What are you gonna buy from the new Lionel Catalog?

First of all, glad the catalog is up. Wouldn't want anyone to stroke out.

 

No real "must haves" for me although I will likely get the Lion Chief Plus Universal Remote. I've already got some LC+ on preorder from Vol. 1 but will mull over what's offered this time around.

 

And have to say that some of the 115th anniversary items are attractive. Put them on the "possibles" list.

The street price on the Union Pacific EFE  isn't to bad gonna consider it ..

Love the MR E-7 but hate the price, I'm out.  Will pop for the veterans SD60.

Joe

At $1350 street, it's $200 more than the Pennsy M1A.  But hey, it's only money!    And Lionel will be more than happy to rake in the spare change. 

 

David

I really like the look of an H7, but not weathered.

I think that weathered look is WAY OVERDONE.

In another thread I said I don't ever remember steamers looking that awful dirty and rusty...of course...I did live in the Chicago suburbs.

Perhaps 1-3 cars.

 

My Cliff Notes review of the new Lionel Catalog. Just took a few seconds...

 

Diesel, Diesel, Diesel, Diesel, Diesel, Diesel, Diesel

UP, UP

No N&W 2-8-0

Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope

Maybe NPR or MILW (Stock Car)

Got that PS-1 N&W car (double check road#)

Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope

No N&W, No N&W (21" Cars)

DONE

The Milwaukee Road E-7's hit me between the eyes.  Didn't see that comming.

I'll reserve a set of those.

 

       
       



I didn't say it was good . Just it wasn't to bad..

Debating the FEF...

Will probably order the three NS special livery SD60Es

 

Just hope its a completely new tooling. 

I will order the 3 NS SD60E.

 

Lionel if you are listening please don't ship all three on the same day...I need to space them out if I want to stay married!

Im on the fence about the SD60E - Would love to see an actual model before committing to purchase one.  

 

I'm in for at least 2 of the uni body tank cars

Dont forget you can pre-order these now and get FREE shipping on all orders over 200.00! PLUS we feature LSS (trademark pending) Lightning Shipping Service!

 

 

So far the early leaders in pre-orders are the First Response SD60, FEF, Heisler, and 115th Boxcar!

The past decade has illustrated that the Signature catalogs are mostly the scale proportioned products, and this was no exception. So my time comes when the next Ready-To-Run catalog comes out next year.

 

For a company most recognized for TOY trains, Lionel has made great strides in the past 15 years on the scale end of the hobby. And considering that in Lionel's own words, that a single locomotive run of 3,000 units is an exceptionally large run for a single scale product, Lionel is going to great effort to "try" and please the scale side of the market... also considering that 3,000 units is a small run for a starter set.

 

Actually, I do understand this marketing move: In the traditional market, Lionel is competing with the entire past production on the secondary market (of which production numbers are substantial), but also K-Line, RMT, Industrial Rail, Williams, MTH Railing, Kusan/AMT, MARX, Menards and others.

 

The scale market is the new thing and although there is competition here too, the production runs are much smaller. Atlas, MTH and Weaver were operating on a BTO method long before Lionel openly started the same procedure.

 

Some have already expressed reservations though, wanting to see if these products will meet their expectations. Yet, most of the products in this catalog are under the BTO banner. So, unless folks are willing to take a chance and commit to making a purchase, the product may get cancelled.

 

I'm certain, as others have expressed, that the SD60's - especially in the various Norfolk Southern schemes are going to be popular (I'd love to see one of those paint schemes on a traditionally sized product however un-prototypical).

 

But unless folks pre-order, they're going to be left to the dealers who take a calculated risk and order extras. And I think the larger dealers who are doing this, are quickly going to figure out just how many extras they can safely order without being burned themselves since BTO moves the risk factor from Lionel itself and onto the distributors and dealers.

 

GP9 PRR with Train Phone antennas, my weakness.....I got to talk to the treasurer of my RR. Also the Pennsy flatcar with 40' Trailer. Nice catalog well done Lionel

 

JohnB

Nothing for me I will wait and catch most of this stuff at York at some time with a dealer ready to sell at a better price all I see is a lot of remakes at higher prices it just means I will keep my money and put it into my new ford mustang thanks lionel

The Missabe SD38 diesel loco is in an appealing scheme, yet the DM&IR SD9 were the ones that were most frequent on the Grand Trunk Western and the Soo Line. So I have to wait for the 3rd Rail DM&IR SD9 model.

 

The 8-Door 86' Hi-cube boxcars for SOUTHERN PACIFIC and B&O Chessie System first. The other 8-door 86' boxcars later.

 

The Englehard and GATX Uni-body tank cars.

 

 

Andrew

I didn't see these in the catalog. Were these just conjecture?

CSX and NS Bathtub Gondolas

A lot of the catalog is rehash, so I'm going to have to look and see what I have already ordered. As usual, no engines, but there are a number of cars that interest me.

Kind of liking that Southern 630 and the CV milk car. The 21 inch UP excursion cars could be interesting.

I'm with you guys - both of you. 

 

I'm only interested in two things and they are both on page 31 of the catalog. One of course is the FEF 3. I missed out on the black version first time around. I have the Greyhound 844 and it is one of my favorites.

 

The other is the UP excursion passenger cars sets to be listed in the Signature 2016 catalog. The latter fills a gap in the 3 rail O gauge market that I had been thinking had become obvious/not easily explicable. I kind of wish Lionel had not done this because maybe GGD would have done. I should have lobbied Scott Mann about that. He always listens.

 

More generally, at these prices (and I mean in particular the street price JoJo refers to) Lionel has hit the top of the curve as far as I am concerned. They are starting to list at prices comparable to those for highly detailed/prototypically accurate brass 3 rail steam engine models. I think we know what we are getting with the existing FEF 3 die cast tooling; there will be a hole in the body shell for whistle steam. OK, I'll go for that at the dealer price because of the play value of the Legacy system.

 

But because the price difference between these models and the original Legacy FEF 3s is so substantial I won't commit to anything else from this catalog. If/when they make UP excursion cars next year I certainly look at them - with a skeptical eye if the price is set at the level I think it will be.

 

quote:

I should have lobbied Scott Mann about that. He always listens.

 

People have lobbied to Scott for years about UP cars. The issue is the riveted ACF cars cannot be done with an extrusion, without further processing of the car body (rivet decals, stamping, etching, etc...). That seemed to be the sticking point for making them cost something people would pay.

IMO, these cars are best shot in plastic. I just hope that with the advance notice teaser, Lionel is going all in and making exact cars, not generic equivalents (although the note about a 2 pack, a 4 pack and a SS diner leaves me feeling non-optimistic).

Sorry Larry, my attempt at adding a little humor as the OP titled the thread in such a way the many people had already seen the catalog, which obviously had not happened.

 

So I added my little wish list. I would buy those items if Lionel did make them though and I think a lot of other people would as well, as least the 2400 series green cars.

 

Charlie

I looked through the catalog 2-3 times looking for these! They seem to be stuck on the Baby Madisons for now, but the 2400 series cars would have more appeal, IMHO.

 

I would buy them as well. Would be nice if they made a set similar to the 1990 SSS so people could mix and match with older cars for a longer train. 

I hear ya, man.  This is a slight twist on another somewhat related post -- perhaps in a different thread, I've lost track.  It's along the lines of one guy was once able to buy whatever he wanted in the catalog... say 20 items.  But now he only buys two, so Lionel needs 10 folks to buy 2 items, where one person once bought all 20.

 

So I see folks who really want something will "sacrifice" the purchase of other items just to obtain a highly sought-after piece.  We could argue that we all do this to some degree on a grander scale every day... among Lionel, MTH, Atlas-O, and 3rd Rail/GGD.  Heck, few if any of us posting here is that likely to have infinite wealth to spend on toy trains.  But when we need to do this "part-and-parceling" within one given catalog (as opposed to across the spectrum of offerings from multiple importers), that's really saying something.  And you'd think Lionel had this HUGE untapped market staring at them the way they keep raising prices. 

 

Gotta admit... it's interesting/entertaining to watch it unfold.

 

David

Nothing as I have to get my old layout torn down and build a new one first!

 

---Greg

This one is a must have for me!

 

I really like how it says "Assigned to Passenger Service". I have a lot of PRR head end and express cars, this will look cool at the end of a consist of them all mixed together.

Building a layout is the best way to govern one's tendencies to acquire endless waves of new trains that wind up in permanent storage.  Trust me... I've been down that road a few times in this hobby.  

 

David

Lots of big stuff - large steamers, E-7s, 86' HiCubes, 60' boxcars, 89' auto carriers, 21" passenger cars - all useless to those with modest sized layouts. Saw nothing that generated a wow factor. Maybe the Rio Grande GP if they can get the colors right this time, and a few cars are possible but not really necessary. For me, there are much more interesting things on my backlog list than what's in this catalog. 

 

Disappointing that there are zero new LC+ engines.

At a glance, nothing. No Pilot locos to tempt me. I'l have to re-visit the rolling stock.

I do like the weathered 2-8-8-2's, especially the C&O.

 

(And it's not that there aren't some desirable things in it; but I have so much that it has to be really on-target for me - like the L&N Heavy Mike of recent memory; that I have on my layout right now.)

Your site says shipping is not included, so is this an early bird perk, or is the site wrong?

 

I should have guessed that others had been quicker about this issue (O gauge UP excursion cars) and what the manufacturing problems are. MTH has the rivets on its UP cars but they are otherwise pretty standardized.

 

At least there will be the first run of Lionel's 21" ABS cars before we see the excursion cars cataloged and that will be the acid test of whether these new offerings are "generic" in window placement, interiors etc. or not. I'm a little non-optimistic too; catalog images of the new cars show no difference in general approach to exteriors from previous offerings . . .

 

But that's talking about a future catalog, not this one.

Well, Rocky (Bullwinkle here), we can only guess at the business strategy at work here, but mine is that they must be pitching at the market for more detailed models but with the operating features that the smaller specialized importers can't match. I think that these latest offerings (the FEF 3s) are priced right at the top end of what people can stomach spending. 

If I could it would be an SD60E. 

SP Hi-Cubes... that's it! The new catalog sucks along with their new website. and the prices.....

 

well, I'll just stick with 3rd Rail.

If I had the curves (and TMCC, and money) I's buy one of the SD60Es. Or I might wait until MTH does a Railking version (hopefully). Second would be one of the new log cars. Aside from that, the TMCC cranes are still on my want list, but everything else in the catalog was a rehash or uninteresting. I wish there was more Pittsburgh stuff. MTH surprised me in the last catalog by having so much Pittsburgh trains (PATrain RDCs, AVR GP9).

LOS,

 

    Is 3rd Rail that big of a bargin? I never thought of them as a low cost alternative.

 

JohnB

The PRR cabin cars are of interest.  Since there is no T1 #6111, and no Pennsy Torpedo and no burly H10,I just may throw the dice and go for a St. Regis Paper Heisler.

Even when I was roaming Upstate,the St. Regis Paper Co. was almost gone.  That Heisler would be nice though.

 

Norm

I believe you're misinterpreting him. You're correct, 3rd Rail is not a low cost alternative. Although it is more expensive, LOS likes 3rd Rail products, and with what he perceives to be the rising cost of Lionel products, he's saying he'll stick with 3rd Rail. I think that's what he's saying, although the tractor's running.

I might get the Smithsonian boxcar but that's about it.

 

Jerry

Probably nothing. There are a few things I'd like to have (Milwaukee Road E7's and flatcars, a Heisler with whistle smoke) but I'm priced out. $89.95 for a flatcar and a grand for a set of AA diesels with one powered is just more than I can justify, especially since I'm also facing a storage space issue. Good-bye, Lionel, it's been nice knowing you.