Lionel 397 coal loader reissue question

I have no feedback for how it functions as I've never owned one.  See the attached document for the footprint for this and many other accessories.

-Greg

A friend has this reissue and to me it seemed to work about the same as the PW version. Still splattered the coal but ran smooth. My 397 works well with larger aquarium gravel I bought from Petco.

My trick is my 397 is hooked up to an old TMCC Powermaster and I can control the speed through a CAB1 to slow it down.

Thanks guys!

Chris, didn't you get bit by the scale bug, and tear down and sell off all your PW stuff?

I would strongly recommend that you stay away from the #397 remakes. I had one come in for repair at our train store. The can motor assembly/gearbox was shot. They just don't hold up well.  I speculate that the continuous, repeated impact from the rotating cam / snapping tray only made things worse on an already fragile assembly. Apparently, a lot of people have replaced parts. Consequently, there are no parts remaining on the Lionel website for this product. If it breaks, you're done. A similar thing can be said of other PW remakes like the 192 control tower which almost always ends up with split gears and quits working.

The original postwar #397 is far more tough and robust (just louder), and you can repair it.

I had one in for repair..I think they are pretty tough. The motor kept operating while the motor circuit board was in flames!! (yes for real, actual fire!)

GregR posted:

Chris, didn't you get bit by the scale bug, and tear down and sell off all your PW stuff?

I would strongly recommend that you stay away from the #397 remakes. I had one come in for repair at our train store. The can motor assembly/gearbox was shot. They just don't hold up well.  I speculate that the continuous, repeated impact from the rotating cam / snapping tray only made things worse on an already fragile assembly. Apparently, a lot of people have replaced parts. Consequently, there are no parts remaining on the Lionel website for this product. If it breaks, you're done. A similar thing can be said of other PW remakes like the 192 control tower which almost always ends up with split gears and quits working.

The original postwar #397 is far more tough and robust (just louder), and you can repair it.

Why does that not surprise me that the new stuff is made like junk. LOL.  I'll look into the original. Had one a long time ago & could never get it to work correctly.    I had to give up my train room when we brought home our new baby 2 months ago.  Been kind of figuring out what to do next, as I I'm using our home office room, but it's pretty small.  My kids have been bugging me to get some trains going again the last few weeks.  Figured for someone w/ not a ton of time & space, postwar would make sense. 

I forget the number, but the large yellow tin coal elevator/tower was the best of the coal moving accessories imo; as a kid

We never ran the little ones much.

Adriatic posted:

I forget the number, but the large yellow tin coal elevator/tower was the best of the coal moving accessories imo; as a kid

We never ran the little ones much.

#97.  Thats my choice too!  Picked this one up on Ebay for a song.

The only problem I’ve ever had with the 397 is when small pieces of coal get caught under the belt causing a slip or jam. The culprit is modern era coal, which looks like a plastic tender got shredded it in a blender - all kinds of small pieces and little slivers. I used my 8 year old daughter to pick out and toss all the little pieces and it solved the problem.  Even better is getting some original postwar coal.  The postwar coal looks like it was better sorted to remove the little pieces and it also looks like the pieces were fed through some kind of tumbler because the sharp edges are rounded off. Big difference in a side by side comparison. 

Have had one of those for since I was a young guy and it looks pretty neat when working with the coal ramp accessory but  it throws the coal all over the place. The #497 is much tidier and only takes up only one section of track .