After hemming and hawing over my Lionel catalog for the past six months, I finally broke down and bought the one Lionchief Plus 2.0 locomotive that I wanted the most-- the Rock Island "Rocket" GP7.
First of all, unpacking the locomotive. Lionchief locomotives are very economically packaged with plastic blow-molded trays. I was a bit disconcerted by how much the loco rattled from inside of the box, but the locomotive seemed quite alright when I pulled it out.
After lubricating all of the gears (very important since these engines are shipped "dry"), I set the locomotive on the track.
The "Rocket" paint scheme is very attractive, although besides the paint the model's detailing is very basic. Some of the parts have a rather plasticky finish-- you can see how the flash on my camera lights them up. The wheelsets in the trucks have a lot of lateral play to them, but this didn't seem to impact operation.
After a bit of fiddling to get it set into TMCC mode-- I had to pull a bunch of illuminated passenger cars off my layout to get the locomotive to program-- I was finally ready for the inaugural run!
The ten-minute break-in run went well. At first I was getting a little bit of gear noise from the locomotive, but I mostly resolved this by re-lubricating the gears on the side of the trucks (making sure to hit all three of them as well as the geared wheels). The LC+2.0 sounds are quite nice, if a bit more simple than Legacy. You don't get a proper quilling horn, and in TMCC you only get the one horn sound (although I believe there is a way to alter the sounds using the Bluetooth App). I suppose I am spoiled with having a Legacy engine to compare it with.
After the basic shakedown, the next performance test was low-speed operation. I was pleasantly surprised by just how nicely this locomotive runs at low speed in TMCC mode. Most MTH Railking locomotives don't run smoothly below 5 or 10 SMPH, but this Lionchief+ can crawl at even 1 TMCC tick (which I guess is around 3 SMPH). The speed control is very well done on these engines!
The final test was the most demanding-- the drawbar pull. I coupled up all four of my super-heavy, diecast-bodied, K-Line coal hoppers and ran the locomotive up and down the rolling hills on my layout. I did hear a little bit of gear noise while pushing the cars in reverse, but the GP7 didn't stall or spin out. I wasn't sure that it would pull well since it's not a super heavy locomotive, but with dual can motors and traction tires, it does just fine.
I would say that this is an excellent running locomotive for O gauge operations. Although the finish and sound system are pretty typical for modern engines, the track performance is on par with significantly more expensive locomotives. It pulls well, tracks well, and is well put together. The trio of command options (TMCC/Legacy, Lionchief and Bluetooth) should allow anyone to access its features.
Thanks for reading! I still have to set up the Lionchief app and try out the Bluetooth controls, I will post my observations on that when I get to it. In the meantime, here's one more video for you to enjoy.
