New American flyer Delaware & Hudson FlyerChief Northern #302

Handsome locomotive!

2 questions please - I've not followed Lionel Flyer production; is this from the old Gilbert Challenger tooling?

Does Flyer Fastrack have a prototypical rail cross-section profile or is it similar to 3 rail Fastrack?  It looks good from here!

Hi,

I have no idea about the tooling, sorry.

The Fastrack is similar to the 3 rail.

Locomotive runs fantastic, These most likely are going to sell out quickly like the last ones (2016). I had mine on pre order from Trainworld.

Fun runner! It's really sharp looking with the yellow lettering.

I have a first run NYC version from  several years ago. These engines are made from new tooling. Mine has the engine and fireman figures in the cab. If you want better sounds then you have to do what I did. Take out the FlyerChief system and replace it with TMCC/Railsounds.

S gauge FasTrack uses a prototypical cross section rail that is .138" tall. The same cross section and rail height as used on SHS/MTH track and FVM track. It is the smallest that will allow operation of all the Lionel AF and Gilbert equipment. SHS advertised this rail as being a scale model of PRR 155# rail that is long out of use.

Yeah, I was hoping for improved sounds. But it's fine for now.

@c.sam posted:

Does Flyer Fastrack have a prototypical rail cross-section profile or is it similar to 3 rail Fastrack?  It looks good from here!

SHS/MTH S-Trax and Lionel S FasTrack:

With a little cutting, they can even play together:

Rusty

Tom (AmFlyer) - you said these are new tooling for the castings (?).  It looks a lot like my 'old' UP FEF Flyer #332 -- I guess I'll have to go dig it out and make a closer comparison with the photo.  I knew (I think) that there were some minor changes in the front of the firebox, for example (LED class lights?), but the pilot casting looks very similar.  I think the cab side windows have more lites in them in the newer version.

The design is the same as the original Gilbert Northerns. Lionel discussed this subject some time ago, now I do not recall if the original tooling was unusable, incomplete or missing. The FlyerChief Northern engines use new tooling. It is apparent when the engines are examined close up.

Here are three pictures of my NYC first run FlyerChief Northern. Compare these to an original Gilbert Northern.

The original Flyer Northern style boiler casting was suffering from mold imperfections from years of reuse and was replaced by Lionel. Probably the tender shell also.

Ok Tom - here are some pictures of my ACG 332 for comparison.  My lighting isn't very good so some details are hard to see - except of course for the dust!  Sheesh (its been sitting on a shelf is my excuse).  I think it's clear that many of the boiler details in the casting are crisper in your loco so there likely are new molds.  It doesn't seem to me on a quick comparison that other details were added to the new molds.  A sharper eye than mine might dispute that.

Similar to my somewhat bemused 'grousing' about the EP-5 electrics being offered by Flyonel in RR names/colors for which there are no prototypes (other than New Haven), Gilbert's Northern was a pretty good model of the UP FEF (which I think was the last set of steam engines bought by UP).  Other RRs had 4-8-4s, of course, but they differed from the UP version...

- Rich

@AmFlyer posted:

The design is the same as the original Gilbert Northerns. Lionel discussed this subject some time ago, now I do not recall if the original tooling was unusable, incomplete or missing. The FlyerChief Northern engines use new tooling. It is apparent when the engines are examined close up.

In fact, the only piece of tooling carried over from the old Gilbert tooling to fabricate the new L-AF Northern (starting with the black and two-tone grey UP's) is the pilot. That's it. If one studies the new vs. old, one will easily notice that the central area of the boiler is more round (and correct) for the L-AF version.

Hope this clarifies.

Bob