I have the cars.  Very well done.  My friend Gerry has the set and I have run it often.  A great bang for your buck.

What is the lenght of the passenger cars compared to MTH LMS Passenger cars. The Harry Potter Engine had a crappy whiste. Is this one better?

 

 

 

I have read somewhere on this forum they did upgrade the whistle to something UK like in the tender.

This set has passenger cars with diecast wheels and a high pitched electronic whistle.

I have three of the engine and one set of cars.  The cars are very nicely done: they look very English, etc. Nice. The locos are a scale Hall Class (which was not that big a loco in real life, so they are closer in size to some traditional locos) and look quite handsome.  they are not highly detailed but they are definitely value for the money.  They have rather small motors, and so it is advisable not to burden them with to many cars to pull.  I never pull more than five with mine (that is probably conservative but I would not pull more than eight).

You won't be disappointed. The whistle is much better than the Hogwarts Express and the cars have a much better feel to them because of the diecast trucks and couplers unlike the cheap plastic ones found on the Hogwarts Express. 

Prototype cars are 64' long and should scale out at 16".  The Lionel sets appear to be a bit short.  Window arrangements are a bit off and these have no interiors.  I don't know that MTH has a set of passenger cars that match the ones used for the films:

 

Actual cars used for films:

 

Photo links:

I could be wrong but I think the Shakespeare has a better motor than the Hogwarts. Running side by side, the Shakespeare seemed to pull its train better.
Don't forget that the Shakespeare also has more prototypical head lamps.

Lionel has a better whistle board for the Hogwarts.

The actual loco's should be the same.  I suspect that the improvement in running is from the additional weight of the metal tender frame and diecast wheel trucks on the cars.

 If the engine is scale then MTH Premier 4-Car LMS Standard Passenger Set #20-60008 would be a close match.

 

Have it and love it, though I don't have the box for it.  It will negotiate O36 curves, and actually will squeeze around O31 curves (I don't recommend it), but I would suggest 42-inch curves as a minimum.

 

Here's a video of it that I took from my Christmas display last year (sorry about the distorted look; don't know how to fix it):

 

 

 

Aaron

The cars should be BR Mk 1. 

 

We have the Hogwarts Set.

 The main issues picked up by people over here when it was released. Were as already mentioned, passenger car length (to short). Tender over size. Whistle, not sure the colour on the Shakespeare loco was quiet right.

 

The head light is actually correct. I have seen the real locomotive at NRM York and it had one fitted. I understand this was a requirement for modern mainline running.

 

Obviously back in the day the Shakespeare Express classification lights are correct.

 

Ace Trains made a brass scale size tender to suit the Lionel Hall Class.

 

When I get round to it I will upgrade our Hogwarts tender to Shakespeare spec. with

British Whistle.

 

It has to be said that I think overall Lionel did a great job on the Hall Class sets. Especially at the price. If they had got these into  Hamleys toy shop in London at the

time of the last Harry Potter premier. I really think they could have substantial increased their UK market.

I went to there web site. Did not see the tender. Will they run in the US?

Doug

Hi Doug,

           Ace produced the tender around 2007/8. It was advertised on a flyer. Not sure how many thay made and it was unpainted If I remember correctly.

It would run fine in the US. 

 

Nick

Whistle board? My Hogwarts had an air whistle. Have they switched to an electronic whistle on the Hogwarts?

 

By the way, the Hogwarts air whistle can be made to sound more English by taping off the low-pitch opening on the whistle body. It's a dual-chime whistle and it sounds more European without the low tone. 

Regarding the cars. My understanding is that the MK1 class cars were built in two different lengths. Is one of the two lengths "close enough"?  The cars are better with the die cast trucks. The headlight has also been moved if I recall.

I liked this set so much I have two. As far as cars the LMS cars are wrong because it was a different rr.

The Lionel GWR Hall-class locomotive is correct for the British 1/43.5 scale, but Lionel made the tender too large so as to be able to include their electronics inside.  ACE did offer a replacement tender to the correct 1/43.5 scale, it having been made for the ACE Castle-class locomotive.

 

The Lionel loco body is excellent - I am trying to persuade ACE to buy a batch, put a decent chassis under it, use their Castle tender and paint the ensemble in the correct livery - much darker than Lionel used.

 

The GWR Castle-class was a large (for the UK) 4-cylinder express passenger locomotive, the Hall a two-cylinder mixed-traffic loco, of similar appearance but smaller in every dimension. 

 

As for the Lionel Coaches, they are based upon the British Railways Mk1 type but are not merely short but very undersize; our railroads are already small and perhaps the cars are modelled to 1/48th also, which compounds the problem!   There are many unwanted Lionel coaches in the UK!

 

I presume Lionel made the loco over scale (for the USA) so as to house their typical mechanism?

I'm doing my own set if I can ever get the time by repainting a Hogwarts engine and paring it with a set of MTH LMS passenger cars.

 

Jim

I've read about the size difference before, but the tender looks correctly proportioned to me.  All of the pictures of Halls I can find have the larger 4000 gallon (?) tenders, which look to be the same height as Lionel's model.  What am I missing?

 

The under-sized coaches don't bother me.  They're still huge compared to my O27 streamlined coaches.  I'm curious, are the two coaches supposed to be SK's or TSO's?  All three carriages say "BSK" on the ends, but this would only accurately apply to the brake coach.

 

Aaron

 

EDIT: One more thing: I recommend placing some masking tape under the buffer beam, directly under the headlamps.  This will keep the bright bluish LEDs from shining straight down underneath the buffer beam.

Aaron

 

Though I'm English and bought one of the green Lionel Halls, I do not specialise is the GWR - and thus did not realise that the Lionel Hall tender is too large!   Nevertheless, it is.   But since the class ran with, I believe, three differently-sized tenders, this is not a great problem. The Lionel tender is too large to represent any prototype.  

 

Nevertheless, the locomotive body is so good that it deserves to be offered with an authentic tender to the same scale, and ACE have recently produced a suitable tender.  I didn't know, but it does not surprise me that the ACE replacement tenders were supplied unpainted; I guess customers fussy enough to want the correct tender would repaint the loco and tender together to end up with a matching pair.   Apart from the light green colour, Lionel got the lining absolutely correct, by the way.   It would be possible to offer the locomotive in several, perhaps five authentic liveries.

 

I criticise the Lionel cars only because the 0 Gauge market here has not included children, excepting only infants, to any extent since WW2, and so 0 Gaugers here are not looking for truncated models - their standards of comparison are different.  

 

As I understand it, 0 Gauge never completely died out, as a toy, in the USA - whereas nowadays almost everyone entering the field in Europe comes with experience of smaller scales - and thus look for the 0 gauge equivalent of what they have become accustomed to. That's why the Lionel Hogworts cars don't fit in over here.

 

Further, whereas American trains, being larger prototypically, do not jar visually on a British layout, in spite of their smaller scale, the already smaller British trains look quite out of place with conventional British models - if made to the American 1/48 scale.

 

Back in the 1970s, Lima produced BR Mk1 coaches for the British market in 1/45 scale, actually choosing the same two prototypes as Lionel I think, and though the Lima cars were scale length, they were not a success here; though they look reasonable when run as a complete train by themselves - do not incorporate a scale size car in the train!   Both Lima, Lionel (and MTH with their LMS coaches) suffer from not having flush windows too.  Painting the edge of the window openings black helps disguise this problem.

 

I expect you are thinking I am complaining about a cheap toy not being a scale model; this is true, but that is how Lionel is viewed here.  

 

By the way, the MTH LMS coaches are not appropriate for a GWR Hall (think PRR versus NYC!) - you need either GWR or BR cars.  GWR cars were chocolate and cream, BR cars were bright red and cream (MTH have used the darker LMS red for their lower panels, incorrectly), LMS dark red or chocolate and cream.

 

In spite of all the above, I still like my Lionel Hall set!  The principle improvement would be to use the brake/third coach at both ends of the train, and as many plain passenger cars as you like.   Consists here are not turned on triangles at the end of their journey, merely hauled back again with a locomotive attached to the other end.  In steam days, tender locos were turned, of course, but not the consist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are quite nice locos and cars, maybe not precisely, exactly, scale and true to the prototype, but the loco is exquisite, and guys - this is not some several thousand dollar set we're talking about, but something close to starter-set price levels.  Its really a remarkable buy.  The tender is close enough for me - I think it is a bit small but . . . .  I repainted two of my Halls into GWR glossy livery and all and really enjoy them.  The motor is smaller than in pricey sets and that is the only deficiency I see, but I simply don't load the thing up with many cars and I've had to problem (and besides, these things never pulled that many cars in the real world, either).

If I had to suggest anything the Shakespeare Express needs, it would be some accessories and/or other trains to complement it.  A British style station, a basic selection of GWR goods wagons, and maybe a 2251, 45xx, or 57xx locomotive (or all three!) would be an excellent starting point.

Claughton,

If you know of anyone that wants to get rid of a nice set of the Shakespeare cars, let me know. 

I'll second that emotion.

The 57xx ex-GWR 0-6-0 Pannier tanks are to be introduced by ACE trains (see acetrainslondon website) as their locomotive E/21 in six colour schemes.

 

If you have the Harry Potter version of the Lionel hall, maybe the London Transport versions, in maroon would be appropriate, now I think of it - some of these locos worked over London Transport in the 1960s. There are to be GWR and plain black offered too.

Southwest Hiawatha, what kind of tape did you use?Which is the low pitch opening on the whistle body? Where is it located? What does it look like since? How can I tell visually since I can't blow it with tender shell off as I've had ERR's tmcc added to mine.  BTW, did you tape over just the opening or cover other parts of the whistle too?  Would like to try this with mine to see the results.

Has anyone else done this to alter the Hogwart's original whistle sound?

There are two "slots" on the side of the air chamber.  One for the higher pitched chamber and one for the lower pitched.  The success of covering the hole on the lower pitched unit has as much to do with the tape (black electrical tape) as it does the power supply running the trains.  I tired the tape trick and it worked reasonably well for the CW-80 that came with the set.  The TPC 300 I usually use didn't seem to fire up the whistle as well as the CW did but I needed/wanted the remote control the TPC offered.  

 

I wound up replacing the air whistle with an electronic board.  I used a ERR Sound Commander board that was meant for a dock sider.  This board is not longer available but you may be able to find the Lionel board from the Shakespeare set 691CSND104, $20.00.  Note: this is a whistle board only.  The ERR board was sound board, not just the whistle.

I did mine by trial and error. As Chuck says, there's an opening on each side of the whistle body, and you close one of them off with electrical tape. If I could, I'd be happy to pull the tender shell and tell you which side I taped off, but I gave that train to my niece two years ago. In your situation, I'd just tape one opening and give it a try. You've got a 50-50 chance of guessing right, and it's only a few minutes work to correct if you guess wrong. 

The Shakespeare Express loco is a real winner.  The whistle is pure Great Western.  The locomotive has some nice die cast weight to it.  The tender, as noted above, is too large.

I run my locomotive with Hornby GWR corridor coaches. Not scale of course, but the Hornby chocolate and cream litho looks great.  

By the way... has anyone else considered adding a length of tubing or something to the rod on the right-hand crosshead that suggests the location of the injector?

Who has the sets for sale?

 

Steve

 

There has been mention here of the tender being too large. However, searching the web for photos shows that more often than not the tender to be a pretty good match. I am sure that the tender evolved over the years, but, if I was to concern myself with anything it would be the three eighths of a cylinder.

Has anyone considered adding something to make the cylinder appear complete?

 

 

 

 

quote:

By the way... has anyone else considered adding a length of tubing or something to the rod on the right-hand crosshead that suggests the location of the injector?

GC,
It appears to me that the injector system is basically complete. All the way from under the cab, up in front of the cab and forward along the boiler. I think I know what you are speaking of, but, is it really part of the water system or something else?

The cylinders were cut down to allow for typical three rail small radius curves.  Even with the cut downs the engine barely makes it through O-36.  It won't fully clear even with O-72 unless the inside parts were made of foam and squished down when pressed?

From my friend in England:

"I have just spoken to a chum of mine, who has driven GWR Hall class engines and the cylinder in question is a vacuum cylinder for use with the automatic train control system, used predominately by the Western Region, but also on other BR engines.  If the driver did not respond to the signal alarm, the cylinder would take air out of the break system to put the brakes on.  Remembering that British breaking system was a vacuum system and not an air system."

 

 

I agree and like my Shakespeare set very much.  For a conventional engine it runs rather smoothly and I like the look of the puffer style smoke.  The Kinlet Hall engine upgrades: lighted pilot lanterns and electronic whistle along with the diecast passenger car trucks make this an attractive set IMO.

 

For those Hogwarts owners that don't like it's air whistle and prefer the Shakespeare's electronic whistle as shown in GCRailways/Aaron's video, you can purchase the board and speaker parts from directly from Lionel.

http://www.lionel.com/CustomerService/ReplacementParts/index.cfm?doAction=productPartFilter&number=6938659T01&productID=5b5d1fad-a283-41ad-8f4e-bf3ce9ce4334