Lionel N&W 611 Pocahontas set still available?

It never shipped.  They are still waiting on the passenger cars to be produced.

I think of you check with a Lionel dealer who may have ordered extras, you can still order it. Charles Ro or Charlie Nassau comes to mind immediately.

The Charles Ro website still lists these for "pre-order" at $1635, and I'll bet these sets will be readily available when they finally arrive in the States.  It's been so long, lots of folks have either forgot about it or lost interest in it -- especially since the locomotive was produced without whistle-steam.

Whether the set actually ships in Sept 2014 is anybody's guess, since the only premium passenger set Lionel shipped in the last couple of years was the Milwaukee Road set catlg'd back with the S-3 and delivered in 2013.  

Watch to see if Lionel ships their California Zephyr set (4-pk and two 2-pks)... scheduled for this month.  If the CZ slips again, it's probably not a good sign any of the other passenger sets will make their shipping ETA's either.  I get the impression nobody at Lionel stateside has a clue when products are really being manufactured/shipped anymore.    Gotta be super frustrating to be a product planner these days and have no control over the who, what, where or when of manufacturing.  

David

Give the store a call and talk to Chris, I am still in Vegas for awhile. I thought we might still have a set or two

Hi Folks,

Saw a video on the 611 here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVs8MQuRUog

Does anyone know if it is the 'Traditional O scale' (smaller) or the O scale (larger)??

Thanks,

RickM46

Discount Trains,

I am impressed with your economy of words.

So, it is the larger O scale?

RickM46

Don't mean to pester you Discount Train; but,

Went to your website and saw the set.

I think it is standard (large) O scale.

Is that new in the box??

RickM46

OK, will go there.

Thanks,

RickM46

My initial impressions were that this set was not a great value because the loco had no whistle steam, the stripes did not line up, and the cars had those goggle eyed windows. I was wrong in terms of the value of the set. I bought the set last week because I wanted a Legacy #611.

The locomotive is a stunner. Gorgeous graphics and the sound is absolutely wonderful.

I am very happy with the loco. The stripes align much closer than I thought they would so I do not know if I will do the "washer trick."

The cars I will live with for a while. I can handle the windows for now because I want cars behind the loco and the paint job is good.

The set is a winner.

Should Lionel have included whistle steam? Of course.

Should the window treatment have been better? Of course.

Is the set a winner? Yes

Thanks for the info!!  I have been working with Discount Trains (Richard) on the Pocahontas and talking to them and doing some research have found what the 2 Lionel O gauges are at this site: 

http://www.lionel.com/gauge.

The Pocahontas is 'Standard' or as Lionel dubs it 'O Scale' which is the larger 1:48 scale.  The smaller scale is 'Traditional O Scale'.  My preference is 'O Scale'.

For years Lionel has had this duality of offerings in the O-Gauge world.  Although sometimes confusing, it's generally manageable.

"Traditional O-Gauge" is the slightly smaller, less-than-true-to-scale offerings.

"O-Scale" (sometimes referred to as "Standard O") represents Lionel's offerings for true-to-scale items produced at 1:48 (or very close to it).

The word "Standard" by itself in reference to gauges or the phrase "Standard Gauge" refers to an entirely different and much larger line of tinplate toy trains.  Lovely in their own right, but altogether different than O-Gauge.

The Pocahontas passenger set you're talking about would be considered "O-scale".  The locomotive is reasonably true-to-scale.  But the passenger cars are 18" in length, which puts them slightly smaller than 21" true-to-O-scale dimensions -- but larger than Lionel's "Traditional O-Gauge" passenger cars which are generally 15" in length.

As I said... a little confusing... but manageable.  Hope that helps.

David

Hi Folks,

I bought the Pocahontas set from Discount Trains in Ft. Lauderdale on Saturday and it arrived today.  Great doing business with Richard B there.  He shipped the set immediately after I checked out of the cart at his website.  Very patient with answering questions.

The shipping box and its contents arrived in pristine shape.

I am spending the winter in Fla and unfortunately do not have my Legacy 990 command set with me but do have a 'for Christmas' 6 foot O72 oval Fastrack powered by a CW80 (couldn't have a Christmas tree with no train around it).

One thing I forgot was to get some smoke fluid - DOH; but I did set the smoke switch on the loco to 'smoke off' so as to protect the dry smoke unit.

However, after 2 circuits around the track, smoke began coming from the stack.

When I saw that, I shut down immediately; guess the smoke on off switch doesn't work; maybe since I am running it conventional.

Anyway, no biggie, I will send for some MegaSteam ASAP and wait till that arrives.

I am in awe at the loco sounds and whistle and bell.

I have not unpacked the cars yet but the loco and tender are fantastic (yep, the loco red stripe is lower than the one on the tender but is not that obvious, only if you are looking for it).

Happy Camper waiting for smoke,

RickM46

Still waiting on my smoke but Megasteam shipped to me immediately on getting my order on Tuesday - JT is a great guy to honor my request for fast turnaround - will probably arrive Saturday.

Since I am running a Legacy engine in conventional mode, are there any do's and don'ts??

Thanks,

RickM46

Checked the passenger cars today and there are 2 coaches, 1 Obv car, 1 combo baggage.  Unpacked the observation car and was surprised by the packing.  Besides the cardboard inserts under the trucks, there were 2 black coated wires wrapped around each truck, one fore and one aft; never saw that before.  There was also one hard plastic gray box press fitted to the frame near the light switch - never saw any of those before - was easy to remove.  Anyway, the car was pristine. 

Did make the mistake of gripping one of the door handrails and it promptly disconnected from the door - was easy to re-insert.

Happy Camper

RickM46

Richard at Discount Trains in Fort Lauderdale just got another set; you can see it on his website.  What's better than 1 Pocahontas set - ya, you know the answer.