Impulse Buy Lionel PRR T1

Nice score, I'd have jumped on that one as well!

Very cool !!  You rolled the dice and came up a winner !!  Beautiful engine.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained!! Congrats!!

GOTTA love a PRR T1!!  I have a few of them.....the loco that lured me to the PRR........Congrats!

Nothing wrong with that impulse!  

Very good deal. When I toured the Lionel Mt. Clemens factory in 2000 at the LCCA/ Lots Convention, I saw this baby built and run and run! chicago HObbyland had a modular layout there and they were running that loco hours on end for the whole convention! The loco was a real attention getter... so much so that when I returned home, I ran to Grysbotskis and got one with the LOTS discount. And I thought I was doing good at under a grand!

Nice score! I have this engine. Always love running it. It is a true brute!!

That's not an impulse...  For $255 it wasn't possible to leave it there.  I would have jumped on it as well and I don't have an 072 loop of track to run it on.

Enjoy!

Tony

Congrats on a great find! She's a real beauty and better still at that price.

That's good news. I bailed at 230.00. I was doing the math predicting it would need a new driver board and R2 board... The seller did a poor job listing it, could have clearly gotten more for it.

Enjoy.

Is it true Lionel is reissuing this soon?... I am hearing rumors.

Thanks for the compliments all.  

PRRHORSESHOWCURVE, have to say I am a little jealous there.  To see US built locos would have been a treat.  To be honest, I actually had not thought about that when I was bidding.

J DADDY, I agree, the description was poor and not surprised to know I was bidding against other forum members.  I set my max at 275.  I figured based on the way he said it didn't work that he had something setup incorrectly.  The Tender was set to signal sounds, and the loco was set to program.  All I can figure is that he didn't read the manual.

This is certainly not the only deal I have gotten at auction, but definitely one of the if not the best.  I watch things all the time, and some deals can be hand.

Hopefully I can get enough track laid over the holiday this week to run it more than just back and forth.  I only ran it on the ZW last night and didn't turn on smoke either.

Congrats, enjoy your new locomotive!

Beautiful engine ENJOY!!!!

You got a good deal! I always like the sounds and used them in my 3rd Rail T1. 

A cruise commander M from electric railroad will make this loco run beautifully.

I have this engine. It is a great runner.

This engine has a design flaw that needs to be corrected before it will run through most switches without shorting. The blind center drivers are too wide. They short between the center and outside rails.

The solution is to grind down the inside of the blind drivers. There was a long thread about how to do this on the forum several years ago.  I couldn't find it using the forum search feature.  Maybe someone else will have better luck.

NH Joe

TEXASSP -

Score, big time. Congratulations.

I have this Lionel loco; love the T1 and I prefer the "last edition" looks of the Lionel prototype to the "as built", but that's a quibble. I may be a New York Central Hudson (and so forth) fan, but these PRR Loewy Duplexes are so beautiful and bizarre that they look like something from Mars.

(A month ago I scored an essentially untouched Weaver brass Empire State Express J3a (#5426) for 200 bucks + some s/h. Always a good feeling. ERR upgrade is probable - another $100 - $200, depending on sound or not.)

There are some big bargains out there, especially for us "I can fix it" guys.

NH Joe, is this an issue with specific manufacturers track or all?  I am running scaletrax.  

ROYBOY, noted on the cruise commander, that would be useful.  I haven't used one, but pretty simple plug and play correct?

D500, nice score there.  There are definitely some nice deals out there, you just have to watch.  Then there are some things I see sell at prices and I'm left baffled how people would over pay.

My Lionel T1 only had trouble traversing the diverging leg of my Atlas O72 switches. No issues at all traversing Atlas #5s in any direction/route. No trouble going straight through an O72 switch.  

My 3rd Rail Decapods didn't like the diverging leg of my O72s either. The eventual solution was to keep O72s off the mains in my later layout plans and only use them where smaller engines would encounter them.

Nice buy. I love the T1. I own the MTH PS1 as built version. Great looking engine. Enjoy.

TexasSP posted:

NH Joe, is this an issue with specific manufacturers track or all?  I am running scaletrax.  

ROYBOY, noted on the cruise commander, that would be useful.  I haven't used one, but pretty simple plug and play correct?

D500, nice score there.  There are definitely some nice deals out there, you just have to watch.  Then there are some things I see sell at prices and I'm left baffled how people would over pay.

Hi,

I have both Atlas and Ross switches on my layout and had shorting problems with both.  The minimum curve and switch on my layout is O-72.  I don't have any experience with Scaletrax.  

NH Joe

Texas SP

I finally found this old post about this engine:

https://ogrforum.com/t...051#9032649518315051

NH Joe

New Haven Joe posted:

I have this engine. It is a great runner.

This engine has a design flaw that needs to be corrected before it will run through most switches without shorting. The blind center drivers are too wide. They short between the center and outside rails.

NH Joe

Have an MTH Northern that does this on Ross 096/072 switches.

I really understand this impulse well.  I walked into my LHS in August and saw the new MTH PS3 T-1 with the Fleet of Modernism cars and bought it on the spot.  The engine, 4 head end cars and the 5 car set was over $2000 out the door but I just had to have it all!

Rolland

This has become one of my favorite engines.  With the cruise commander, Gunrunner John's Super Chuffer and his latest board that gives it 4 chuffs per revolution, it is just such a nice engine to have.  I'm working on giving it a realistic coal load at the moment.  That is the only thing that I don't like about it...that and I would love the tender gap to be closer to the engine.

Great find!  Enjoy.

I also love this locomotive. It was shorting out on my curved switches so I beveled the middle drivers. Also added Super Chuffer, modified the smoke unit and added ER Cruise Commander. It runs and performs great. Very cool looking.

Yo Tex nice score on the purchase. I got the same engine back in May this year for about the same price at an estate sale. One thing I found out was that the engine regardless of how fast or slow it was moving just jamed on the brakes whenever I hit the direction on my Legacy remote. I chatted with Alex Mallae and he recommended a Cruse commander board which when installed did wonders for the performance and now glides to a nice smooth stop.

Its a beast and will easily pull 30-40 cars. ENJOY !!

Steve

I plan on getting the err cruise board. However what does the super chuffer do? Also is the 4 chuffer per revolution board separate from that or the same?

Is the engine pacing the Elephant or vice versa?   

Hope you have many hours of play time with the engine

Tony_V posted:

That's not an impulse...  For $255 it wasn't possible to leave it there.  I would have jumped on it as well and I don't have an 072 loop of track to run it on.

Exactly what I was about to post!  At that price, it'd be impossible to turn down.

My layout was ScaleTrax and I experienced no shorting problems at all.  One of my favorite locomotives and I now have one in HO too!

Great Score !  Great looking Engine !  

Congratulations!  That engine is gorgeous!

TexasSP posted:

I plan on getting the err cruise board. However what does the super chuffer do? Also is the 4 chuffer per revolution board separate from that or the same?

Yes they are 2 boards...

 Here is the info on the Chuff Generator and the Super Chuffer.

I can't speak for the chuff gen but the Super Chuffer worked great and performs very well.

NICE CATCH! Nothing quite like a T-1 to stir my PRR blood. From now on....trust your impulses.....you bought a great model. And....if you are not already aware.....the PRRH&T Society is currently campaigning a most ambitious project....they want to build a new, full sized, operating T-1. No T-1s were ever saved from the scrapper's torch ....so the idea is to build one, over a period of 15 or so years.

I think you should write it off as a loss and give it to me.

Enjoy!

I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for that to happen. 

So, looks like a GR John's boards are on the list too, now that I read about them.  Still I'll be in well under 500 total, and this is a fantastic loco.  I have only been able to run it about 10 feet back and forth on my test track, and already love it, as do my two boys.  Hopefully in the next few weeks I'll have a full loop and can put it through it's paces.

Also, I'm running mine around the Christmas tree on O-60 curves.  Doesn't look the greatest, but it will negotiate it without a problem.

MartyE posted:

TexasSP posted:

I plan on getting the err cruise board. However what does the super chuffer do? Also is the 4 chuffer per revolution board separate from that or the same?

Yes they are 2 boards...

 Here is the info on the Chuff Generator and the Super Chuffer.

I can't speak for the chuff gen but the Super Chuffer worked great and performs very well.

I have this T1 with a TAS Engineer on Board cruise control board (no longer made and installed way before ERR came out with theirs).  The TAS board had the capability to electronically change chuff rate between 2 and 4 (I run it set at 4).  The ERR board does not have that feature; it keeps whatever factory chuff rate the engine came with.

It has been a while, but to fully update your T1 I think you will need:

1.  ERR cruise board.  The as delivered engine does not have cruise capability.

2.  Motor driven smoke unit.  The as delivered unit uses a mechanical chuffer.

3.  Upgraded LED lighting.

4.  GR John's Super chuffer to control the smoke unit and lights.

5.  Modification to change 2 chuffs/rev to 4.  GR John was working on a separate board for this, but I lost track of where he was at with this project.  You can also add additional triggers to the as delivered mechanical system.  Keep in mind this will give you the correct 4-double chuffs/rev (or 8 chuffs/rev) since this is a duplex engine.

6.  Beveling the 4 inside drivers may or may not be needed depending on the track you use.  I know this engine had issues with my Ross O-72 switches, but I've had no issues with my #4/#5 switches. My inside drivers are now beveled but not sure I really needed to do it.

My T1 is in storage as I rebuild my layout, but here is an old video of it.