Pennsy E-8 Diesels

They look great...MTH I guess? what model # are they?

Not MTH. These are the new Lionel Legacy E-8's from the 2013 catalog.

What dealer did you get them from?

Nicholas Smith

Great looking locomotives, thanks for sharing the pictures!

Hey great set! and looks to me like a close to acceptable price. Does the dummy A unit do anything?

How is the sound?

Thanks for sharing.

Great looking set Sean; does it look like the pilots could be fixed and still get enough front truck swing o operate on 0-72?

thanks for posting the photos!

Just placed an order with Nicholas Smith and they e-mailed back they were shipping the E-8s this afternoon.  I am trying to build the Pennsylvania "South Wind" which ran from Chicago to Florida and passed not to far from where I live.

Neal Jeter

I don't see anything wrong with the pilots at all.  As far as I know it can run as is on 072.  Great looking AA set and with your photo's it really shows the length of these engines.  Thanks for posting and I think you got a good deal on them. 

Steve, Lady and Tex

I believe what he meant by "fixed" as in, mounting the pilots so that they are attached to the frame instead of swivel with the truck to make it more realistic looking.

Dummy has Lights, smoke and electro couplers.  Basically everything the Powered unit has except Motors, Sound and Cab Figures

I'm not sure.  I see guys on here talking about fixed pilots all the time but I'm not familiar with what that actually means.

From the photos posted the pilot looks to me, not fixed, and swivels with the truck.

Fixed pilots = Pilots mounted rigidly to the frame like on the real prototypes so they they remain "fixed" in position, and not swivel with the trucks around curves.

So on these models the pilot is the piece of the body where the front coupler comes through?

Sean, this is a beautiful set at a very good price. Good luck with them.

I have to give Lionel credit for going with this late era paint scheme circa 1965.  You don't see this as a factory applied scheme very often!

Very nice looking model!  I would say from the photos, the pilot is not fixed and it is not fixed on the new Lionel E-9s, either.  Still, great looking e units all over the place from Lionel!

The pilot is mounted to the truck frames, yes.  Common on 3-rail O gauge models.  This historically has been done to allow the model to navigate sharper curves by maximizing coupler swing without having to have an excessively large coupler opening.  The downside is of course the pilot also swings out with the trucks & couplers, and cuts down on the realism of the model.  It's basically been an operational compromise.

2-rail O scale diesels have fixed pilots (like Atlas O and the scale wheels versions of MTH locomotives) so they don't swing in curves, but as a consequence it does limit the minimum curves that it can run without derailing the cars its pulling (and other engines if in a MU/lashup).  HO and N scale diesel locomotives have fixed pilots as well.

In the prototype world there were a small handful of locomotives that had swinging pilots; some Turbine locomotives did that come to mind; the Jawn Henry & B&O EM-1 as well as a couple of the Union Pacific GTELs as I recall.