Lionel Theater OBSV cars. Lets See them! Operation and discussion.

Sorry...  i didnt see this till now...  i posted a separate post on the UP theater cars...

Super O Bob posted:

Sorry...  i didnt see this till now...  i posted a separate post on the UP theater cars...

No problem!  I’ll add them 

Borrowed from bobs post!

Did anyone receive their Norfolk Southern Theater Cars?

I have the NS theater car and will post some pictures tomorrow.

Neal Jeter 

Lionlman posted:

I have the NS theater car and will post some pictures tomorrow.

Neal Jeter 

Ok, sounds good.

Lionlman posted:

I have the NS theater car and will post some pictures tomorrow.

Neal Jeter 

Do you have the MTH Premier OCS passenger cars? How well do the colors match? I don’t want to buy unless I know. Thank you

NSRailfan100 posted:

Lionlman posted:

I have the NS theater car and will post some pictures tomorrow.

Neal Jeter 

Do you have the MTH Premier OCS passenger cars? How well do the colors match? I don’t want to buy unless I know. Thank you

I only have the 5-Pack.

I received my NS theater cars today and while they seem nicely built and detailed and arrived in good condition, The color seems way off!  I do not own the MTH NS passenger cars but I do have a set of MTH N&W passenger cars and the Lionel is cars are a much-much lighter shade.

Have not had a chance to run them.

Don

DGJONES posted:

I received my NS theater cars today and while they seem nicely built and detailed and arrived in good condition, The color seems way off!  I do not own the MTH NS passenger cars but I do have a set of MTH N&W passenger cars and the Lionel is cars are a much-much lighter shade.

Have not had a chance to run them.

Don

 

Could we see pictures of it?

Peter Araujo posted:

DGJONES posted:

I received my NS theater cars today and while they seem nicely built and detailed and arrived in good condition, The color seems way off!  I do not own the MTH NS passenger cars but I do have a set of MTH N&W passenger cars and the Lionel is cars are a much-much lighter shade.

Have not had a chance to run them.

Don

 

Could we see pictures of it?

Well I don't have the NS set, but here are some comparison photos of Lionel's Conrail OCS cars compared to MTH Conrail OCS cars...

Peter Araujo posted:

DGJONES posted:

I received my NS theater cars today and while they seem nicely built and detailed and arrived in good condition, The color seems way off!  I do not own the MTH NS passenger cars but I do have a set of MTH N&W passenger cars and the Lionel is cars are a much-much lighter shade.

Have not had a chance to run them.

Don

 

Could we see pictures of it?

Peter, I am not able to post photos but if you will send me an email using the address listed in my profile, I will email you some photos of the car and next to the MTH N&W cars I have.

Scott, there are no passenger in the car, just empty seats.  

Don

Here's the Norfolk Southern Buena Vista theater car.  The color is not the typical maroon.  It is too light.

Neal Jeter

Here's the 3rd Rail Norfolk Southern great dome Delaware with the Buena Vista

Does anyone have CSX or Conrail?

My CSX and UP arrive tomorrow, hopefully.

Am I seeing damage to the rear glass on the Union Pacific "Fox River" Theater Car?  The pictures in this thread look like the rear window has a crack in it.  What is your opinion?

Sincerely, John Rowlen

Am I seeing damage to the rear glass on the Union Pacific "Fox River" Theater Car?  The pictures in this thread look like the rear window has a crack in it.  What is your opinion?

Sincerely, John Rowlen

Short answer is no. In the thread from which the Fox River pictures are taken, the poster (Super O Bob) notes that he has not peeled the protective film off the rear window and it only looks like it’s cracked. I don’t think that the film has been taken off the NS theater car pictured above either; as a result it too looks like there might be a defect at the top of the window but it’s an illusion.

I won’t get a look at my UP version for another couple of weeks but I am relieved to note it’s a color match with the delivered UP Excursion cars. Next question is how well or not the camera and related software works. Haven’t seen any reports on that yet but maybe I have missed something.

Thank you to everyone for sharing.   Can’t wait to start seeing some video from these.    The NS paint color is for sure odd.   Lionel really is struggling in the color match dept.  thankfully the Up is right.  

Here are a few still images and one video from the UP car.  I used the HD setting which requires the most bandwidth.

The still images were taken with the train sitting still.

At the bottom of the video frame there seems to be an issue where the camera lens is seeing the bottom of the window frame or the floor which causes the blurry band.  Also, if the interior car lights are turned on, there is a noticeable glare on the camera lens.  All the images / videos were shot with the interior lights off. 

DaveSlie posted:

Here are a few still images and one video from the UP car.  I used the HD setting which requires the most bandwidth.

The still images were taken with the train sitting still.

 

 

At the bottom of the video frame there seems to be an issue where the camera lens is seeing the bottom of the window frame or the floor which causes the blurry band.  Also, if the interior car lights are turned on, there is a noticeable glare on the camera lens.  All the images / videos were shot with the interior lights off. 

Thanks for sharing this looks great in my opinion.   I think for what it is it’s pretty neat.

Anyone bring home csx yet?

I like it. Make sure your train room is tidy. 

The camera is a 1080p.  The video that was posted either is not in 1080p or the plastic on the rear of the car distorts it or the wifi transmitting the signal is not in 1080p or am I missing something?

Lionlman posted:

Here's the 3rd Rail Norfolk Southern great dome Delaware with the Buena Vista

 

 

I got to see this car in person today. It would best be described as Southern Pacific Daylight Red with Armor Yellow stripes and lettering. The Harry Potter cars while wrong, would have been a much better color choice. Tuscan red with gold it isn't. One would assume that Lionel had never seen, or painted a N&W Passenger car before.

The good news is the app is fairly simple to setup and use. We did end up with a nice video of the car being pushed around the club layout. It was pushed backwards by a diesel, so scale depiction was pretty much off the table anyway. It will do fine parked on a siding capturing images of trains passing by. 

Gilly@N&W posted:

Lionlman posted:

Here's the 3rd Rail Norfolk Southern great dome Delaware with the Buena Vista

 

 

I got to see this car in person today. It would best be described as Southern Pacific Daylight Red with Armor Yellow stripes and lettering. The Harry Potter cars while wrong, would have been a much better color choice. Tuscan red with gold it isn't. One would assume that Lionel had never seen, or painted a N&W Passenger car before.

The good news is the app is fairly simple to setup and use. We did end up with a nice video of the car being pushed around the club layout. It was pushed backwards by a diesel, so scale depiction was pretty much off the table anyway. It will do fine parked on a siding capturing images of trains passing by. 

My question that remains unanswered is..."Does it match the other Lionel N&W passenger cars?"

Big Jim posted:

My question that remains unanswered is..."Does it match the other Lionel N&W passenger cars?"

I did not have any Lionel cars to compare it to. But, I cannot imagine that it does. Had they produced a N&W passenger car that was Campbell tomato soup red, with mustard yellow lettering, there would have been a lot of discussion about it on this and other forums. It's a lot lighter in color than the pictures above show.

I'm going on a limb and answer no. Ours is out for delivery today. I'll get some pictures posted ASAP. I know I can put my hands on a Weaver RPO within seconds. That color is pretty close as I recall.

Here are some photos comparing Lionel’s UP Theater Car to a set of MTH Premier UP Cars

Cracked back window?  I better go check tonite.  I didnt look carefully, just took the pics and set it on display...

Big Jim posted:

Gilly@N&W posted:

Lionlman posted:

Here's the 3rd Rail Norfolk Southern great dome Delaware with the Buena Vista

 

 

I got to see this car in person today. It would best be described as Southern Pacific Daylight Red with Armor Yellow stripes and lettering. The Harry Potter cars while wrong, would have been a much better color choice. Tuscan red with gold it isn't. One would assume that Lionel had never seen, or painted a N&W Passenger car before.

The good news is the app is fairly simple to setup and use. We did end up with a nice video of the car being pushed around the club layout. It was pushed backwards by a diesel, so scale depiction was pretty much off the table anyway. It will do fine parked on a siding capturing images of trains passing by. 

My question that remains unanswered is..."Does it match the other Lionel N&W passenger cars?"

Jim, I just sent you an email to the address listed in your profile containing a photo of the Lionel NS theater car next to a Lionel aluminum N&W car for about 8 years ago and the second photo is of the car next to a MTH N&W car from about 15 years ago.  

The new theater car does NOT even come close to matching either earlier Lionel production or MTH cars.  

Hope this helps,

Don

OK boys, it just arrived... forever dubbed "The Soup Can" for RC3R!

In the foreground of the second photo is a Weaver RPO car. The Weaver car goes pretty well with everything. I have run it with MTH, Weaver smooth sided 20" aluminum cars, and several generations of GGD 21" cars.

For once I'm glad it was the club, and not me that bought this. Were it mine, I'd be profoundly disappointed. This thing is screaming for a repaint....

FWIW, the one we ran on the layout yesterday functioned well. 

Don,
It hasn't come through yet for some reason. 
I knew it wouldn't match the MTH cars.

Gilly@N&W posted:

OK boys, it just arrived... forever dubbed "The Soup Can" for RC3R!

In the foreground of the second photo is a Weaver RPO car. The Weaver car goes pretty well with everything. I have run it with MTH, Weaver smooth sided 20" aluminum cars, and several generations of GGD 21" cars.

For once I'm glad it was the club, and not me that bought this. Were it mine, I'd be profoundly disappointed. This thing is screaming for a repaint....

FWIW, the one we ran on the layout yesterday functioned well. 

How does it compare to this?

IT still looks too light!

Bill DeBrooke posted:

The camera is a 1080p.  The video that was posted either is not in 1080p or the plastic on the rear of the car distorts it or the wifi transmitting the signal is not in 1080p or am I missing something?

The video looked kind of jerky to me but the overall image looked reasonably decent to me, anyway.

Gilly@N&W posted:

OK boys, it just arrived... forever dubbed "The Soup Can" for RC3R!

For once I'm glad it was the club, and not me that bought this. Were it mine, I'd be profoundly disappointed. This thing is screaming for a repaint....

Someone commented on the color as follows (I paraphrase), which makes sense to me:

I hate to sound cynical but from a business perspective I would expect Lionel would absolutely use a different color/tone [than MTH or other manufacturers].

Why?

Because now you have to buy the rest of the Lionel cars to have a matching set!

The idea that Lionel would make the "cake icer" for another brand - and have to answer for it, seems to set the bar a bit high.

Realistically I don't see any incentive for Lionel to create a car matching those from other sources as opposed to its own future release (if it happens). It matches the Reading & Northern dome car though, which might be an inducement to have both even if they are different railways.

Why is a Norfolk Southern car being compared to Norfolk & Western cars from 60 years earlier?  There's no match in real life - the NS OCS is not painted in N&W colors. It is similar in lettering and style but it's not N&W Tuscan in real life. 

In my career I have been fortunate enough to spend much time on and around this train - I have been lucky enough to even see some of the cars when they are pulled right out of the paint booth. 

They are painted in an interesting color, and by that I mean with fresh paint and in direct sunlight they do appear very "red". I want to emphasize the direct sunlight and fresh paint comment - the NS 23 was refurbished in 2013 and here is a photo of it on good sun rounding the curve at Tyrone, Pa (shared with permission by the photographer Lance Myers) not long after her repainting. 

I will say that in shade or even after a few years the color will appear more brown. In the shops or under cover (such as at Washington Union Station) the cars have a dark maroon appearance. 

I have not yet picked up my NS 23 car but it's due in this week at my LHS. I also own the MTH NS OCS complete sets, both the 2007 DAP and 2015 PS3 versions, as well as the GGD NS 24 Delaware Dome car. I feel that the MTH sets are too dark, and the 2015 set has a slight purple tint to them, but I love them still the same. I also think the GGD car, while gorgeous, may be a bit too dark in my opinion. Regardless, I love it too. 

Bottom line, I don't think the Lionel car is way off base here - take a close look at the real OCS with its most recent paint - obviously Lionel obtained a recent paint sample since this car was catalogued in 2017 and that's what their color is based upon. I also like that it has 6 wheel trucks, like prototype. The catalog had shown 4 wheel trucks so that's a nice improvement. 

If my schedule allows in the next few months, I will take my models up to Altoona and get a photo of them with the real thing. 

M J Breen posted:

Why is a Norfolk Southern car being compared to Norfolk & Western cars from 60 years earlier?

M J,
The only reason that I have asked to see a comparison is just to see if the new car does match Lionel's other N&W cars.
Lionel has not made a set of OCS cars. The OCS cars are a different color than the steam era N&W cars which Lionel has produced. I would think that Lionel would try to match their own car colors rather than those of MTH.

M J Breen posted:

Why is a Norfolk Southern car being compared to Norfolk & Western cars from 60 years earlier?  There's no match in real life - the NS OCS is not painted in N&W colors. It is similar in lettering and style but it's not N&W Tuscan in real life. 

In my career I have been fortunate enough to spend much time on and around this train - I have been lucky enough to even see some of the cars when they are pulled right out of the paint booth. 

They are painted in an interesting color, and by that I mean with fresh paint and in direct sunlight they do appear very "red". I want to emphasize the direct sunlight and fresh paint comment - the NS 23 was refurbished in 2013 and here is a photo of it on good sun rounding the curve at Tyrone, Pa (shared with permission by the photographer Lance Myers) not long after her repainting. 

I will say that in shade or even after a few years the color will appear more brown. In the shops or under cover (such as at Washington Union Station) the cars have a dark maroon appearance. 

I have not yet picked up my NS 23 car but it's due in this week at my LHS. I also own the MTH NS OCS complete sets, both the 2007 DAP and 2015 PS3 versions, as well as the GGD NS 24 Delaware Dome car. I feel that the MTH sets are too dark, and the 2015 set has a slight purple tint to them, but I love them still the same. I also think the GGD car, while gorgeous, may be a bit too dark in my opinion. Regardless, I love it too. 

Bottom line, I don't think the Lionel car is way off base here - take a close look at the real OCS with its most recent paint - obviously Lionel obtained a recent paint sample since this car was catalogued in 2017 and that's what their color is based upon. I also like that it has 6 wheel trucks, like prototype. The catalog had shown 4 wheel trucks so that's a nice improvement. 

If my schedule allows in the next few months, I will take my models up to Altoona and get a photo of them with the real thing. 

I agree. From the times I've seen the real OCS as well as N&W cars, they are definitely brighter than the GGD NS dome car and the MTH set. The theater car might be a touch too bright, but it's also missing two axles, has an incorrect window arrangement, and more errors.