Model Train Journal

Anyone take a look at the catalog that was just released this week -

http://catalogs.lionel.com/18c2/


Thoughts?

Christopher,

I just did. I am intrigued by the Legacy controllers for DZ-2500 switch machines. I wonder (doubt it) if these work with TMCC.

I noticed something curious about the Warren Harding funeral train headed by the PRR K4s #3750 in pre-war configuration. It has a round freight number board on its nose. Typically passenger engines had red keystones, although I don't know when that practice started.

George

here's a pic of the real thing -

There are some new LCS modules that might be useful for people that don't use Fast Track.

christopher2035 wrote:here's a pic of the real thing -

Thanks Christoper! So the red keystone is a post-war thing along with the drop-coupler and modified front end.

George

So the red keystone is a post-war thing along with the drop-coupler and modified front end

The keystone started appearing after WW1 but before WW2. "Pennsy Power" (by Staufer) has numerous pictures of K-4's from 1917- 1954 (pages 166-167) showing the changes in the smoke box cover numbering and the front pilot transformations.

I never noticed that K4s had box headlights. Odd.

I don't like Lionel building funeral trains.

I never noticed that K4s had box headlights. Odd.

Prototype was number 1737 built in 1914. Original headlight was actually oil fired. That headlight was electrified but retained the box shape. Only one other photo of a K4 with a box headlight and that's from 1923. All of the other shots are later in time and have some version of a round headlamp, either mounted on a shelf bracket on top of the smoke box cover. This included Baldwin as well as Juniata builds.

I' don't get the morbid fascination with the funeral trains either.

Thanks for the K4 info, Chuck.

Twenty years from now, I can imagine someone with a home decorated with Lionel funeral trains on shelves. "And here, we have the William Henry Harrison funeral train room"...

chuck wrote:I' don't get the morbid fascination with the funeral trains either.

Hey, when you're closing in on market saturation, you have to go somewhere.

healey36 wrote:

chuck wrote:I' don't get the morbid fascination with the funeral trains either.

Hey, when you're closing in on market saturation, you have to go somewhere.

Paul, I think you hit the nail on the head.

Back in the 90's and early 2000s, Lionel produced every possible variant of the NYC Hudson known to man (and then some)! Dreyfuss, skirted, unskirted, caffeinated, decaf, you name it! It seemed like they came out with one every 15 minutes or so.

George

I kind of like the Southern Pacific A6 Atlantic in Daylight colors. It's short enough not to look too bad, on tighter turns. (The cars it pulls are another story.)

Interesting that there are NO RailChief locos.

Milwaukee SD40-2 is the only thing that catches my eye.

Nothing in it for me. Or the latest MTH catalog. either.