Has Lionel made another production run on the Union Pacific Heritage SD70ACe's?

Unless someone brings out an SD70ace in TT scale, the market for heritage units has been saturated.

Shame Lionel left a few undone of the UP fleet.

 

Got all I need.

I was sorely tempted to pick up the same BNSF and UP diesels, but I thought I would wait and keep my fingers crossed for Lionel to reintroduce them with fixes. The trucks of the 2012 SD70ACe have middle wheelsets that do not contact the rails and fail to provide either traction or electrical contact. Although this is not a problem for most users, I use American Models switches; and Carl Tuveson has pointed out that these early units can stall across the plastic frogs on those switches in some cases. Lionel redesigned the trucks for the ES44AC models, and now they provide better operation.

I'm hoping Lionel reintroduces BNSF and UP versions in both SD70ACe and ES44AC models with these revised trucks, non-glossy paint, and headlights in the nose. I figured it will be worth the wait--and then I can get over "non-buyer's remorse."

....UP Western Pacific and KATY units please....

Ben

If the catalog is to believed, the new ES44's aren't going to be produced in the same quantities ("Limited Production" or some such phrasing) as the previous SD70's and ES44's. 

 

So, there may not be as many blowouts as in the past.  Pretty sure Lionel would like to get away from blowouts.

 

Rusty

I can tell you, if I had the extra bucks those blowout prices were great.
Hopefully, the big L will produce the CP ES44 that some of us are waiting for!

The ES44AC units do not have the problems with track connections like the early SD70's and U33's.  That was corrected.  

 

Carl's fix was great and I did it on 6 locos but the problem is Lionel ran out of the wheels sets and isn't planning to produce more.  The wheel sets were of the U33's.  Now to do the fix you have to buy a whole truck.  Too much $$.

Lionel redesigned the trucks for the ES44AC models, and now they provide better operation.

I did mention that in my previous post, and that is why I decided to wait for new products with the hope that Lionel will run new numbers of SD70 and ES44 models with the headlights in the nose. Although the catalogs often failed to show or mention it, Lionel was quite good in making variants of U33C (special lights for SP and Northern Pacific; different placement of horns), Challenger (smoke stacks and number boards), and Y3 models (number boards and window paint). I'm hoping that nose headlights appear as variants for new SD70 and ES44 models.

I did end up buying the Y3 at the closeout because it could run reasonably well on DC (instead of the Challenger whose electronics I had to strip out until the Legacy 990 is available again). Bill, your video of the Y3 in action stated that with reprogramming the Y3 reverse light now lights in reverse and is off in forward. Is that correct, and is the reprogramming available to those who want or need to run in DC?

It seems most roads today favor headlights in the nose. But all is not lost. Perhaps we'll see some standard black NS ES44ACs. The upper headlights are correct, and they would give us something to dilute the fleet of those many heritage units we bought.

Well, unless Lionel brings samples to York, we'll have to wait until December (so far...) to find out.

 

Rusty