The Most Snubbed Piece Out There?

As mentioned here before, the 44 tonner makes for a "close enough" copy of the Niagara Junction's late model steeplecabs.. Some modifications which seem minor would be needed.

The biggest 'snub' personally came with my MTH UP Rail King Turbine diesel 3 piece set.  I pre-ordered it.....but when it came in I said no thanks!!! It was Rail King....but it was SO SMALL.....just looked bad.

About 8 years later I bought a almost new one for $100....about what it was worth....maybe not that much.

Gee, when was the last time Lionel even produced a 44-tonner?  I think it would be safe to say at least 10-15 years.

I think Lionel last did one in 2000, and every other time after, they decided to cancel it.

Most snubbed piece? Well, this hopper certainly fits, especially considering the flak I've gotten for it by other members of the National Capital Trackers. Me? I think it is a nice car....

Lionel Lines was the last 44 tonner Lionel made back in 1999.

This one from 2009 Volume 2 never made it to production.

So far everything pictured should have been snubbed IMO, lol.

Mikado 4501,

To satisfy my own curious nature. What production run is the RI in your photo? All the early postwar I've ever seen have no handrails.

If Lionel can put out something like the 44 ton. Why can't they put out a GE 70 ton instead of the funky whatever they did.

Pappy,

The Rock Island pictured is from Lionel's 1993 Book 2 catalog. This one, along with the Brunswick green Pennsylvania version from the year before, were the first reissued 44 Tonners and came with plastic handrails, electronic horn, and twin can motors with traction tires. These were very nice, but not exactly the best sellers if my memory serves me correct.

Most snubbed pieces would be the 9700 series MPC box cars. Many are just heat stamped high gloss, unpainted plastic, the sides had no detail, the trucks were cheap easily broken plastic and the overall look of these things is so bright you need to wear sunglasses when you run them. At best these box cars stay in the box or in the background on my layout but to their credit General Mills kept the line going with this stuff employing a "toy" mentality until the collector series came about..

Mikado 4501,

I appreciate your response. Shoot! I'd take one instead of the postwar version. And then, I'm a glutton for punishment. (same bride after 49 years..lol)

Three more of the modern era 44 tonners. 18905 PRR, 18975 Southern and 28801 Lionel Lines.

I would have thought the Lionel Scouts WERE the most snubbed, followed closely

by plastic, dummy-knuckle, MarX.

I remember I fell off my chair when I saw these "Captain High Pocket" units released in the catalog for 90 dollars!

J Daddy;

Now THAT is an ugly engine !

That has to be the UGLIEST Engine done by anyone.

neat topic....keep them coming!!

Must be hundreds out there...accessories, cars, etc.

Greg

The ALCo FA body has to be S Scale while the trucks are full O Scale and O Gauge.

The proportions do not match.

Andrew

Yes, the bizarro high-pockets FA is at the top of my list. This wasn't even that far back,

and from a company that was simultaneously marketing $1000+ steam locomotives.

I realize that there is a place for low-end, toy, starter pieces - but to actually put this

thing in the catalogue, with their name emblazoned on it, and having so many other

basic pieces in the parts bins from which various, appealing, low-end locos could be fashioned, just has to be the odd-ball idea of the decade.

This kind of thing sets Lionel's image back years, every time they try it - and it makes the

blue plastic 2-4-0 above look like a scale model.

 Yep  - That's got to be it.

Hideous,  simply hideous...

I would say Allan Miller's favorite. Lionel's #520. Plastic pantograph that almost always fell off, goofy wheel set, no detail but somehow fun. I think it came in a very cheap set at one time. Don

Of course let us not forget the Fun'duh'mentions era of Lionel. I still wince at these sets...

Horrible, just horrible....

I think 1978 was the Dark, Dark age of 3 rail.... almost nearly died.

I had this set as a kid... and wore it out in 1 week. Out of the box the transformer did not even work.

It seems like the semi scale Railking diesels like the Dash 8/9 and the SD90 are not well liked cause they look too compact compared to the Railking Scale items..  They seem like they would be nice Diesels though for a 0-31 layout.

l'll jump back in here. The first offering of F-3s for the Rail King line were terrible. I a word.....short. Even Lionel had scale sized F-3s that ran on 027 track. I always wondered why they even made these. Don

AAAARGH!!! Just when I thought I'd forgotten that abomination...

Seriously, when I first saw that in a Lionel catalog, the first thing in my head was, "What the heck were they thinking??"  The stamped-frame FA looks pretty simple and inexpensive to manufacture - so why change it. Instead, they spent money on tooling to modify the FA... for this?

Sure they may have been short but they ran great. I have one, now retired due to a occasional board issue but still operable...4K scale miles on it, lots of slop in the gears, and razor blade wheels but it still runs if I want it to...

quote:

The stamped-frame FA looks pretty simple and inexpensive to manufacture - so why change it. Instead, they spent money on tooling to modify the FA... for this?

I assume that the trucks are less expensive to manufacture.
Are they still making any of that style ALCO?

I think the Port of Lionel ALCO (18947) was of the same construction.

I have one, but have never run it. I purchased it because I have one of the paint masks that was used to decorate it.

It also makes me wonder why Lionel didn't resume using the plastic framed ALCO's from 1994-5, since they looked A LOT better, had correct ALCO trucks, and rode lower. They even had an engineer in the cab!

And Lionel's O27 Postwar FA's don't fit in this category?

Actually, I miss the old RailKing F3's.

Rusty

Ah yes, the Big "L" copying Marx with the fake truck plastic cars! But at least Marx's electric powered engines all had METAL wheels!  lol

Actually, this battery powered Marx loco even has metal wheels and frame!

The all plastic 4 wheel Marx cars get a lot of snubs. Even from some Marx fans! 

The MTH Rugged Rails F-3 Passenger set in Union Pacific, was my second O-Gauge set, and first MTH purchase. The F-3 from this set has been the best running and most reliable MTH locomotive that I have ever owned.

I also really like the 12" passenger cars that came with it, obviously no where near scale, but with 2 dummy "B" units and a dummy "A" unit added plus 12 passenger cars it looks really great snaking through the O-72 and O-84 curves on the Christmas Tree, Carpet & Western (CTC&W) that I set up each Holiday season in the Family/Dining rooms. EVEN on O-72/84 curves the short cars look nice because of NOT having the Overhang/Undercut that 18/21" cars have on the same curves

I do have a bunch of Lionel and K Line Aluminum 18" Passenger cars, that while not quite scale have much better detail, but each set has it's own Charm and I Enjoy running both, just usually not at the same time.

Doug

I have to say these semi scale cabeese should have met their demise years ago, but they just keep resurfacing!  Whats with those spaced out wheel sets!

Honestly, that's always bewildered me, too. But I guess this was so it could negotiate O-31 curves or something.

And if I never scratch up enough money together to obtain this model I won't lose any sleep over it.... I have the bicentennial version since I was a kid and it was great back in 1976... but something just does not look right released in 2002.

Trucks probably had to go out to the ends of the car because of the standard truck mounted couplers. Easier to move the trucks outboard than to make a whole new truck with longer coupler?

Oh yes, and how could we forget these little munchkins?

I do know though that Jim Barillaro did an insightful article on how to really trick out these Industrial switchers in Run 128 (April 1993) of OGR.