Lionel Legacy Hiawatha with Matching Passenger cars - Unboxing and Quick Look

absolutely beautiful! saw the set at the Lionel booth at Trainfest and they looked awesome!

@brewcrew posted:

absolutely beautiful! saw the set at the Lionel booth at Trainfest and they looked awesome!

Yeah I was so worried when I ordered it but it has exceeded my expectations!

Lionel legacy Hiawatha with the 18 inch Passenger cars navigated the 048 section of my layout. Does it look great? no, but it works

I just got my Lionel lines version, I only have time to open it, and take pictures.

Ohhh the Lionel Lines version looks STUNNING!!  Good call getting one of those!

Great job on the review, Art!  I think you're the first one on the 'tube with a video on these.  And the ONLY one with a feline co-star so far!

My trouble with passenger trains is I can't just get the engine.  Gotta get all the matching cars to go with it!  The 18 inch cars would clear my corners but I'd need to redesign parts of my elevated line to accomodate the overhang, as I'm counting millimeters when I run 16 inch long cars.  Good call on the type of cars and locomotive, those are the ones I would've chosen as well.

I know I'll be correcting the location and color of the Mars light on my #4. The Mars light should be red and located in the low position. Perhaps this could be an easy fix? @Dave Olson

Engine and car colors look good though!

Anyone purchase the North Pole central (Reindeer Road) version of this set?  I am curious as to how it looks.
I almost purchased, but was waiting to see some real pictures first.

Thanks!

@Dadified posted:

Ohhh the Lionel Lines version looks STUNNING!!  Good call getting one of those!

Great job on the review, Art!  I think you're the first one on the 'tube with a video on these.  And the ONLY one with a feline co-star so far!

My trouble with passenger trains is I can't just get the engine.  Gotta get all the matching cars to go with it!  The 18 inch cars would clear my corners but I'd need to redesign parts of my elevated line to accomodate the overhang, as I'm counting millimeters when I run 16 inch long cars.  Good call on the type of cars and locomotive, those are the ones I would've chosen as well.

I got the Lionel lines 13 inch passenger cars from the vol. 1 catalog that I'm going to use. I may eventually paint orange stripes on them. Unless they come out with 18 inch passenger cars this year for the 125th anniversary that I like better.

I used the "Spirit of the Century" cars to be pulled by the Engine of the Year!

after seeing Art's video; it cost me ALOT of money. I now have a #4 locomotive, the 4 pack cars, and the 3 pack cars on order.

@MartyE posted:

I used the "Spirit of the Century" cars to be pulled by the Engine of the Year!

That makes for a great looking train @MartyE!

@brewcrew posted:

after seeing Art's video; it cost me ALOT of money. I now have a #4 locomotive, the 4 pack cars, and the 3 pack cars on order.

Congrats, it really is a gorgeous set!  I better get my order in soon for those add on cars before they are gone

@ArtsModelTrains posted:

That makes for a great looking train @MartyE!

Thanks.  The Milwaukee paint scheme looks really good!  I really enjoyed your first look at them!

@brewcrew posted:

after seeing Art's video; it cost me ALOT of money. I now have a #4 locomotive, the 4 pack cars, and the 3 pack cars on order.

Art’s video was terrific - he has fantastic production assistants, both two-legged and four-legged. It looks like Lionel did a terrific job with the Hiawatha. I hope you enjoy your new set and post pictures!

@Rider Sandman posted:

Art’s video was terrific - he has fantastic production assistants, both two-legged and four-legged. It looks like Lionel did a terrific job with the Hiawatha. I hope you enjoy your new set and post pictures!

It was a fantastic video and he gained a new subscriber on YT. I watched quite a few of his videos last night and really like how they are put together and enjoyed watching the layout progression as I am about to start my new layout in my recently finished off basement. Look forward to his other videos; one of my new favorite O gauge YouTubers!

@ArtsModelTrains posted:

Congrats, it really is a gorgeous set!  I better get my order in soon for those add on cars before they are gone

Thanks! I remember seeing how gorgeous it was at train fest, but my little guy didn’t give me a ton of time to really look at it before we were off to the operating layouts.

I definitely wanted to wait on the 3 car add on due to the cost already, but I was afraid if I didn’t now, I would be forever kicking myself if I lost out.

@Rider Sandman posted:

Art’s video was terrific - he has fantastic production assistants, both two-legged and four-legged. It looks like Lionel did a terrific job with the Hiawatha. I hope you enjoy your new set and post pictures!

One cool detail I noticed last night was that the passenger cars have different color seats in the different cars!

Also for anyone interested here is a better view of the pop off steam effect from the Hiawatha, triggered using Aux3

Another day, another detail discovered on the new Lionel Legacy Hiawatha. The baggage car has a mail sorting table, bathroom, luggage racks and wood floor!

I know we all love the trains but I'm beginning to get the idea that the star of the Hiawatha are it's passenger cars.  Those look awesome inside and out!

Has anyone compared the colors and stripe alignments with the past TMCC run (that I have)? I had thought about maybe upgrading my engine to the new one or possibly purchasing this particular set of cars since they are really different from the TMCC days. The TMCC set had the upgraded Beaver tail with the fins. I do not really want to buy a complete new set, so I never pre ordered this one.

So I just received and unboxed mine, the 4-4-2 engine no. 2. Looks good out of the box, but I am surprised (not in a good way) that the engine came without a manual in the box, and there does not seem to be one on the Lionel website -- I've never had that experience before with a Lionel engine. I presume I will be able to figure this out like any other Legacy engine, but still . . .

Blue Streak, I have the older four-pack of 18" aluminum cars (SKU 6-29191) -- when I get a chance, I will take those cars out of storage and try to post photos showing the color match. 

@ChiBoyinLA posted:

So I just received and unboxed mine, the 4-4-2 engine no. 2. Looks good out of the box, but I am surprised (not in a good way) that the engine came without a manual in the box, and there does not seem to be one on the Lionel website -- I've never had that experience before with a Lionel engine. I presume I will be able to figure this out like any other Legacy engine, but still . . .

Blue Streak, I have the older four-pack of 18" aluminum cars (SKU 6-29191) -- when I get a chance, I will take those cars out of storage and try to post photos showing the color match.

Wow, that missing manual must be a mistake. Luckily basic manual the only thing to note is pop off smoke effect is triggered by Aux3.

Let me know if you have questions and I'll take pictures of my manual for you.

@ChiBoyinLA posted:

So I just received and unboxed mine, the 4-4-2 engine no. 2. Looks good out of the box, but I am surprised (not in a good way) that the engine came without a manual in the box, and there does not seem to be one on the Lionel website

I agree with Art that there must be a mistake. I opened up my #2 Hiawatha today and the manual was right there on top of the box.

Unlike Art, I ordered loco #2, and the other set of cars. I must say that it is a strikingly beautiful set!

Art, thank you for reviewing the Hiawatha set.  My son and I are looking to get one, but we have Atlas O-45 track and are not sure it will make the curves.  How close are the cars, engine and tender on your O-48 sections?

Thanks Again,

Matthew and Brian

@marxtin posted:

Art, thank you for reviewing the Hiawatha set.  My son and I are looking to get one, but we have Atlas O-45 track and are not sure it will make the curves.  How close are the cars, engine and tender on your O-48 sections?

Thanks Again,

Matthew and Brian

Take a look at this video I shot of my Hiawatha on my O48 section, I do think it would work on O45 but have a lot of overhang. The one thing to watch for is the ladders at the end of the observation car, in a tight turn like that they might need to be bent out a little to allow the truck to turn.

Let me know if you need more pictures, I can post some.

Thanks Art. It looks like the couplers extend out when going into a tight turn and tighten up when going back into the straight section of track.

Brian

I emailed Lionel customer service, and they promptly emailed a pdf manual. Kudos to them.

@ArtsModelTrains posted:

I unboxed my new Hiawatha and passenger cars, I know many people have been wondering how Lionel did with this version, spoiler it looks amazing!

Set looks great. Thanks for the review. Question - did you leave that tender not on the rails in the background to trigger anyone with OCD?

@SuperChief posted:

Set looks great. Thanks for the review. Question - did you leave that tender not on the rails in the background to trigger anyone with OCD?

LOL, yeah we'll in the video you may have heard me mention I had an issue with the ir tether, I actually used that tender from a different locomotive to make sure the hiawatha was working right before I started messing around with bending the draw bar. I realized after I filmed it was still there, I was waiting for people to pick up on that 😁

@marxtin posted:

Thanks Art. It looks like the couplers extend out when going into a tight turn and tighten up when going back into the straight section of track.

Brian

Correct, these passenger cars have kinematic couplers which are not connected to the trucks but to the body of the car. They do extend around curves and retract on straights to close the gap between cars. Helps allow these long cars to be able to have their O54 rating or as I've seen be able to handle O48.