Lionchief looking good and fun

That had to be fun with your son and his friends.  I have two and love them.  I agree Lionel has hit a home run with these.  

Yes, I agree, they are a home run. I love mine, and plan to buy more.

I do agree that the syncrhonized chuff is nice.

Another thing I love about  my two is that they run at exactly the same speed when set to the same throttle position.  I run them on the same track loop, and I can space the one as close as two feet from the back of the other and if I start them together and set the remotes on the same throttle position, they stay in lockstep with one another all around the loop.  Quite nice.  I bashed both of mine with new cabs and such into close to scale like models of two ATSF locos, which was a lot of fun (first photo).  

 Originally I just used the original tenders on both, changing the one to an oil tender as ATSF had and white-gluing a real coal load on the other.

I changed the tender on 3601, which was a newer/bigger/more powerful design than 1856, to this (just moved the speaker from the LC+ into this puppy).  The different shape/greater inside volume gave it a more rumbly and deeper chuff.  

Lee, I wanted to add coal to my tender as well, but I was going to use rubber cement, I thought it would stick better than white glue. Does white glue stay permanent or do you think it will chip off? Do you happen to have a pic? Thanks in advance.

No pic needed, I see the results in your last photo.

I have a LC+ Mikado and think it's terrific--glad your experience is a good one as well.

Quick question... you said you "powered them up to about 40mph".  Do you mean the CW-80 was set at the 40% power mark?  It should be set at 100% for optimum performance with LC+... the locomotive would be starved for power otherwise.

Unless I misunderstood what you meant, in which case please disregard.

Could not agree with the previous posters more.  My two LC + steamers are full featured tons of fun to run.  The Hudson looks great with O27 passenger cars, and the Mikado looks great with any traditional size rolling stock I put behind it.

Ed boyle

Ed,

   What road name is your Hudson?

New York Central

I think rubber cement might be a disaster.  My experience is that it holds well only if you can get it on and dried on each side of the junction before pressing them together.  I've done this several times now: I mask the tender all around the coal area I want to fill with that blue masking tape.   I use a cheap 1/2 inch chip brush and full-strength white glue, brushing it on thick - about 1/16 inch - and making sure I cover everything/everwhere I want coal.  I then pour the coal load over everything and press it down lightly.  Then the delicate part: I wipe off all the glue and coal I can from the masking tape without touching the coal load I want to stay in place.  I then remove the masking tape soon, while the glue is still wet.  Any stray glue I get right then with a wet paper towel. It dries in a day.  I turn it over and shake it well.  

It stays pretty permanent after that.  I imagine if I treated it roughly some coal might come off but frankly it seems as permanent as the factory coal loads with real coal.  

I have been told and half believe that, if I put the tender and its coal load upside down in 1/4 inch of water and left it several days, the glue would dissolve and I could remove the coal and glue without damage to the tender finish.  I have never tried it and probably never will, but if anyone knows, I'd be interested to hear.

My 5 yr old smoked the Lionchief James (Thomas Tank).  No parts from Lionel till August!

First failure of Lion Chief I've seen to date.  Circuit board has the burnt smell and there appears to be a component fried to crisp on it.

Oh well he still has Thomas & Percy that are chugging along.

Jim

I tried one of the Mikados a couple weeks ago at a friend's place, and the speed control was outstanding. The slow speed performance was amazing. The engine could crawl at Legacy-slow speeds.

You guys are making it harder and harder for me to resist ordering the Great Northern or Canadian Pacific LC+ locos! I was going to upgrade to a CAB-1L system but LC+ is making me second guess this. 

Thanks Lee for the coal load tutorial.

I was really tempted to try one of these (I have the Thomas stuff). You guys convinced me.

Gerry

I knew Lionel had a winner back when I received their 'Thomas Christmas' set.

if it had not been for Nicole's excellent review on the board I probably would have have

passed it by. Thanks, Nicole.

From what I've seen,  Lion Chief Plus locos and Lion Chief sets favorably and strikingly bend the "price value curve" for the first time in the a long time, particularly for Lionel but also for the hobby as a whole.  If they can perform similar price cutting magic with rolling stock and accessories, not to mention Fastrack, I wouldn't be surprised to see that they pretty much have the low and middle end of the price spectrum to themselves in a few years, in three rail O gauge.

I just received my Great Northern LC+ last evening.  I looks great and runs on my track just fine!  I have another LC+ on order (RS3) but, the quality and sound of this steam engine makes me want to order a couple more.  I can't compair it to a CAB-1L upgrade because I have not used it but, I agree that Lionel has hit the mark on quality/price for the low/med price market.  Looking forward to see what next years offerings will be!

Lionel lists the LionChief Plus diesels lengths at 14 1/2" RS-3 and 14" GP-7. Am I correct in thinking that those are scale lengths? If so, that is a great price for a CC locomotive for someone like me that runs scale sized engines. All I need now is for Lionel to make them for the Milwaukee Road. I know the steam engines are semi/traditional sized but they are very tempting also.  

I'm excited about these Lion Chief sets, and am considering several, but want to understand the controller arrangement. If I understand the system correctly, it seems that at some point it could be a bit cumbersome when running multiple sets. Since (as I understand it) each set has its own unique controller programmed to its own frequency, if you have five of these sets, you have five separate controllers to keep track of.

So if you're running multiple Lion Chief sets simultaneously (not to mention trying to run them with TMCC/Legacy engines at the same time), it seems it could get a little hectic, scrambling to find the right controller in the pile, or locating them if they're spread around the table, and adjusting one, then trying to find another controller and using that, and so on.

And if you lose/misplace a controller, does that mean your set is then unusable? Apparently so. Around our house, things often have a habit of disappearing. And is Lionel going to have replacement controllers for every set available for purchase, forever?

If anyone has any further information on these things, it would be welcome.

Great point on multiple controllers.  As the LC and LC+ get more popular Lionel may need to consider making a programable multi-engine/frequency controller.  Maybe we should add that to the thread going to Lionel for 2015.

LionChief and LionChief Plus are two somewhat different animals.  LionChief Plus can operate by transformer in conventional by sliding a switch.  LionChief only by the controller. The controller is specific to the loco, and is so marked with the road number and description of the loco (e.g., NYC Mikado).  Replacement controllers are or will be available should your dog eat it. 

The technology is 2.4 GHz spread spectrum digital, not frequency specific.  The loco is bound to the specific controller.  It should, at least in theory, be possible to "bind" any controller to any loco should Lionel make that choice available, or some clever person figures out how to do it (as is possible with R/C car, boat and airplane 2.4 GHz transmitter/receiver pairs).  We'll have to see what develops.

Most folks probably won't want to be running five trains with five controllers simultaneously unless there are 2.5 hobbyists present or the trains are on separate loops.  These locos are not designed for individuals who want to operate five locos simultaneously on one large loop by themselves.  Not that doing so would be much fun using conventional or TMCC/Legacy/DCS command either.  I've successfully simultaneously controlled a conventional loco and a LionChief on a small 4 x 8 loop of track with a CW-80, but I wouldn't say it's for everyone.  The LionChief has speed control but the conventional loco doesn't, which makes for some interesting adjustments.

I think these products will mostly appeal to those with smaller layouts who own a few sets or locos (4-5 max), or have larger layouts with separate loops so collisions aren't a real concern.  Clubs would be another likely scenario, or anywhere you have two or more operators.  Then the separate controllers and inexpensive (relatively) locos become a feature, not a problem.

I think it depends on your layout. My current layout can only run two trains at once and when I expand it I'll only be able to run 3. Keeping track of 3 remotes wouldn't be tough, if anything I think it would be easier than trying to remember which loco is currently active on a CAB-1. Also nice if you have kids as each one can have their own train to control. I wonder what % of layouts are capable of running more than 2-3 trains at once. I'm guessing not many. I see LC+ as a forward reaching product - it's really more for people who are just getting into the hobby and building their first layout or expanding beyond a starter set. If you already have a CAB or DCS I doubt it would make sense to invest in LC+ engines. I also doubt it would make much sense for Lionel to offer any sort of programmable remote for LC+ -  that would be getting a little too close to being a CAB-1L. I'm hoping there's enough interest to offer LC+ upgrade kits for conventional locomotives, basically an ERR board and a remote packaged together. 

Very good points, IMO, SeattleSUP.  I agree entirely .

That said, I cannot believe that some enterprising wirehead will not open up the remote and loco and figure out what needs to be added to make the loco respond to another remote, and the remote control another loco.  It cannot be too expensive or difficult as 2.4 GHz radio and transmitter pairs are available off the shelf for <$50, sometimes much less.  Binding a transmitter (remote) and receiver can be as easy as powering them both up, putting the transmitter next to the receiver, and pushing a button until an LED flashes on the receiver.

Hudson- Union Pacific

Mikado- Chessie System

Pacific- B&O

They are all beauties!!!

For ams?

On our CW-80 we dialed it up to 40. From what others are saying you can dial it up ALL the way!!

I'll try it tonight with Joe and let you know.

What we enjoy so much is we can walk around the layout, or sit in our rocking chairs and not have to go near the transformers until we are ready to shut down for the night.

WOW Lionel you pulled off an exciting thing here!!!.

Yes we plan to get one or two more. On some of these decisions I went with my son's input and am glad we did. I had never thought about the Mikado he keep talking and talking about it and he likes Chessie so we went with that Mikado version and have got to admit it is really cool looking!! It is an eye catcher and kids seem to really like it.

None of our steamers were UP so we picked UP for the Hudson BUT got to have NYC some time in the future.

B&O was a no brainer it looks awesome!!!

B&O for the Pacific that is.

But if we get another it will be the Pennsylvania

For some reason the bell on the Thomas engine with Lion Chief comes on by itself every now and then when at a show. What other frequency is close and could be tripping it?? Cell phones or perhaps DCC controllers?? 

For those of you who want to get kids attention real fast the feature on the Lionchief that gets the blood pumping is the slow speed start up with each chuff a bolus of smoke comes out of the stack the kids were wowing and high 5'in so was I !!!

There's an on/off switch for sounds on these LionChief engines, but do they have a volume control?

I believe there is a way to set up the controller so that you can use the speed control dial to set the volume.

I'd like to get some details on that, if indeed it exists. I checked the manual at the Lionel site for the Thomas LionChief engine, and it only has instructions for turning the sound on and off. There's no mention at all of any volume control. That's definitely a downside if there's no such control for these LionChief engines.

(Among other things, it's going to be a problem for kids when mothers are shouting "Turn that down!")

LionChief Plus locomotives have adjustable volume, controlled by the remote. Original LionChief locomotives (Thomas, P.E. etc.) only have the on/off switch. 

If you look at the features list for the LionChief Plus locomotives, it mentions that the volume is adjustable from the remote. 

It looks like the Lionchief Diesels will be coming a little later this year.

We did order a UP GP-7.

I was wondering we already have a conventional Lionel GP-7 will we be able to run both engines together on the layout?

Thank you, Nicole. It doesn't look like Lionel has a manual on line yet for any LionChief Plus engines, but searching around at other commentary (apparently no current owners are on this thread!) it appears that simultaneously holding down both the bell and whistle buttons on the remote will activate the volume adjust mode. 

We want to add another L.C locomotive has anyone seen or can post a photo of the Southern Pacific??

Thanks!!

Breezinup - yup the LC+ volume control works as advertised.  Easy-peasy.

Hold down both whistle and bell, wait one moment, then use the speed control to set the volume level.   A little bit finicky, usually takes me two tries to get the volume I want.   I set all mine steamers at about 3/4 of max.   At max volume, I hear some distortion.