New LionChief Plus Geeps?

I don't remember any previous discussion on this.

All the Lionchief Plus Geeps have this extended front pilot. It looks really not good. And what makes it look even worse is that the entire frame is jacked up higher and the pilot has two steps instead of three. Just look at the attached photos for a side by side comparison with a postwar Geep. Very striking. 

The TMCC Geeps from the 90’s looked better also, so the electrocouplers aren’t a good excuse.  

It looks like when Lionel improvised and added a mounting ring to convert the truck from a Pullmor to can motor it contributed to the height.  It’s still far better looking than the ridiculous appearance of the cheap Alcoa and Geeps from the 80’s where they crammed can motors into those plastic trucks and jacked up the whole frame to a silly height.

Does this have anything to do with the coil coupler?  Just asking.  It does look bad.  I'm not sure what would be worse the coupler sticking way out of the truck or the steps.

MartyE posted:

Does this have anything to do with the coil coupler?  Just asking.  It does look bad.  I'm not sure what would be worse the coupler sticking way out of the truck or the steps.

I just added to my last post that the TMCC Geeps from the 90’s with electrocouplers didn’t have this issue, so that’s not to blame

Such a shame... I'm in the demo for engines like this, but won't pull the trigger because of it.  Are the RS-3's like this too?  

Jon  

WOW THATS BAD

GregR posted:

I just added to my last post that the TMCC Geeps from the 90’s with electrocouplers didn’t have this issue, so that’s not to blame

That's too bad.  Wonder what changed.

Sad part people will still buy them because they don't know the difference.  It also indicates a lack of quality control.

I can't imagine why, but I'm sure Lionel had some reason for doing this. I'm the repair tech at our local train store, and most of the customers that I see come off the street and and buy up LC products honestly couldn't care less about these details. It's just a toy for most of them.  It only gets under the skin of us folks here on the Forum.

I had this problem several years ago with the Chessie GP30 (6-28559). It has the lion drive trucks. I measured the trucks and they were different lengths for front and rear of engine. Switched the trucks and everything aligned perfectly. Could this be the same for these jeeps? I hope so since it’s an easy fix. I can’t believe Lionel would engineer such an obvious mistake.

romiller49 posted:

I had this problem several years ago with the Chessie GP30 (6-28559). It has the lion drive trucks. I measured the trucks and they were different lengths for front and rear of engine. Switched the trucks and everything aligned perfectly. Could this be the same for these jeeps? I hope so since it’s an easy fix. I can’t believe Lionel would engineer such an obvious mistake.

The LC+ trucks are identical, front and rear.

I have no dog in this fight, postwar Lionel all the way, but that "ain't" too smart of a design decision.

suzukovich posted:

Sad part people will still buy them because they don't know the difference.  It also indicates a lack of quality control.

Aesthetically it sucks, but if the coupler functions correctly (opens properly by command signal) then it's not a quality control issue - ugly doesn't count if the design does what it's supposed to do. I don't like the way it looks either, and I'd like to see Lionel address this concern as it's not very attractive. They're not marketed as scale detailed, and they employed a lot of leeway in the appearance department for some reason (maybe the coil coupler is a stock part that's too long if used with the Lionel Corp. Geep frame/truck assembly and the extended pilot helps hide it a bit, maybe it was the least expensive way to implement production).

This reminds me of the catalogued RS-3s that ride on EMD trucks - they look ridiculous that way, but for casual train buyers they don't know or care about the way the real locomotives were delivered - maybe there's an RS-3 that got put onto EMD trucks at some point (some RI FAs got Blomberg trucks from retired EMD FTs, and the AAR Type Bs went under new GEs), but I've never seen a picture of one. The original models came with nice looking AAR Type B trucks with plastic sideframes - my hunch is making identical chassis for Geeps and RS-3s is the most cost effective route for production. That way, they can claim that they're riding on diecast trucks if they use the Geep's Blomberg sideframes - diecast seems to have appeal as being more durable during description time in a catalog. I wouldn't buy either of those models right now, but I'm not just starting out in the hobby and buying what looks colorful in a catalog or hobby shop without being too serious about fidelity to scale or detail.

it should aleast look like a gp mth is much better for about the same price shame on you lionel

I simply can’t understand how these mistakes get by the pre production samples. I guess that’s why when I visit train shops new customers are always directed to Rail King products. So sad. 

That's really bad, I think we should all confront the powers that be at York!

I just can't believe that an item in production since the 1950's... that has been cheapened and improved as the decades pass... can have such a glaringly obvious flaw as this.  Did someone in Engineering look at it and say: "ah... good enough."  Did someone in Marketing look at it and say: "the LionChief crowd won't even notice..."? 

"Good enough" never is.  And why lose half your customers who DO notice? 

Didn't we learn this lesson when the cast-frame ALCo FA's came out with the buck-toothed pilot in 1993? 

Jon

KOOLjock1 posted:

I just can't believe that an item in production since the 1950's... that has been cheapened and improved as the decades pass... can have such a glaringly obvious flaw as this.  Did someone in Engineering look at it and say: "ah... good enough."  Did someone in Marketing look at it and say: "the LionChief crowd won't even notice..."? 

"Good enough" never is.  And why lose half your customers who DO notice? 

Didn't we learn this lesson when the cast-frame ALCo FA's came out with the buck-toothed pilot in 1993? 

Jon

Jon

I agree.  Unless there is something we don't have insight to this is just poor.  It looks to me that shank the steps are part of could have been shorten to align correctly with the railing.

Wow that's off

MTN posted:

... ugly doesn't count if the design does what it's supposed to do....

Really? Tell that to an architect or a designer. There's a reason why the Santa Fe warbonnet has been so popular. And, the story goes that Geeps were originally designed to be ugly. Are there instances where the aesthetic value is unimportant? Definitely. But more often than not, how something looks is an important component of design.

Is this a "new" thing?  Or did I miss a previous discussion?

Apparently it is not a new thing. Here's two videos featuring LionChief Plus GP7's from 3 years ago so this is hardly a secret or something recently missed by Lionel.  There have been threads on LionChief Plus locos before, and I can't recall this topic being noticed or discussed (which doesn't mean it wasn't). Most critical threads I can recall discussing the LC+ diesels have addressed problems with the dual motors not working properly.

The third video is from 2 years ago and features a LC+ RS3. All right on YouTube... not very hard to find at all. Of course, you have to look first. 

And since two of these videos were made by a sponsor of this forum, they were probably posted on this very forum by Ken at TrainWorld.

So far, I haven't jumped on any of the LC+ locomotives. But this is suppose to be the traditional 027/0 gauge forum, and these are, save for the advanced electronics, traditional products. Most of the criticisms I read on this particular forum about prototypical discrepancies with traditional 027/0 products don't bother me AT ALL! Nor do they seem to bother the vast majority of people of buy them.

Like watercolor painting, these sorts of trains are "representations" of the real thing, which is exactly what I want. My imagination fills in the rest.

I seem to recall this being discussed before now that I think of it. 

The question though is, if you can improve the product, shouldn't you?  I guess there are implications of using a standard part across platforms but it seems it could be something that could be corrected.

As a big fan of the TMCC Geeps, that is just bizarre.  The steps are in the middle of the railing.  Why would you change it to that?  Take something perfect and turn it into...  I don't get that at all.

I looked at the LionChief engines that Lionel had on display at York today.  It appears the GP38 and GP20 have the same problem with the steps extending out beyond the railing.  I didn’t get a chance to ask them about it.   

Neal Jeter