Lionel ZW-D

George S,

   You are a smart man George, as far as I know there is no such Lionel product as a ZW-D.  No matter who they claim owned it.

PCRR/Dave

This was part of an auction in early December of last year with many items from Neil's collection.  A fair number of items were odd-ball non-released prototypes such as this.   (There were also a group of prototype Legacy hand-held units (just another example), IIRC).

There were at least a few of these up for auction (maybe 3 or 4?), all with the same note included in that auction regarding unknown functionality at this point in time.

Lionel showed one of these at York at least once many years ago.  At the time the proposed name was "Yard Boss", I believe.  Basically a ZW with a CAB-1 interface built in to the top so you could operate the advanced functions from the transformer.

Owning one would be cool, but I wasn't interested or serious enough about it to register to bid with the auction house.  I'm also not serious enough to go for the one on eBay right now.

It is interesting that the current owner removed the top to show the electronics inside for the last pic.

-Dave

I assume this is TMCC, not Legacy, but it has a screen! I always wished the TMCC remote would have had a screen so you could see what you were doing...

I just noticed the eBay auction has a link to the original auction house and the results are shown.

Looks like the 3 that looked exactly like this model went for $896 or $1024, so the current offer is a decent profit if he can get it.

Here's a filtered link for the original auction showing everything "ZW".  The prototype remote that looked like it had a single ZW handle as a throttle went even higher, that one did actually go for nearly two grand!  (and it was specifically called out as non-functional!)

Auctions of celebrities stuff is odd.  While it comes with the piece of paper to prove the provenance that it was owned by NY, there were also a lot of very generic items going for huge premiums.  As an example, a PWC Executive Inspection car went for $640! 

-Dave

Yep, I have one celebrity item that I overpaid for, if you call Richard Kuhn a celebrity.  I have my "piece of paper", but I run the train.

Oh, Yes there is a ZW-D. Plus, a couple of prototypes of that model.  I saw a couple the other day. He also had many other neat items from Neil's collection. Including 

Another weird looking transformer. So, I don't know if the person on selling on eBay is the same person I know. But, I will tell you ...some cool stuff.

shawn posted:

Oh, Yes there is a ZW-D. Plus, a couple of prototypes of that model.  I saw a couple the other day. He also had many other neat items from Neil's collection. Including 

Another weird looking transformer. So, I don't know if the person on selling on eBay is the same person I know. But, I will tell you ...some cool stuff.

I suspect it must be, as upon further observation, I recognize the counter the pictures were taken at!

-Dave

Dave45681 posted:

At the time the proposed name was "Yard Boss", I believe. 

Yes, this is the Yard Boss.

Yep definitely the Yard Boss. There wee a few of them at the auction. Saw one in person years ago. 

Oh ya, I wanted one for the longest!!