks , when you get time that would be great!

Lee, I have received my Mogul and have run it about three hours, maybe more. And unfortunately I must confirm everything you described in your April 13 post. Great detail, reasonable sound, poor low speed operation.

 

The low speed binding/surging is exactly as you describe. Very disappointing. I thought that after plenty of run time it would wear in and disappear. The funny thing is that it runs in reverse very smoothly and at about 1.5v less throttle than when running forward.

 

Mine is a Central Pacific. I run a set of MTH 64' woodside passenger cars behind it, which makes one fine looking train.

I have a couple of the Lionel RAT's that I run in

conventional mode. You guy's are right about the low speeds

and surging.

Then I ran them on a TMCC system and they were great.

I guess the oddesy  just can't handle the lower voltages.

 

Try your engines on TMCC. I'd like to hear the results...

 

Bruce..

( another post, add one more point to my status  )

Then I ran them on a TMCC system and they were great.

I guess the oddesy  just can't handle the lower voltages.

Try your engines on TMCC. I'd like to hear the results...

Bruce,

These are traditional engines without TMCC boards in them.

I have the C&O and of course it ran like crap right out of the box. I sent it off and had DCS put in it and now I am quite happy with it.

 

 

Scott Smith

As Scott said, the Mogul does not have TMCC. But I have run it with a Cab 1 through a TPC 300 with no improvement in low speed operation as compared to running it with a ZW.

 

I have another conventional engine of recent manufacture that is superb when operating at low speeds. I was expecting similar performance from the Mogul. At least I now know that it is not just my engine.

 

Scott, does your C&O have this surging issue when operated in reverse? Mine is smooth as silk backing up. I wonder if the worm gear engagement binds in forward? There is .020 - .030" linear movement in the motor shaft, which would affect the worm gear engagement.

 

Thanks to all for responding!

I saw it run at my local shop and decided then I would purchase it and send it off to upgrade rather than run it without command. SO I really don't know how it ran in reverse before it was upgraded.

Scott Smith

So was I.  About the same time that I pre-rdered the Mogul I order the conventional Atlantic.  It arrived six weeks or so before the Mogul and it is a superb runner ( and loco in every other way).  

Thank you for posting videos of the Mogul Scott!

Nice engine but I am going to hold out for the Legacy version.

I apoligize - I promised to post videos of my modified Lionel Mogul.  I discussed my disappointment with it, and that it ran unsmoothly, earlier in the thread.  

 

Here it is modified - with the chassis and drive from the new WBB Baldwin ten-wheeler.  The Mogul body is longer than the Baldwin's so I added a single-axle trailing truck.  Tender is the WBB original since it has the drive electronics, etc.  This is a very sweet running little loco now and it runs a lot.  Note the very tight loco-tender gap - I was able to get the very really close together even though this is running on O-36 curves here.

I gutted the Mogul's original chassis for my parts bin, and am saving its original  tender for something special (its small but quite nice actually).