Got some info from Lionel on the 2015 rotary snow plow and Legacy boom car.

Chris, did you ask if it would work clearing snow off our roofs?

Paul

That's good news...

Now how about a scale rotary?

Thanks,

Mario

Another good example of how efficient Mike Reagan's Team is in answering questions. Thanks Chris.

Mario,

  Who makes that snow plow you have shown in your post?

Thanks Chris!  I hHave the MOW boom car on order and a DT&I crane to go with it.  I've been thinking about the new command rotary snow plows...can motors make it that much more interestong to me.  I've always wanted one of these.  The Rio Gande may just find a home here.

The small motorized units like the rotary snow plow have always been on the pricey side but with a can motor and TMCC I can justify pulling the trigger on one. The old "Coffee grinder" motor made me sell a regular Vulcan type switcher I had a few years back.  That and the lack of power didn't make it nearly worth the $200 plus Price tag in my opinion. 

Chris,

When the new catalog was first released, I brought up the question about what type of motor will in the rotary snowplow.

I assumed that the motor for the operating blades would be a can. However, did they specifically say that the drive motor was to be changed to a can type?

Dave

I guess that still needs to be clarified now that you bring it up. The email said the rotary plow will have can motors?  I know the blades have a separate can motor but who ever Relaid the message did not specifically say the drive motor??? 

It will be interesting to see if they'll be converted to a can motor from the Pullmor. The Tie-jector engine on the next page simply says "powerful motor" in its description; that seems to indicate it will still have a Pullmore. Every other cataloged description of a motorized unit or engine says "'maintenance-free motor" or "can motor" which clearly indicates a DC can motor. So it seems either the Rotary and the Tie-jector will stick with Pullmors, or else Lionel hadn't yet determined what kind of motor they will have, as of press-time. Incidentally, the missile launch engines on the following page indicate can motors, and they used to have Pullmors.

Because of the location of the motor shaft, any increase in motor height could interfere with the cab's rear wall on the Vulcan type engines. That's why I'm skeptical.

The Gas Turbine style, that I'm more interested in, has a larger cab set farther back.

They could have redesigned the frame altogether, and moved the motors position.

Dave

Until I know for sure "No sale" if they put in the same old grinder Motor in it! 

quote:

So it seems either the Rotary and the Tie-jector will stick with Pullmors

Did any of the modern era Tie-jector cars have a Pullmor motor? I purchased the first reissue, I thought it has a can motor, but I have not looked at it in a long time.

Looks nice, anyone know what road names? Don

Isn't that from the Hawaiian RR? 

That's promising - hope they change it on the Rotary as well. It's curious that with the Tie-Jectors the catalog only says "powerful motor" and not "maintenance-free motor" or "can motor" like it says with every other motorized unit with a DC can motor....but this would hardly be the first catalog inconsistency ever recorded! 

Thanks Chris

The Rio-Grande rotary plow has my attention---was hoping Lionel has info/mock-up at York

Joe S  

Breeze:  I have the very first Tie-Jector Lionel re-relased during the MTI years (PRR in red), perhaps 15-18 years ago.  It has a can motor.  Considering that these new units also have added electronics in them, I seriously doubt that Lionel could cram in a Pulmor motor too. 

The MOW boom car is catalogued as a having a quillable air horn, not steam whistle, although maybe that is still what you are after. I have a TMCC crane and boom car (PRR) with a steam whistle sound but I have not seen this advertised for any of the Legacy boom cars.

It would be nice if someone from Lionel could comment and clarify on a couple of these things. 

Chris, since you'd have to be in Legacy mode to activate the Quilling whistle, and your crane car will still be TMCC, how are you actually going to take advantage of it?  Operationally, they're set to the same TMCC ID so they appear to be one unit.

Agreed - I think that this is a question for them rather than dealers and those who obsess over the catalogs, like me. If I knew who to ask at Lionel I'd email.

John, would this make a difference? With a CAB2 you get a special set of keypad options for the TMCC crane. I can see that you would have to enter "Legacy Railsounds" in the engine info but as the boom car has the sound equipment, not the crane, wouldn't the boom car get the right commands?

You can't get the quilling whistle if you are transmitting in TMCC mode, which will be necessary to talk to the crane car.  You're using the same TMCC ID for both the boom car and the crane. 

Switching back and forth would be pretty tiring, I don't see this working all that well.  I think to get satisfactory operation, you'll need the Legacy crane as well.

Good point John I hadn't thought about that.  Maybe I'll just order a caboose from the catalog and call it a day!  

I guess you'll have some time to decide - I've asked around and the word about these crane and boom car models is that they won't be available until the middle of this year, say June or July.

I'll be curious if they make any improvements on the crane. I was working on my TMCC crane last night. One outrigger would not deploy and the other would not stay locked in place. The plastic tab that holds the outrigger in is plastic and hardly bigger than the head of a pin. It appears that with time the plastic fatigues and loses any spring tension it has. I bent it back up but I am not confident it will stay in place.

Pete

Frankly I would not count on it despite the fact that this is a known issue with the TMCC crane. After a minimal amount of use mine developed the same problem although it was cured by replacing the middle outrigger mechanism. I have studied that part and it would seem replacing plastic with metal would do the trick.

That's the one feature of the car I never use.  Since you have to stuff them back in manually, not to mention put the stands out if they're actually functional, I don't see the utility of that feature.  With the limited capacity of the crane, I don't think the outriggers are all that functional.

During development, we will test the upcoming Legacy boom car with the earlier TMCC crane. Our goal is to make them work together without having to switch CAB2 settings.  

Rudy Trubitt

Director of Audio

Lionel, LLC

Rudy, what would you gain by using the Legacy boom car with the TMCC crane? 

The legacy boom car will have the fun features of the original TMCC version, plus quilling whistle and a collection of motion sounds as the car moves along the track--rail clatter, wheel flange and bumping sounds. These are similar to what we did for the Vision tank cars. The forthcoming vision reefer boxcars will also have this sort of wheels-and-tracks sound effects.

I made my earlier comment because it sounded like an earlier poster had the older crane, but didn't have the companion TMCC boom car. We'd like there to be an option for people with the older crane to add the new sound effects, as the TMCC boom cars are not available from Lionel.

That would be great!  Thanks for your input Rudy;Much appreciated.

Actually its less about being able to deploy them then it is to have them sticking out and not being able to push them and stay. Makes it problematic is you move the car and it starts catching switch machines.

Pete

I agree John. I never use them either and could just as well do without them but I do like the sound of the deployment.  If they just had sound and didn't move that would be OK with me. 

CA Adhesive, they will not move!