Lionel 18206

The pictures I have seen show headlights on the short hood.

Do you actually mean that the short hood headlight does not illuminate?

Thanks, I looked at it further and studied some prototype pictures.  The Santa Fe version has the headlights on the hood horizontally.  They are at a level underneath the front windows as in this picture.  The Susquehanna prototype has them horizontally at the top between the board numbers above the front windows as in this picture.  That is how the 18206 has them, but it's a Santa Fe.  Oh well, I can live with the inaccuracy.  There's another fixable problem.  The single incandescent bulb for the front lights and boards is behind the flashing dome light.  They've put too much stuff around the flashing bulb so the flashing light doesn't bleed through to the front.  Unfortunately that also diminishes the light from the regular bulb for the front lights.  So much so I thought there wasn't a front headlight.  I'll have to do some work on that.

It’s actually a good looking engine with a good amount of detail. I removed some of the railings before I took this pic. I’m surprised it comes with only 1 engineer figure.  As you can see the front is like the Susquehanna, not the Santa Fe

I have an 18206, the engine has a regular 3 position mechanical E unit, that really has no default direction. It it always start in next position from when it was last stopped. I believe the Liontech units which came out a little later, would start in a default direction.

@ed h,

Thanks. As it turns out the e unit was wonky. After I figured that out and sprayed some contact cleaner on it, it behaves as you state. The short hood lighting will require some work since the flashing bulb is so close to the front. I’ll be adding LEDs for the headlights, number boards, ditch lights, and cab lighting. I’ll post some pics when done. I already added a second engineer.