Lionel’s new milk car review

Gary,  Thank you for making this video and sharing your cars.    John

Good review Gary. With the couplers mounted solidly to the trucks, how do you think these cars would be when coupled together on smaller radius curves - O-54 and O-36?

MELGAR

Time for Kadee couplers.

Nice thorough demonstration Gary.

Same issues with the newer steelsided reefer trucks.

At least the paint colors aren't horrid like they are on the reefers.

Imo. Too much time is being spent on Lion chief whizz bang # whatever and not enough is spend on quality mechanical components.

It's a good thing there's loads of the well made older rolling stock on ebay, for a fraction of the price of new.

What a shame, and you patiently waited 4 +years for delivery.

Looks like alot of effort to get that roof off. Built in magnets for the roof would have been nice.

I ordered one of the METCA special runs, PRR, now I am regretting it. I wonder if its a option to use old milk car trucks on the new cars...

Nice review Gary.  Thorough and complete.  I would not apologize to Lionel for the couplers though.  They need to get that right in the future.  Unfortunately I imagine even if a change is made now it will take time to work through the system.

Let's pull a positive out of this review and push Lionel to go back to the same truck design before the thumb tacks came back.  IMO those, which are on the old cars, had one of the most robust coupler made. 

@MartyE posted:

Let's pull a positive out of this review and push Lionel to go back to the same truck design before the thumb tacks came back.  IMO those, which are on the old cars, had one of the most robust coupler made.

No one will ever know but , I wonder if there was some sort of issue with the tooling of Lionels industry leading trucks and couplers.

Or was this a cost cutting measure.

Do these "new" trucks and couplers resemble something that could have been aquired from another manufacturer like Weaver etc?

I have no regrets purchasing these cars, details and graphics are spot on.  Kadees are not that much of a jump for me but with that said for those who don't convert will be disappointed in their operation.  That was on 0-72 curves.  Can't say what the tighter curves will look like.

They literally reinvented the wheel... TO WHAT PURPOSE?!?  Lionel should ship original trucks to all purchasers.

Jon

I’m by no means an engineer. In the video where the trucks derail on an 072 curve. These are not your standard freight car trucks. The wheelbase between the axles is quite a bit longer. Passenger car like. Most passenger cars seem to have either a coupler that pivots on the truck or body mounted couplers so the truck is free to navigate the curve.
These cars could stand some weight. At least bring them up to the heft of an Atlas with a die cast chassis.

Someone with a 3D printer or good at designing such as Mario. Could probably come up with a replacement for the Lionel coupler shank that you could mount a Kadee to. For those not wanting to body mount them. I switched to them years ago and haven’t looked back. But I realize they are not for everyone and for what your paying. They should run fine out of the box.

I recently purchased 2 older issue Milk Cars pretty cheap. No boxes. The sole purpose was just for the trucks for a couple projects. The price on the secondary market will probably bump up for those looking to upgrade to something built in the early 2000’s.

@KOOLjock1 posted:

They literally reinvented the wheel... TO WHAT PURPOSE?!?  Lionel should ship original trucks to all purchasers.

Jon

I agree 100%.  Lionel had one of the best truck setups about 7 years back the was hard to beat.  I still can't figure out for the life of me why they changed it.  I think if it was cost, most of us would have rather had an increase at least for the scale size cars.

I had no problem navigating O-36, even an O-36 S turn. I don't have two milk cars to couple together though which may be a problem. The couplers on mine perform smoothly so it must be a tolerance/QC issue in the review above. The roof is only difficult to remove the first time. Thought I would add some additional feedback as my experience has been different.

Thanks Gary. Not at all surprising. For us, no Lionel BTO and only buying after reviews say things are good. No “Must haves” any more.

Thanks for the review Gary. My NYC car has most of the wonderful features previously mentioned, couplers don't work, etc. In addition, one door will not close all the way and a few of the hinges were either not completely painted, or have some overspray on them. In addition, one of the grab irons is not pushed into the body, but glued in place. I'm not going to send it back to Charles Ro, I may fix the issues, or, simply leave it as a reminder of why I stopped preordering anything from Lionel! I only bought the NYC car to complete my set I already have. I have at least 10 - 15 more that I've purchased on here, eBay and at shows. I'm sure most here know that the prices of the older cars are well below the new MSRP, like 1/3! I'll wait for one to pop up and grab the trucks off it and turn the body into some sort of MOW shed! I'm with the previous poster as I am now in "wait and see" mode!

After all that waiting...

I noticed the Cloverland Dairy car (2026760) graphics read "NEW ORLEANS, L.A."  I have not previously seen Louisiana abbreviated like Los Angeles.  If you look at a similar HO model, the L's have a a bit of a flourish but they do not have a period between the L and the A.

Wow, disappointing on the couplers. I know from some of the cars I've bought over the years that they are not all created equal, but I've never had issue with any auto-derailing themselves. I know one of the cars(older from 90's) seem to sit slightly lower for the couplers itself. If the track was inclining or declining, this car would have issue.

For these cars not to have a swivel coupler like the old is a step into the mud. I guess they wanted to save money from what they lost for all this time, but that's not the way to do it. Guessing we're going to see more stories about bad derailments coming. ☹️

Thanks for the review Gary.  Great job!

I just received my 2 cars from Metca and have yet to try them.  I have a pile of the older Lionel milk cars and I think they are great!

The non-articulating coupler is a going to be a problem.

On another note, I know it is a cool feature, but I don't see a need for the interior tanks.  They are details that will for the most part, never be seen.  I'd much rather have the graphics on the trucks and properly working trucks.