Lionel Milwaukee Road Passenger cars Now W/Video

ah... ok and any pictures? Don't be stingy now...

yeah, no photos makes it a teaser post.  highly objectionable.  

Yes... all we need now is a matching StationSounds car!    The last Milwaukee Road StationSounds car produced has a different vestibule design at the ends of the cars with a somewhat different paint-scheme as well.  It matched the cars produced back then, but it's not a "perfect" match for this newer set.  So hopefully, Lionel will produce a new StationSounds car for this and several other recent passenger sets.

David 

My 4 pack is in the mail for nicholas smith, already have the two pack. Can't wait!

Since Lionel already included dinner car in the 2 pack, there will probably be no StationSounds car for this set of passenger cars.  In the dinner car, the space in front of the car is designed to have the electronics for the StationSounds.  There is light in that section of the car, but nothing there which to me does not look right.  Lionel should have blocked the windows in that space or maybe expanded the dining section to that area.  However, the cars look great!  They are running on my Christmas Train Layout this year with my 261.  Yes, my Christmas Layout is up already!   

Ken

Very disappointing quality again. Rec. mine today & two of the cars do not light up. The red light on the observation car lights up, but no lights in the car & also a screw under the beaver tail that holds the end piece on was laying in th box & will not tighten  I'm sure it would fall out on the track when the train is running. Also, bought 2 two packs & one car in each of those doesn't light up. Maybe it is a grounding problem, but now will have to go out to Lionel again to get fixed. 

I have an extra 4 pack sealed in the factory shipping carton if anybody is interested. I am keeping the extra 2 pack however. Email if interested.

Scappy, how do we know you really got them without pictures? Don

Eliot,

  Where's the photo's and video !!!!!!!!!

Eliot, without pictures we may have to throw you out of the Milwaukee Posse, Would hate to do that. Don 

Now don't go trying to inject "reason and rationale" into Lionel's product marketing.    Stranger things have happened, and I'm sure we'd all find room for an extra diner in the set if it were to come out as a StationSounds car.  Among the most recent sets not having a StationSounds offering, Lionel has close to half a dozen more sets due out in the next 6 months or so that weren't catalog'd with a StationSounds car.  So perhaps we'll see a future catalog with an entire page devoted to StationSounds cars.  That would be long overdue.

David

JonZ said the goal is to start releasing station sound cars with Legacy Sounds. I believe they'll be adding to these sets. 

Great news, Marty.  I think a couple of traditional sets (as opposed to scale-sized offerings) catalog'd in one of the 2013 catalogs included StationSounds cars for delivery in 2014.  So that's consistent with what Jon Z told you. 

David

Both Neil Young offerings are catalogued to have Legacy Sound cars. 

Surely the OP will deliver pictures......

Was told at York they will be coming out with station sound cars for all the sets that didn't have in the future, hopefully next year.  

Pictures and video coming today. Ginny has some things for me to do and . . .

Scrapiron

Apologies for the delays.

Health issues and family stuff.

Video will be up in a very short time.

Sigh . . . . .  Youtube is down

Finally

Very nice!

Would like to know if anyone else has problems with the cars lighting up. Both my buddies cars & mine have the same two cars in the 4 pack that don't light up & that being the observation car & the next lower car down. Has anyone know a fix? I'm guessing it might be a grounding problem. Seem strange that both sets have the same cars not lighting up.

Awesome. Thanks for posting the video! I'm mad I missed out on the S-3.

What a great video clip ! Nice job Scrappy! 

John

 I sent mine back to Lionel right away.  I got mine back in early October and it took Lionel 2 weeks to get them back to me.   The tech wrote that he replaced 2 broken trucks, repaired 3 broken wires, and replaced a missing C-Clip.  The lights in one of cars did not say lit for me.  The observation car did not light up at all for me, but the red light on the back stayed lit, but when I got it back I had problems with the red light not staying on.  I adjusted the screw on the bottom and now it stays lit. 

Ken

Thanks Ken. My observation car & my buddies has the same problem. Red light lights up, but car doesn't. What screw did you adjust? Ground screw?

Scrappy

Very nice video.  The cars look great with your 261 on your layout. 

Ken

I adjusted the ground screw on the front and back several times before the red light would finally stay on.  I even took my car part after I got it back from Lionel to see if I could fix the problem with the red light.  I notice electrical tape holding up the wires.  I assume the tech at Lionel put it there while fixing it. You probably have broken wires on your car like I did.

Ken

Let's hope these cars don't become the poster child for poor -- or zero -- quality control at one of Lionel's overseas suppliers.  

From the initial sounds of reports here, these passenger cars -- although looking magnificent -- may win the BNSF Ice Cold Express "quality black eye award of 2013".    For folks who aren't aware of the reference, that set was severely plagued with QA issues like missing/bent detail parts on the caboose, mechanical reefer cars that would short out when uncoupled (most annoying problem), and the locomotive box in the set was missing the normal SKU label (least of the problems).  Typical of things being rushed out the door without testing... or worse yet, just shipping stuff anyway while knowing about the problems -- hoping buyers would just "display" their trains and not run them.  Rumor has it that lots of the reefers were returned to Lionel, and many of the fixed/refurbished units were on sale for a sweet bargain at one of the Lionel open houses.

Lionel has had problems in the last 2-3 years getting aluminum cars made in China.  So I would have hoped this set being the first of 6+ high-end passenger sets to be delivered in a few years would have had a smoother rollout into the market.

Time will tell if these are just aberrations or signs of a more systemic QA problem.

David

P.S.  Thanks for sharing the video, Eliot.  Looks like your cars were OK without the above-referenced problems?

Looks great Professor!!! Weren't we in one of those cars in Grand Central?

Hope to see them running Friday night!

Hi Eliot,

Thanks for posting the video, it looks great

Alex

Eliot, thanks for sharing! Great consist!

Bill

Awesome .. Boy did i miss the boat on the s-3

nice

is "lionel Legay" a new line from lionel?

Skip, we were indeed.

Many thanks, fellas.

Owing to the nature of repercussions on the boards here, I hesitated to post my concerns about the quality of these cars. My two pack had numerous issues. The most interesting was that one of the cars had NO screws inserted to hold the floor to the car. EVERY single screw was in the foam. The other two pack car had dangling trucks and coupler. In the four pack, interior details were loose and jingling in the cars. The paint job and graphics are beautiful but overall quality is very poor.

Scrappy

Forrest,

I'm surprised at you. This is the famous Legay train.

A Milwaukee favorite  .  .  .  

Thanks for posting the video!The smoke unit on the engine is impressive.It almost looks like the real steam engine running.

Dan

Thanks Dan986. When I received the Milwaukee Road S-3 #261, I was also just receiving two other steamers. One was the Pennsy Texas Legacy and the other was a northern from a different road. Strange to say, but I did not really examine the details on the S-3 very carefully and I did not run it very much. I really believe I was prejudiced by the low price and assumed it was merely a Milwaukee Road version of other northerns. Boy, was I wrong !

Over time, I have examined the locomotive with great care and listened to the sounds and watched the operation. The S-3 is absolutely fabulous and, in my opinion, one of the best steamers Lionel has ever produced. Great detail, smoke, sound and smooth running. What more can you ask? A total winner.

Scrappy