New Lionel FA's

I saw Eric Siegel of Ericstrains picked up from legacy station his CP FA and FB units in the latest episode 77. I am sure we’ll see a review soon.

I have a Lehigh Valley A-B-B-A set on order myself. 

How do the colors look?

M J Breen posted:

I saw Eric Siegel of Ericstrains picked up from legacy station his CP FA and FB units in the latest episode 77. I am sure we’ll see a review soon.

I have a Lehigh Valley A-B-B-A set on order myself. 

That's good to hear.  That doesn't necessarily mean he'll review them but there's a chance.  Fingers crossed.  When you get them, if you could post pics or video of your ABBA set, that would be much appreciated.

I only bought a superbass FB, since I already have an ABBA set of the 2014 release. The first one I got was a non-programmable dud. I dont know if it was the switch or the board, I just sent it back to Charles Ro and got a second. The second one took an address and holds it. The wires for the electrocoupler are a problem. They are way too long and get in the way of the wheels. I dont think it would take too long for the wheel flange to shred the insulation and short out the works. I found the solution to be easy, simply remove the electrocoupler wiring from the truck block (i.e. make it a dummy coupler). Others may not feel like opening it up to do that. It being a B unit, the amount of times where I'd use the coupler anyways was going to be zero.

I bought a NYC unit. Its black, and I find it to be an acceptable shade of black.

Colors on my SP&S FA2 set appear to be spot on for the “as-delivered” units. 

Thanks everyone.  I hope we don't start hearing more ID problems like Boilermaker1.

No problems with my superbass B unit. Correct color and sounds awesome!

I took these at York today at one of the seller’s booth in the orange hall. The Lehigh valley may be a tad on the red side, but not a deal breaker for me. I’ll still enjoy my set once they come in. 

These are the custom run Santa Fe and Reading Units For Nicolas Smith.  

Here are the NYC:

Any CP unit pics?

Al

Thanks for the pics everyone.  I guess Lionel can't screw up black!  Unfortunately, I'm a Missouri Pacific guy and I can't say the same about those.  They are a pretty awful shade of blue.  It drives me crazy because it's not like they have MoPac in every catalog.  I don't have any pics but there are some at the bottom of this thread.

Al,

These run perfectly!! The super bass rattles the windows.

I received my set of 4 (2 FA & 2 FB) Santa Fes from Nicholas Smith and everything is in good working order!  They take their TMCC programming numbers and all.  This is my first super bass B unit.  The Lionel owners manual says you can command control a consist of these Alcos two ways: either same-engine-ID addressing (you program all 4 units to an identical TMCC number, I think) or Train-ID addressing (you program each unit with a unique TMCC number, then train build all those numbers together under one common train number to make up the consist, I think). 

I never tried the first scenario before, so that's what I did, programmed them all, one at a time, with an identical TMCC number. They all took the number and ran together as a consist, but any units running in the consist which were physically in reverse had their read headlights on.

So then I went to my more familiar scenario of programming each unit with a unique TMCC number, they all took the numbers, I train-built them all together under one train number, and ran them in a consist, this time flawlessly, including no rear headlights within the consist ever coming on.

Hope some of you may find this feedback helpful.

Rick

How q oit some blue and yellow ones for VIA Rail Canada?  MLW built some FA variant for CP and/or CN for optional passenger service.  VIA got some of these.

The Reading engines are sweet 👍🏼

MineRun posted:

I received my set of 4 (2 FA & 2 FB) Santa Fes from Nicholas Smith and everything is in good working order!  They take their TMCC programming numbers and all.  This is my first super bass B unit.  The Lionel owners manual says you can command control a consist of these Alcos two ways: either same-engine-ID addressing (you program all 4 units to an identical TMCC number, I think) or Train-ID addressing (you program each unit with a unique TMCC number, then train build all those numbers together under one common train number to make up the consist, I think). 

I never tried the first scenario before, so that's what I did, programmed them all, one at a time, with an identical TMCC number. They all took the number and ran together as a consist, but any units running in the consist which were physically in reverse had their read headlights on.

So then I went to my more familiar scenario of programming each unit with a unique TMCC number, they all took the numbers, I train-built them all together under one train number, and ran them in a consist, this time flawlessly, including no rear headlights within the consist ever coming on.

Hope some of you may find this feedback helpful.

Rick

Rick,

The trailing FA unit is designed to start in reverse? With the headlight normally off?

It comes on when you change directions as it now moves forward, the lead FA headlight goes off as it is now in reverse?

M J Breen posted:

I took these at York today at one of the seller’s booth in the orange hall. The Lehigh valley may be a tad on the red side, but not a deal breaker for me. I’ll still enjoy my set once they come in. 

That blue B unit in the photo part of the 6-85216 Conrail set?  Is it the same blue they painted the Missouri Pacific units?? 

BOBBYD: Yes, the trailing FA unit is designed to start in reverse, that is, when programming it with the SAME TMCC NUMBER as the lead FA unit. That's what it did, anyway. That's how is ran nicely in the lashup. And the trailing FA headlight was off, that is: the trailing FA's headlight in the NOSE. There is another headlight in the rear of this trailing FA unit, it's next to and on one side diaphragm on the rear. This is the headlight that came on, and should be on if this unit was running in that direction if it was a single unit, but it is not prototypically supposed to be on when this end of the locomotive is embeded in a lashup.

Rick

MineRun posted:

BOBBYD: Yes, the trailing FA unit is designed to start in reverse, that is, when programming it with the SAME TMCC NUMBER as the lead FA unit. That's what it did, anyway. That's how is ran nicely in the lashup. And the trailing FA headlight was off, that is: the trailing FA's headlight in the NOSE. There is another headlight in the rear of this trailing FA unit, it's next to and on one side diaphragm on the rear. This is the headlight that came on, and should be on if this unit was running in that direction if it was a single unit, but it is not prototypically supposed to be on when this end of the locomotive is embeded in a lashup.

Rick

Thanks Rick! So when you do the lashup the rear headlights no longer illuminate? 

We quit purchasing MTH units that need to be "lashed up" because when doing so it drops the Grade Crossing warning!  Their coolest sound feature for guest operators. I'd rather lose the 2 horn blasts than the grade crossing feature...

Lionel needs better quality control, MTH needs better Beta testors! 

BOBBYD: Yes, the rear headlights on these FA and FB units no longer illuminate when they are embeded in a lashup, but only because I first programmed each unit with its own UNIQUE TMCC number, and then created a new TRAIN number and built these units into this train number.

After telling all these gory details to my girlfriend, she asked "did you enjoy spending your evening doing this?"