Well, I pulled the trigger yesterday on a LionChief Plus! After an indepth e-mail conversation with Lee Willis, Lee's and Gary's videos, and everyone else's comments, I decided to buy one. It conveniently happened that I had to make a trip from my home to see my aunt in a senior facility the town of Zelienople, normally a 35 minute drive away in a blizzard. Well, it so happens that C. T. McCormick's Harware is in Zelie right before I get to my aunt's. I often stop there to buy Lionel and MTH trains. Jeff had two LionChief Plus engines, the NYC Hudson and the PRR Mikado. Well as of a half hour before closing he only had the Hudson. The price in the store was a lot less than he had on his Web site www.cttrains.com If I had a larger hobby budget, I may have purchased the Hudson to compare side by side to my MTH Hudson, but with limited funds, and having grown up near the Pennsy, I purchased the Mike for the best price I have seen. If someone out there is looking for the Hudson, get over there before Jeff sells it. I recommend him for in store and mail order service. Also, this visit, he told me about the huge layout he is building with 48 DCS controlled switches. That's another story.
I am very happy so far with the Mike, it looks good, sounds good and runs good. This comment is taking into account it is a far cry from the high end locomotives, but it is worth a fraction of locomotives like the Vision Line Big Boys; but I will always have to stay in the lower price range. No matter, I am very pleased.
I just took a video on my under construction 4x8 layout with my junky old digital camera. I will post the video another time, as I don't have time this evening.