MTH 20th Century Limited Streamlined Set

Excellent review as always!  One bad thing...every time I watch one of your reviews, I want to buy the featured item!!!

Very nice review

Thanks,

Alex

You aren't the only one that feels that way.

Thanks Eric for Review !

I love the HD video ! looks great on the 27" computer monitor !

NYC to Greatness !

Awesome review. Just curious.....I have the Premier Dreyfuss from the 2000 catalog(20-3045-1). This gray on this newer version looks darker than mine. I noticed in the video that the dreyfuss was a dark gray and then later appeared a shade lighter. (maybe the lighting changed?). Anyone else have the 2000 version and notice this? or am I mistaken?

Always enjoy your reviews, Eric. 

That's an example of what a review should be.

As always, after watching your review, I want the model. That's code for great job!

Great review as usual Eric, you continue to to cover almost everything about the engines and rolling stock. I can't wait for your next review.

You must be running out of room for all the engines and rolling stock you have acquired. 

Great review, Eric! Your reviews are always extremely thorough, which influenced my decision on buying many items that I was unsure of. Thanks! 

Great review, Eric.  Certainly a "world favorite" engine, those Dreyfus Hudson's,  and your comments about the $25 passenger cars us is on target.  Certainly a great start on getting a ten or twelve car passenger set, which would more correctly represent the 20th Century Limited.

Paul Fischer

Eric,

You mentioned changing the wireless drawbar to a shorter one. I have the MTH Premier PS-2 N&W J 604  20-3366-1E. I installed the longest of the wireless drawbars included in the set. This drawbar is approximately 3/16" shorter. Even on 081 curves, the shorter drawbar caused problems both with the tender deck plate, and derailment of the front tender truck.

The shorter wireless drawbars do look nice for display, but I have not successfully made them operational.

Nice review Eric. Love the streamline design.

Favorite RR, favorite locomotive, good review. Not that I don't already have enough (is that possible?) NYC Hudsons, plain and fancy. Not a big MTH/DCS user, but that Bark! that MTH steamers have is very crisp. I do NOT need this set. Really.

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I noticed the thinner handrails right away and thought that they looked great - then when you mentioned some had objected to a "cheapening" of the model, I wasn't really surprised.

A little knowledge of the real thing can help...

It's actually an improvement, as the older handrail diameter would have been 6" in the real world - hardly realistic.

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To my knowledge, the modern NYC steamers' whistles could not be "quilled", and the engineer's cab control simply opened a valve, which in turn actually "blew" the whistle - from the engineer's point of view it was an off/on function. He could blow the correct patterns, of course, but he couldn't play with the whistle steam valve directly.

So - didn't need it here, anyway. Problem is, I think that the quillable whistle tone sounded better than the standard (very standard) MTH whistle sound.

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Enjoyed the review, - too much. I want the set, real bad.

Another great review

Great review, yes. No question.

i like the reviews because they reveal to me whether or not a company has improved the product. MTH produces gorgeous locomotives. The cars are nice for their price range but have not changed much. The locomotive sounds seem the same to me and I focus on that quite a lot. 

Thanks, Eric

I find crew talk very moronic at best and MTH's latest renditions even more annoying because of the bossy nature of the crew member doing the talking. Do this, do that, do this. You don't have to imagine very hard what I would say to that guy trying to boss me around like that! Get a life MTH!

Nice review as always you are the best!!!

That's probably the most annoying part of crew-talk and tower-com dialogue's.  For visitors, I suppose it's a cool effect.  But to the seasoned toy train enthusiast,  the feature has quickly become old and tired. 

I recall one year, Lionel used the same combo of engineer's and dispatcher's voice on nearly every steam locomotive produced that year -- regardless of roadname -- all in an effort to cut corners and reduce costs when recording voice talent.  It was so annoying, I just bagged the whole feature altogether. 

The dialogues are already boring enough, but the generic dialogues without specific road-name / road-number references just drive the cutting-corners point home even further.  So nowadays, if you want unique dialogues that are somewhat refreshing and new, you gotta pony up the big bucks for Vision Line products.  

Consumers are a finicky lot.  But smart marketeers know how to read their audience accordingly.  Bottom line... even #1 hit-songs don't stay #1 (or even stay in the Top-40) forever.  There's a reason that happens. 

David

My favorite feature is the lighted drivers.

I disagree with the comment about MTH not improving their passenger cars. Yes they have the same basic tooling. But MTH has made numerous improvements over the past 10 years in areas such as lighting, added great figures, better trucks, better lettering and added external details. It would take another video to point all of it out.

Excellent review.  Thanks Eric.

.....

Dennis

Agree - love the pricing on this set, and love that MTH offers two paint schemes, but the cars are one of the reasons why I'm hesitant to get this set, and probably won't.  I'm not generally a rivet counter, but the fact that there are only coaches and no sleeper cars in the set - and, IIRC, only 1 or 2 sleepers available for add-on for an iconic train that was all-sleeper annoys me endlessly. As Eric said, it's the same car line that MTH uses for everything else.  Even if it was the same basic sleeper with several different car names it wouldn't bother me so much. Other than the train-specific paint they didn't really do anything different for the Century. 

I ended up pre-ordering the entire Lionel ESE set - will be interesting to see how it stands up, esp. as it's twice the price (albeit w/3 more cars). 

I agree with your comments. MTH has been churning out these rather generic passenger cars for a while...and that has some pros and cons. On the downside, you don't get a very train-specific set of passenger cars. On the upside, because they've made so many of these and can just crank them out, they are an incredible deal.

It really comes down to what's more important to you, but my opinion and I guess my point in general is that at $25 a car you really can't go wrong. 

The truth is that the train makers are in a lose-lose situation. If they put out inexpensive cars that are not 100% accurate (like this set), people complain. If they made train-specific cars for this set, the price would go up and people would complain.

-Eric

Eric it's another excellent video!

Thanks for another great video review! An absolutely beautiful set!

I showed my wife and she lifted an eyebrow... lol... she loves steam engines! 

"The truth is that the train makers are in a lose-lose situation."

                                                Eric of Eric's Trains

I don't think this has to be so. For me, as an example, I don't complain when the product is expensive as long as it is well worth the price. Golden Gate Depot passenger cars, for instance. A Vision Line Big Boy as another example. Some of the train manufacturers are quite capable of making expensive items that sell out. GGD is an example. Go to the auction site and see if you can find many of their passenger car sets. Very difficult.

It seems to me MTH has a formula that works for them. The cars are nice, but not sufficiently detailed for me. The locos are gorgeous, but some do not have the sound I am looking for or other features I have come to love.

There is nothing, whatsoever, wrong with the MTH set Eric reviewed. As I said above, it is a gorgeous set. Not for everyone, but still gorgeous.

Agreed - worth the extra $100 even for just the observation & RPO, IMHO.  I'm just not sure why they didn't put the sleepers they already produce in the set vs. the coaches.  It just puts me more in the "wait & see" category vs. "buy now."  That & I'm a sucker for whistle steam, & IIRC Lionel's about due for a refresh on this engine, too....  Hey I can dream, right? 

Oh, dear - I just realized something from seeing Fridge56Vet's (does that mean "Frigidare '56 Corvette"? I mean, both were GM products, but...?) comment on "coaches".

How could I have missed it.

The 20th Century Limited never carried "coaches" (chair cars) until a handful of years before its death in the mid-1960's. It was a luxury "all-Pullman"/sleeper train. No one sat up in a seat all night in the Century until the very end. 

So, these MTH coaches do not belong in this train at all. By the time the Century had coaches (again, 1960's) all NYC Hudsons had long since been made into refrigerators and stoves. 

Nice set; wrong cars.

I agree. The crew talk sounds a bit rude to me.