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For me, it has always been a love at first sight with the Santa Fe F3 Warbonnet paint scheme. So, from that perspective the Lionel 2025 catalog did not disappoint.  Frankly, the catalog is impressive.  At 252 pages it is about half the size of the Sear's Christmas "Wish book" from the 1960s.  I hope the new battery sets are a huge success, they are attractively priced and should be easy to set up and run.  All the big retailers need to carry those sets. For a price of $149.99, this should give those Lego sets a run for their money.

The artwork on so many of the items are specular.  Angela Trotta is a gift that keeps on giving.  Wow, what spectacular artwork. 

I have one of her puzzles framed and hanging in my train room.  Angela is an American Icon.

Then, you get to the Bob Ross artwork, this covered bridge is specular.  I am sure it would look great in a Christmas layout. 

I could go on, but I back to what I really like in the 2025 Catalog is the Santa Fe F3 set:

It does not appear until page 88, so kinda buried.  Its not a Vision line, but just a LionChief +2.0.  It has a ton of features, that are described on page 92.  It has a price of $899.99, which is a lot of money, around the price of a cell phone.

 

I like this set because of the paint scheme, and it fits nicely on my layout which has O36 and O54 curves.

CharlesRo has it at $749.99 on the early buy price, my friends at Eastside Trains in Kirkland will be close to that, so this is probably going to be my big purchase for this year.  I still work full time; I drink the free coffee in the office and save over $700 by not buying coffee at Starbucks.  Lol

The love affair for the F3's go back a long time, Lionel offered a Santa Fe F3 set in 2000.   I have attached the pages for the set in this post. I also included the cover for the Catalog, which was by Angela Trotta.   The set was an ABBA Fe set with 7 Aluminum passenger cars. It retailed for $1999.99, which was way beyond what I could afford in 2000.  CharlesRo had the set listed for $1599.95.  The picture below was from Charles Ro advertisement in CTT.

Lionel also offered a Kansas City Southern F3 AA set and a four-car aluminum passenger set.  Charles Ro offered them, the F3 set went for $589.95 and the passenger cars for $289.95.  I think we can use those numbers to compare the Santa Fe F3 set today. Over the 25 years, the F3 AA went from $589.95 to $749.99, an increase of $160 over the 25 years, plus you get smoke now, plus the ability to run the trains with Bluetooth. Some will argue that the Pullmor motors with Magnatraction are better, that is like trying to decide if New York Pizza is better than Chicago style pizza.

The passenger cars are materially more expensive.  The four pack went from $399.95 in 2000 (Ro had them for 289.95) while in this catalog, they are going for $1099.99 (Ro has them listed for $774.99 on early buy).

I was told several years ago that there is a lot of waste in manufacturing aluminum cars, so that may be a reason for their expensiveness.  We do have options for passenger cars, so this will be an option for many to mix and match sets.  Also, very easy to use the F3 with a freight consist. 

I hope this helps, Dave















     

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I think they keep the prices as low as they can and still make a profit to keep paying their staff, heating the building, etc.  In case someone has been living under a rock, inflation and costs of business in China have been slightly higher than usual the last four to five years. Ugh.  We got lulled into thinking inflation was going to be 2% forever.  My 1971 Vega was $2,000, and my Subaru Outback was close to 20 times that in the mid-2010s.  It does a lot of things the Vega didn't of course.  Same thing with my Lionel trains, more or less.  And the last five years have been particularly hard on working and middle class folks, no question about it. Lionel's staff are also paying 100% or more greater prices for eggs, just like the rest of us.  Still a bargain nutritionally however.

Last edited by Landsteiner

I'm hoping ( and praying ) Lionel returns to the original postwar style shell and does not use the shell that was used on the previous run of LC plus F3's - the reworked front end / nose section

The photo / artwork in the new catalog shows the original F3 cabs - I like the Reading units

In my opinion the reworked nose section of the shell in the last release just looks odd - I'm not the only one - pointed out on several Youtube reviews

Thx

Joe S

@MartyE posted:

I did the same comparison for the S2s in this thread.  Both the 2001 and 2014 scale versions were $100 less than what is offered in the new catalog.

I think the turbine is the bargain of the catalog. As for the other prices, what today is cheap? Pricing is high but let’s not forget gas at 59 cents a gallon now 3 bucks……..in the end it is what it is…….

Those aluminum passenger cars look like something completely different than the 15-inch aluminum cars that were originally produced from the postwar era throught the last run 10+ years ago.
The new cars look like they either use new tooling or old K-line tooling. Maybe someone on this forum can identify them from the catalog cartooning. Additionally, they have sprung trucks, LED illumination and detailed interiors instead of translucent window strips. It seems like it would have been a better idea to build these 15-inch cars in the manner that they had in the past for toy train enthusiasts at a lower price point. It seems to me that if someone is limited by space and budget, they are not going to be in the market for something priced like a 21-inch scale car for their modest layout with O-31 curves. And, it's a mismatch to have these expensive, detailed cars mixed with a LC 2.0 loco that is tooled like a postwar toy.

Last edited by GregR

1950 Lionel Catalog there were a couple of F3 sets featuring the 2343 Santa Fe and 2344 NYC F3's.  The sets were 2175W and 2185W.  The sets listed at $67.50. There were no discount places like there are today.  There are plenty of online calculators to calculate dollar value today.

1950 to 2024

The 2523060 NYC F3 set in the 2025 Catalog can be found for $859.99 at Charles Ro.

The pricing today is in line with the pricing back in 1950. 

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@GregR posted:

It seems to me that if someone is limited by space and budget, they are not going to be in the market for something priced like a 21-inch scale car for their modest layout with O-31 curves. And, it's a mismatch to have these expensive, detailed cars mixed with a LC 2.0 loco that is tooled like a postwar toy.

Exactly, totally agree. I've got a 5x9 postwar style layout and when I first saw these passenger cars I was excited. Took a look at the price and that ended that. They are nice cars with a lot of features, but pricing is too steep for my blood.

Also consider the new Lion Chief 2.0 AA F units at $900 for the pair. Yikes!

As handsome as the Santa Fe F3's are, unless you must have 'the latest & the greatest'  there are literally hundreds (if not thousands) of the many issues of Santa Fe F units out there is the marketplace. Same for the aluminum cars is both 15" and 18" that folks can choose from. Price even a decent pair of PW F3's that can be had for $200 or less. The cars can be acquired for little $$ today if you look. Operationally the new ones are hard to beat however...

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