Eric-
Thank you for the review. I enjoy your new product reviews. Keep them coming. I enjoy your layout videos as well.
As far as the product. Yes I had to pass too. I did not have the money. So I made a decision to focus on western roads instead.
Eric,
Your contributions to the promotion of this hobby are noticed and appreciated. Keep it going!
Thanks from me too Eric. Anytime I'm thinking of purchasing a high end loco the first place I go to is your website. You take the time to conduct an in depth examination and show us the actual product, how it looks and sounds, and how well it operates. You're not selling it. You're helping many people make an informed decision. You've certainly helped me. RICH
D500 posted:I keep saying this. I'll give up, soon. Sigh.
"Never give up! Never surrender!"
PJB posted:...Contrary to your stated "dealer concern," this benefits only you, and getting yourself the best price possible.
...
What you're essentially describing is a win-lose scenario. But in reality, more of these transactions reside squarely in the win-win category than folks might realize on the surface. Sure... Lionel is out of the picture, because they already got their piece of the action. And the only reason dealers put up with that arrangement is largely because Lionel is giving them the opportunity to compete for pre-order business they never could capture prior to BTO being the normal modus operandi for high-end goods. Ya think big dealers like Charlie Ro are a fan of BTO? On the contrary, I bet they hate it... because a bunch of smaller dealers who could never afford to stock lots of inventory now get to fight for pre-orders. And while they're doing that, they buy a few extra's if they're feeling lucky.
Funny though... I never got the impression that all these dealers are having their arm twisted when they offer the sales we see so often here on the forum. They're obviously STILL making money on the deal, so why do these transactions benefit only the buyer? 
They don't. They're very much win-win, because the consumer gets a great price while the dealer achieves his overall cash flow needs (and often makes some money on the transaction too).
Do you honestly think dealers are losing money each time they have these terrific discount sales? If they were, we wouldn't see them do it as often as we've seen in the past 2-3 years. Think about it. 
Although that's a viewpoint on which we very likely will "agree to disagree" as they say. So I'm signing off this thread. These conversations aren't nearly as fun as watching stuff come together for the new layout. 
David
Ok, so I took the Lionel Allegheny (C&O) version that I paid a boat load which arrived in December. At the time I only had the opportunity to do a quick test run around the NJ Hi Railers layout. Nothing fancy just a quick 2 lap test to get a feel for it. Did not test the sounds or smoke - just wanted to get it out, do a few laps, get a few pictures and get home to do all the things one needs to do in December to prepare for the family bombardment. Ran my laps then I lap then packed it back up. Liked what I saw during that brief time on the track.
I know the unit has received good and bad reviews and recently Eric did I nice video so I decided that today with no one home or expect I went to the Hi Railers layout to put the engine through all its and all the features, test the pulling capabilities (40 hoppers from Lionel, LionScale, MTH, Atlas and 10 Kline which weight a tone). Most impressive and Jim D. has posted videos of similar train lengths. Great pulling power bet I could have added 20 more.
Dislikes - Still can't stand the crew talk as it is almost the same in every steam and diesel Lionel has out. Lionel team the market is begging you change these sound files. They are boring and need help especially in your VisionLine products.
After a few laps, I decided to turn on the through the Legacy remote. To my surprise, the only smoke that came out of the unit was via the steam whistle opening 
.
Now you might ask, was I blowing the whistle - Nope . So I looked at the engine for a while, took a video, sent it to Alex.
Said "Hey Alex, take a good look at this video and you tell me what's wrong (I had already figured it our but I wanted an expert opinion). After looking at the video he came to the same conclusion I did, not good.
While he was watching (at least I think he was watching) the video and given the fact you need to pull the 990 remote right hand lever down to utilize the steam whistle effects, I decided to pull the lever and all of a sudden the smoke puffed out of the stack. Not good, no smoke from the stack when idle or running but from the whistle steam effect hole and when you pull the lever, it smokes from the stack. Wow is all I can say.
Clearly a factory error.
While I do like this engine quite a bit, the quality assurance done on this engine is less than desirable. Many of you have mentioned issues with the engine right out of the box.
Suggestion to Lionel - Until you get your factory in China to assemble and test properly, you need to do 100% QA on every unit before it ships. My last job, we designed, develop, sourced parts and built units in our own factory and we still did 100% QA on every unit that left the factory until we were happy (Sales, Marketing and Service).
I will get it fixed because I alway wanted one from Lionel.
Good news, I was planning to buy the Lionel Allegheny 1601 to have the pair (I like to try to have sisters when possible), however, after seeing a brand spanking new MTH Allegheny run a few weeks ago on the Hi Railers layout, I think my next Allegheny is a MTH Premier. No quality issues, right out of the box was solid and the crew sounds that come from the PFA button - awesome.
Also, ill someone at Lionel please change up the crew sounds or give us a mechanism to upload better files? MTH does a good job on that and it's FREE.
K
PSU1980 posted:
After a few laps, I decided to turn on the through the Legacy remote. To my surprise, the only smoke that came out of the unit was via the steam whistle opening
I decided to pull the lever and all of a sudden the smoke puffed out of the stack. Not good, no smoke from the stack when idle or running but from the whistle steam effect hole and when you pull the lever, it smokes from the stack. Wow is all I can say.
Clearly a factory error.
Yours is certainly not the only one with this "error".
