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OK, so another $1000 loco thread closed again... What amazes me is that here are no significant discussions about operating accessories, be they good or bad, reliable or troublesome.

When I was a kid, that is what we spent our time with. Just trying to get the darn things to work! Of course that was just "half" the fun.

So this got me to thinking... WHY are all of the current operating cars based on 50 year old designs. Sure there's the nostalgia aspect, but come on, there surely is an opportunity to make our RR's more up to date in terms of having them behave like real working RR's. And I'm not talking about adding TMCC to the same old tired designs...

Just to get the ball rolling, how about an Ethanol unit train (please no political rants) with an on-loading terminal (next door to the corn hopper off-loading facility and ethanol plant, and a West Coast (Chevron?) off-loading terminal and Blending refinery?

Or a REAL working port with intermodal container cranes (real working ones) and the like. Or a Japanese and Korean Car import facility with Working car loaders.

Yes, to be PC, we should have an American Car export facility too!

Now I have to say I would not welcome the over-complexity of the $1000 locos, but how about real sounds and even an occaisional alarm/mishap alert? You know emergency vehicles working to contain an ethanol spill... Now that would be fun!

So put on you thinking caps and lets give Lionel an opportunity to surprise US.
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quote:
So put on you thinking caps and lets give Lionel an opportunity to surprise US.


Did you just get into trains? Lionel has released many new exciting operating accessories and cars in the past years.

Vision line LCD billboard car
Vision line cattle/cowboy/squeaking wheel car
Military box car with sounds
Hot box car
caboose with operating brakeman/lantern

Nuclear reactor
coal tipple
lift bridge
burning switch tower
operating smoke fluid building

And of the re-make of older accessories which perform much better. Just a few examples and I am sure more neat things to come. Others can add.

TEX
Steve
What about the TMCC Crane and Boom cars that have been available for a few years now? IMO they were "vision line" status worthy well before antything else.
I have one of the Lionel haunted houses, while not a terribly complex accessory has fun motion,lights and sounds, as well as a fairly decent creepy appearance.
Fred, Amen to that. An extra 60 bucks for sound... OK. I suppose it is remote selectable, or is it? From that perspective, I guess its an operating car.

I posted to this board several years ago about adding realistic sound to every car, which I am sure is not a new idea in and of itself. I realized this had real potential after spending an hour or along side the BNSF railine in Creston, IA, and listening to the variety of cars passing by. Especially the combination of rain creaking (under different weights) and the actual sound from the cars themselves, like the rattle and clatter of aluminum automobile transports.

My suggestion was a bit more simple and designed from a "Point of View" or Personal Observer Perspective. That is from the perspective of standing along side a crossing or the like. My suggestion was a simple barcode reader track section that would read a barcode label sticker on the bottom of a car. As it passed over this, it would have its code read and a central processing unit would mix the sounds of cars as they passed by a fixed point, complete with fade in and fade out. The actual speakers could be enclosed in any number of RR buildings and other landscape pieces or the track itself! (Another suggestion is noise cancelling technology built into Fastrack, but lets not restart THAT discussion in this thread.)

This solution is a lot cheaper to design and deploy and it has the added flexibility to change labels easily. The sound library could be updated and downloaded from the internet... Nothing required in the cars themselves, and it has the added benefit of allowing you to "add sound" to match ALL of your existing rolling stock. It gives the illusion of trains passing into and out of your field of hearing.

Per the barcodes.. I was reminded of my own idea when I bought a gift card from Menards this Christmas to give to a friend and the "card" was actually a collectable scale race car with a barcode on its underside...
Perhaps someone needs to make a little electronic retrofit kit for certain train cars that works off of track power. It sounds like a neat little project that I'm sure could be done with open source code. It would be neat to have simple wheel squeal on each car but I'd do it so the volume is very low. One issue I have with the way people use sound is that they have it turned up. I keep the sound on my engines (when I run them with sound) nearly all the way down but definitely at the low end of the volume knob. When it gets too loud the lousy speakers used really start to make themselves known. It drives me crazy when you go to a layout and the only thing you hear is the sound of loud engines running at the same time echoing off the walls. With train cars and ambient sounds, the key to making it sound real is to not realize it is there. It should add a sense of feeling to things but shouldn't dominate or draw your attention.
Tex,

UH... the idea of the Lionel Nuclear Reactor being "modern day" is laughable! As is the AEC transport cars! I got into trains when the AEC stuff was NEW. All I am saying is the technology used to make these accessories is still based on 50's engineering. Even the livestock cars still LOOK and operate with the same old technology and tooling. I am not opposed to re-release of the classics, just want to see and hear about some real innovation.

I am sure someone has brought up an iPad based control system. I am looking for flexible and modular solutions, not proprietary ones like Legacy. These will allow the hobbyists to improvise, and innovate much like the designers of Apple apps. That has the potential of reviving our hobby. But for all of its marketing strength, wich is debatable, Lionel has yet to demonstrate real Vision (no pun intended), in my mind. There is a whole community out there hacking and reprogramming iRobot roombas just for fun... Why not our toys?
quote:
UH... the idea of the Lionel Nuclear Reactor being "modern day" is laughable! As is the AEC transport cars! I got into trains when the AEC stuff was NEW. All I am saying is the technology used to make these accessories is still based on 50's engineering. Even the livestock cars still LOOK and operate with the same old technology and tooling. I am not opposed to re-release of the classics, just want to see and hear about some real innovation.


So you are fairly new to the hobby so you want newer innovation? What I listed above is new technology and there are a lot more. Be patient and better things will come. How many times have you sent a nice email or letter to Lionel asking for what you stated. I don't believe Lionel has a crystal ball and you don't need to wait for forum input.

I have been collecting and operating Lionel trains since 1954. Believe me, I feel lucky with the new items Lionel is releasing.

TEX
Steve
Tex,

When I said I had been in the hobby since AEC was new, I meant the postwar version... That puts it about 1958-59.

You know, back when they thought that the atomic waste could be moved on rails and stored in caverns! The AEC is no more, and now we have the NRC. But again, this is all fantasy land for Lionel... not that there's anything wrong with that. I lean toward considering my trains to be Toys and not models. Doesn't mean that toys can't reflect the times though. That's my point.

OK, here's another operating car I'd like to see: Based on a real life experience of my grandfather who was a mail clerk on the Soo Line in Wisconsin. One foggy night the number two train on which he was working, heading southbound missed its turnoff to the siding, required to allow number nine, a Northbound, to continue unimpeded. Rather than backup, the engineer on number two decided to proceed past the other end of the siding and then backup into the siding.

Around the bend came number nine through the fog, and while the engineer and some of the crew on number two were aware of the danger, my grand-dad was not and was busy sorting mail. When the others heard the whistle of number nine, they knew they were in imminent danger and all but my grand-dad jumped off! They hollered to him, but it was too late.

The engine of number nine drove the tender of number two halfway through the mailcar pinning my grand-dad to the rear wall. He survived (or I would not have be here, as my Dad was not yet born...) but with severe injuries.

So what was my idea?

How about an ejector mechanism for the loco and mail car that would have all the crew bailing out whenever a train appeared to be heading for a head on with another! LOL!
I have a nice accessory the lionel rotary coal dumper. I love it and its very realistic. How about the back shop with the doors going up and down and the smoke stack and all the milling machines that was from some years back I thought that was very innovative maybe ahead of their time for that accessory. Maybe they will do another one with out it being tinplated. I would like to see lionel do a transfer table with legacy and all or how about a turntable and round house. Maybe lionel doesnt have a big enough market for a turntable since milhouse has such a nice one in the market already. only way to tell is to just wait and see what lionel brings to the table but I think their doing a great job already.
quote:
Originally posted by Tommys_Trains:
If Lionel really wants to foster interest in the younger generation, then they need to start sponsoring programs like this. Lego knows what it takes to make their product a vibrant learning toy for kids by participating in the FIRST Robotics community. The future is your for the asking Lionel:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/...ntion-170000772.html


Main difference is that Lego's product isn't limited to just being able to assemble trains. Legos are popular because you can build almost anything your mind imagines with them. Lionel trains are, well... Lionel trains. The engine, rolling stock, accessories are already built and frozen in final form. Sure, you can still create your own little world and change around track configurations and rearrange the trains, telephone poles and structures, but the end products themselves are permanent fixtures and a layout or even a simple loop of track on the floor takes up a lot of real estate in the average home. And the average Lego set is much easier to break down and more compact & lighter, making it easier to set up, transport, or stow away than the average toy train set.

The zenith of O gauge toy trains has come and gone a long, long time ago, and as long as prototype trains in the real world doesn't capture the imagination and fascination of the public as it used to, model and toy trains will never be re-established as one of the top hobbies and toys of choice to the mass consumers anymore, no matter how 21st-century they make their trains and operating accessories. And because Lionel and the entire model/toy train market is so small compared to the other mass-consumer products, there is no way that Lionel is going to be able to afford to sponsor major non-related attractions like the robotics learning program you referenced on a nationwide basis. They sure as heck can't afford national TV commercial slots either. The risk of over-extending themselves is just too great.

Venues like WGH and similar shows and meets around the country is really the only financially feasible way Lionel and the rest can reach out to the consumers, that plus the existing public displays put on by local clubs.
quote:
Originally posted by Tommys_Trains:
Fred, Amen to that. An extra 60 bucks for sound... OK. I suppose it is remote selectable, or is it? From that perspective, I guess its an operating car.

I posted to this board several years ago about adding realistic sound to every car, which I am sure is not a new idea in and of itself. I realized this had real potential after spending an hour or along side the BNSF railine in Creston, IA, and listening to the variety of cars passing by. Especially the combination of rain creaking (under different weights) and the actual sound from the cars themselves, like the rattle and clatter of aluminum automobile transports.


Tommy,

I just don't see adding sound to every car to be an economical decision by the manufacturers. Just go back and reread some of the threads whenever a new catalog comes out and folks start complaining about the cost of a freight car.

Personally, sound in a freight car doesn't do anything for me, and while I might pay $60 - $70 for a well detailed freight car, there is no way that I pay extra for the sound feature.

Jim
quote:
I would like to see lionel do a transfer table with legacy and all or how about a turntable and round house.
The transfer table idea I think would be cool, although I'm not sure in scale O Gauge how much room that would take. The one prototype table I've seen (ex Cotton Belt - no longer in use) is rather large. Almost as large as the multi bay engine shop it serves. But, I'd go for it, if I could find a place on the layout. The size? I'd strictly be guessing, but it depends on how many tracks it'd serve and I think at least five tracks would be about right. If for 1st and 2nd generation diesels, 3 feet x 2 feet or something thereabouts??

I also agree new operating accessories are needed. A "pet idea" I've had for a while would be an operating grain elevator with a facility to lift or tilt a truck trailer to empty the grain (as it's really done), then a loading device for the hoppers, one after another. I would add some realistic sounds too for this operation. I'd also get permission of a major grain processor to use their logo - I'd kinda like Riceland myself.

I have never heard of this being done in O, although that doesn't mean it's not out there someplace...
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