Guys,
I received this email back from Ryan this morning. Looks like we will have to live with the dome car in the Texas Special set. Here is the email.
Joe,
Thank you for the information. Sorry I couldn’t follow up until this morning.
As to the passenger cars, changing the name on the diner should not be an issue. The other two names are indeed typos in the catalog. This set will include a dome car. I too realize that this is not prototypical for the train but we still get a lot of requests for dome cars (and others) for roads and trains that never had them. The new 21” cars will be no less prototypical for these trains than the 18” aluminum cars we had hoped to produce, but for most of these roads there will still be some compromises.
With catalog lead times, we had to go to press with a limited amount of firm information on these cars. For future releases we should be able to do a much better job of highlighting the details and road-specific details for each set that we do. Our factory for these cars has been very responsive. We were exchanging drawings right up until Chinese New Year and are just about at a final approval now. Hopefully we’ll be able to share some more images and details in early March. Should you wish to repost any of this on the Forum (and by all means feel free to share!) it is also worth noting that the cars for the Empire State Express will all be built from drawings of the prototype. I’m sure there have been questions on that one as well. As soon as we can, we’ll make sure to update our dealers and post a note on the Forum as well on all of these projects.
Thank you as always for your time and comments!
Ryan
Hope this helps some of you guys.
Joe
I've edited the response copied above down to what I think are the essentials; anyone is free to disagree (and no doubt will). But if they (Lionel and their manufacturer(s)) are going to respond early next month I think it's hard to complain.
The dome car issue is old; K-Line made domes for roads that never had them and they are now (esp. Rock Island)hard to find.
I think we should be constructive and tell Lionel what we want rather than what we don't. 18" cars are not off the agenda in the future - I think it depends on demand, which might or might not be there.
), this space will definitely be worth watching as more details unfold.