Lionel 6-84116 Pennsylvania K-4 with Long Tender has NO Fire box or Ash pan glow.

"Flickering Firebox" and "Ashpan Glow" are two different features.

I own the original Legacy K-4 6-11328 and it only has the flickering firebox. It is difficult to see due to the unprototypical thickness of the boiler door as it is part of the boiler casting. It is there, and can be seen looking straight into the back of the cab.

My K4, as well as yours, are derived from what was originally K Line's K4 tooling. K Line did not offer the ashpan glow feature so no provisions were made in the tooling for this feature.

On the K Line, as well as the new Lionel, ( yours and mine) the ashpan detail is part of the boiler shell casting. There is no gap between the cab and ashpan for light to emit from.

Most if not all Lionel scale steamers have the "flickering firebox" feature. However typically only the larger Lionel(tooled) steamers i.e.,mohawks, berkshires, 4-8-4's and articulateds have the ashpan glow feature.

Your heavy Mikado will have the flickering firebox, but NOT the ashpan glow feature, as it is also based on K Lines Mikado albiet with a modified "fatter" boiler.

I would recommend that you verify that the "flickering firebox" feature truly isn't working by peering in the back of the cab to make sure.

Theres no point in risking shipping damage sending the loco back for Lionel to fix the ashpan glow that isn't there, because it wasn't supposed to be.

Ricko, 

Thank you for the information.  I turned off all of the lights and peered into the cab.  I must have an extremely dim LED. Just like the LED in my UP FEF-3 that became brighter over time.  There is a faint orange-red light, almost useless, it can not be seen in a lighted room.

When is a feature not a feature?  When you cannot see it.

On the Erie Heavy Mikado: I wondered why the pricing of these new Legacy engines has dropped.  I have the Great Northern Heavy Mikado too.  I could not find an Erie Steam Whistle Berkshire, so I opted for the Erie Steam Whistle Heavy Mikado at $899.00 on sale.  I added many Atlas O 40' 1923 ARA X-29 Box Cars and Single-Sheathed Box Cars to my layout in Erie, Pennsylvania and NYC road names. I have finally decided to thin out the larger modern freight cars before Christmas and run with steam engines.

Sincerely, John Rowlen

I understand that if you want the features to work they should work, but in reality the firebox door would always be closed unless coal is being shoveled in, and you rarely ever see the ash pan glowing on a real steam engine. 

Here's my little flickering firebox module, these go in some of my upgrades.

It combines four separate flickering LED bulbs with the tops sanded to diffuse the light.  I use three different colors of LED, red, orange, and yellow.   I also put a plain white paper filter in front to further filter the light.  The effect is hard to capture on video, but it looks great in person.  The bright spot in the center is a video artifact, the effect is actually fairly uniform across the whole firebox opening.  Works great with the fireboxes that have the holes as well as the single opening.

GunrunnerJohn,

Very nice flickering Firebox.  I will keep the suggestion in mind. Thank you.

Sincerely, John Rowlen

GRJ, that looks great. Hope your bringing some to York.

that looks like a good hot fire, instead of red and just red.....

GRJ, are these modules available through Hennings or otherwise as a separate product from your upgrades? I could not see them listed on the Hennings site.

These are just a little board that I hand assemble for use in upgrades, I never made them into an independent product. It's a little tricky soldering them as the flickering LED's are very sensitive to heat, and of course being flush to the PCB, there's no way to heatsink them from the soldering process.  I have to run the iron at 425-450, and even then I occasionally get a bad LED that I have to pull and replace.  I suspect, based on the time to hand assemble them, that they wouldn't be priced competitively.  There's no way I can see it being a large enough volume to have them built in quantity.

I actually have two versions of them, one is a 5VDC powered version I use for locomotives that have a Super-Chuffer as it has a 5V power source.  The other one is an AC powered version that runs on track power.  I use the track powered ones in DCS upgrades as a rule, or to retrofit a TMCC or Legacy locomotive without a DC power source.  I've probably mad around 20 of them in the last couple of years.

As for the color, in person there are traces of red, orange, and yellow in the flame.  I use one red LED, one orange LED, and two yellow LED's.  With the random nature of each doing it's own thing, it has a very nice look to it.

The boards are just glued with either a standoff, or in the case of the AC one, by the capacitor top to the back side of the boiler opening.  I'm too lazy to take pictures of the actual boards, here's the 3D representation from the PCB layout package.

DC Powered Flickering Firebox PCB

AC Powered Flickering Firebox PCB

GRJ, how would you like to move to Concord North Carolina? 😂😂

Well, I watch the weather news, so it would take a LOT!