greasing gearsets on new legacy locos

I follow their advice and do not grease them.   I have not had any problems due to this.

Most of my Lionel locos in the last year or two have been steamers: V Hudson, V Challenger, Legacy Mallet, Yellowstone, Texas, Northern, Blue Comet and So. Crescent, DD35, two U-boats, a Shay, and conventional  Mogul, Atlantic, and "Hall class" GW 4900 (Hogwarts). 

I have not noticed a lot of play - newer models seem to be built to tighter tolerances - more of them being "just right, with neither a lot of play or too-tight assembly from the factory that needs to be loosened up by a lot of running and greasing. 

Stil, anymore, I run a loco in at medium speed, if possible, for a steady hour.  I do notice that some (ATSF 3759 Northern) run much smoother after that hour than out of the box. I do this mainly because I have had three locos (both U-boats, an MTH 241.A) that died within an hour total running.  I figure to stress test every loco right out of the box from now on.

I am careful.  I have a handheld temperature sensor "gun" and I check the temp of the loco body before, during and at the end, particularly after five minutes or so, in case friction or something is causing problems, but I have never had any issues.  Interesting that on all my recent Legacy steam locos, the degree rise on the tender body (about 5 deg F) is more than on the loco body near the motor's location (3-4 deg max).  This may have more to do with the fact that cast metal conducts heat away faster than plastic, than with the fact that the electronics in the tender actually creates more heat than anything else. 

Most all of my engines are diesels and there is a lot of play in them.  I too have left off the grease as the videos suggest.  Most do run smoothly...even more than some of my ho models.

I greased mine with a bit of Lucas red n' tacky. The exposed gears are one thing the bigger potential problem is the internal worm gear assembly. I opened up the trucks on my legacy gp7 there was little grease in there if any.Its fairly easy to get in there remove the small philips screws on the bottom of the trucks. There are four visible on the outside cover and a few more once thats removed, you may also want to remove the ground wire to make things a bit easier. Make sure you have a good screwdriver and use some care not to strip out the screwheads.

Was this a new loco?...or did you have problems and went in to see if there was grease there?  Surely we don't have to do this on new locos...do we?

Yes it was brand new. I check/grease all of my new locos as I get them.

EXCELLENT practice!

Both of my Legacy 4-8-4 steam models (UP FEF-3 #844 and GS-4 Daylight) appeared to have NEVER been lubed at the "factory". In fact, the SP GS-4 squeaked and squealed so loudly when new "out of the box", I had to remove the boiler in order to oil the entire motor & drive shaft bearings.

I've also noticed a couple of recent arrivals are dry when I take them out of the box.  As long as you don't slather the grease/oil on, I don't see any harm in lubing when you get them.

I noticed this in the videos as well and specifically checked the manual on the new RS-11.  The manual still indicates that grease should be put on the gears, oil on the bearings. I used a small amount of Red n Tacky.