Lionel-This is how you do Windows!

Hmmmmm. I like them both ways. Thanks for posting comparison pics. Makes it easy to decide which you want if you are looking for them.

Lionel's passenger car windows are astonishingly bad; even by toy train standards it's just such a goofy error. I've simply refrained from buying any of them until they fix that.

I agree that the GGD window treatment is superior to Lionel's.  But you can't have it all, because what I find just as annoying as the exterior mounted windows is that eye sore thumb tack uncoupler.  I just don't understand why manufacturers of high end models like this one and all of the Atlas O Master Line continue to use such an obtrusive and unattracitve uncoupler.  Clearly GGD paid a great deal of attention to detail and fidelity to the original, as does Atlas O, yet both use thumb tacks....I just don't get it.

Oh Yeah, that is much better glass. but the price delta! I think I can live with the Mr Magoo glass!

I thought most folks who purchase the GGD products, in 3-Rail, remove those lobster claw couplers and up-grade to Kadee couplers anyway. Besides, it really isn't THAT big of a deal to just cut off those thumb tacks on the Weaver, Atlas, and Sunset/3rd Rail/Golden Gate Depot couplers, assuming one wants to retain the claws.

You're joking! No, really,,,,you ARE joking,,,,,right???

Very nice looking.

I myself don't mind the Lionel passenger cars but yes the windows could be improved. The only thing I have against the GGD passenger cars are that they are 21". I think they look great but I just can't use them. If they made 18" I would buy them but for now it has to be Lionel's. 

Wait, Lionel is STILL making the cars w/ the windows like that????

Just cut the thumbtacks off and glue the couplers shut.

Your engine can always uncouple from the cars easily.

How often do you uncouple passenger cars anyway?

EXACTLY!!

I don't think it's a matter of having it all, it's a matter of having it RIGHT!  After all, it looks like the vestibule dutch door window is installed correctly...

It's not rocket science to install the window material from the inside.

Rusty

I like how MTH does their passenger cars.  I have several sets of the 18" cars, bothe streamlined and heavyweights, and the later two streamline sets I have do not have the goofy windows like Lionel did (what's up with that?!), nor do they have the thumbtack couplers.

Unfortunately I do have to uncouple my passenger trains due to space limitations

I have 2 stub end tracks in front of my passenger station on which I stage passenger cars and a 3rd very long track that bends around behind the wall that comes off the main from the other end of the room that I can store 13 18" passenger cars on.  I can leave the trains made up on that 3rd passenger track.  So I do have to uncouple my passenger cars and I need the uncoupler to do so because I uncouple remotely.  Therefore cutting off the thumb tack is not an option for me.  Thanks for the advice though.

BTW, the Trainworx Station is incredible!

Wow those windows on the Lionel are bad...never looked at them before.  GGD definetly got it done right.

Chris

Does anyone have any more pictures of the Lionel coach windows?  Although it's difficult to base an opinion upon only one photograph, my initial feeling is that it had to be a manufacturing error and that somehow the windows were fixed the wrong way around.

Hi Nicole

Here's another photo of the Lionel windows, which in my opinion look much better than the Lionel  N&W cars.

I definitely like the GGD the best, but there's a huge price difference from the Lionel to the GGD. I will stick with the Lionel passenger cars, works for my wallet.

If you notice Lionel painted or put a chrome trim around the glass which looks just fine too me.

Thanks, Alex

Take a very close look at these windows, they are installed incorrectly. They should be placed over the bottom lip. You can plainly see the bottom lip exposed.Or they are the wrong size windows. ( I'm just pointing this out, I come in Peace.)   

But I agree they don't look good

Alex

This is how a real Daylight's windows look. I thought the windows on the first set from Lionel were a factory mistake. I can't believe they keep making them like that. Don

So you REALLY don't mind the "window" sticking out like that? Have you ever noticed how REAL passenger car windows are mounted FLUSH with the side of the car?

Just my opinion, but even those SP daylight passengers look silly.

Thanks for the pictures Alex. Those look much better. The earlier photo of the N&W coach looked as though the windows were just clear plastic stuck on from the outside. Now that I can see the chrome frames, they look absolutely fine to me. I do recall seeing prototype US coaches with frames that protruded instead of being flush or recessed.

I must admit though, that perhaps the N&W style of smooth sides, and a single colour finish, is not enhanced by protruding window frames. 

The Lionel SP cars have the same problem as the N&W cars with the plastic window inserts protruding out from the window frames.  Look at them and compare to the picture Don provided above and you should be able to better see the discrepancy.

These "appear" to, ever so slightly.

I have those N&W cars and yes the windows are just like the photo but the photo does exaggerate how they look.  When on the layout they look very good and I don't notice the windows.

Could Lionel have done a better job? Yes without a doubt. But as Alex stated before they fit my finances and my layout so I will continue to buy them when needed.

I have to agree completely with Hot Water on this issue.

Yikes.

Those windows hurt my eyes.

Scrappy

I have the Superliner cars by Lionel.  The windows are the same way.  It is the one flaw that hurts the overall appearance of the car.

Ugly as homemade soap, but if I owned them I would run 'em until the glass fell out.

The chrome frames only marginally camouflage the issue IMO. Look at the last photo of the observation car end. Those windows are still bulging out, green tint from the exposed edges and all.

I was watching the latest Lionel Nation video and at one point there's a shot of a recent Lionel set of chrome Santa Fe streamliners. They were nice cars but those windows utterly ruined the look. As much as I would rather not bash Lionel, that they are STILL making them this way is absolutely inexcusable.

It's looks like bullet proof glass-are they presidential cars?

It's amazing to me that someone at Lionel OK'd this look. How do you make something like the magnificent Milwaukee Northern then a total failure like these cars. Don

Alex,

You obviously don't know how wrong you are!

Unfortunately, the windows on the Lionel are installed CORRECTLY! That said, they are engineered very INCORRECTLY!! Just look at the vestibule window which is the proper way they should have been done.

What the picture doesn't clearly show on the N&W car is the silver finish around the SURFACE edge (just like in the SP shown in another post). If you have never taken one of these cars apart, then you haven't seen the lip of the window that keeps the window from; 1.) being mounted from the inside and 2.) being pushed out to the inside of the car when heavy handed modelers pick them up by the window instead of the car body.

There is no fix, unless you know a very very good machinist that can machine out the window opening in order to keep the window opening the proper size. Then you will need a new set of window glazings with an inside lip (just like the vestibule windows have).

You can clearly see the green edge of the window (between the car body & chrome trim) on your SP observation car in the daylight.

Can you show us what it looks like at night with the interior lights on?

quote:

It's amazing to me that someone at Lionel OK'd this look. How do you make something like the magnificent Milwaukee Northern then a total failure like these cars. Don

Don,

Beats the stuffing out of me. These cars would have been "drop-dead-gorgeous" if Lionel could have just done the windows right!

Hi Jim ,

If I'm wrong then I'm wrong, that's just the way it looked to me in the picture that was put up by you. To me it looks like the windows are installed incorrectly, Just my simply opinion in this discussion. But for me I will totally stick with the Lionel cars now and in the future. They still operate flawlessly and work perfect for my budget

I could never afford or see myself spending in the thousands for passenger cars.

But again that's just for me.

Alex

Well, if you bought the complete set, you would have spent close to a grand or even more.

As nice as the GGD cars are they are not perfect. A friend of mine bought 4 sets and each one had problems. he has told me he will never buy another set.

I'm not saying because of his problems they are not nice but I have heard the same thing from others. 

Maybe the QC has gotten better, I sure hope so. 

What other cars are available for this NW set? I'd like to see the observation car if someone can post a picture, thanks.

Charlie

As the sports talk show says, please "Pardon the interruption" from me.

What is GGD?

Walt

Golden Gate Depot. A "division" of Sunset Models, Inc.. Another "division" of Sunset, is 3rd Rail Models.

Considering that Lionel cars run so well it's a shame that they just can't make new molds for the windows with a lip that sits on the inside of the car. This lip could be glued to the inside of the body and in that way the outside surface of the window would sit even with the outside body of the car?

I doubt if this would cost all that much and it would add alot of beauty to their product.