Noticed a lack of conventional locos?

They seem to go in the ready to run catalog these days. Not much. 

Alright, I Checked it out, looks like there's nothing left at all for 2015.

As noted in a couple of recent threads, Lionel seems to be going in a different direction, i.e., the Lion Chief and Lion Chief Plus line are replacing conventional locos. Still a few conventional sets cataloged but not many. 

Both TMCC and Legacy engines operate as conventional control if necessary. There are a lot of TMCC engines on the used marketplace also that can be operated in conventional mode.

 

 

Looks great and gets you running trains. Love that FEC!

That is the part I rebel at...paying for something I don't want.  I have to keep switching auto brands and their country of origin for that same reason.  Since there

are so many postings about electronic failures, which should make locos with that

seemingly universal problem cheap on the used marked, how big a deal is it to bypass/

remove the Mickey Mouse from such engines and no longer be bothered (that is, if they

made an intersting prototype)?

I'm mainly interested in conventional, a/c Pulmore motored, Magnetraction locos. I remember them listed as Conventional Classics, Post War Inspired, Archive, or whatever slick marketing term they decided to use in the last 20 years to grab the nostalgic collectors. I'm not seeing a single offering this year as individual locos or in sets. Everything has dc motors, & traction tires. Just wondering if last year's F-3's will be the last traditional engines they ever made with the old tech...

First don't get me wrong I believe there is a use for Lionechief and Lionechief+ but for me not there I can not get pass i need a different controller for each type of engine when with TMCC/Legacy I can run them all with just one controller. To me those sets is Lionel poor decision to make a remote train set cheap K-line had something like this way back but it was battery operated

 And there trying to shove it down our throats or pay for the expensive trains 

If you want conventional check Charles Ro, Train world, Grzyboski's, etc as I believe they get some items not advertise by Lionel but Lionel had produce and you need to remember ( this is why I stated the above ) they can't advertise every thing they make. that's why you find uncatalogued sets from the 50's and 60's actually you still see non-catalog items for modern items also.

We've had a fairly active thread on this very topic (the CC's mainly). Here's the link:

https://ogrforum.com/t...stwar-remakes?page=1

I think that's an inaccurate view. Like those who listen to the evening news and concluding that crime is rampant, when in fact the rate of crime in the US is at record lows, similarly some people read postings from a relative few who talk about electronic problems with their engines, and conclude that electronic failures are a pervasive problem suffered by the majority. However, the evening news doesn't run stories about the millions who never experience crime, and so to most of those using and enjoying electronic command systems in their engines don't post threads talking about how problem-free their engines are, either.

 

The fact is that most of these engines operate just fine. Concluding that electronic problems in command engines are a universal problem is no more accurate than thinking that most women have their purses stolen. 

Williams by Bachmann is the leader for conventional locomotives, with a large selection of road names. Lionel & MTH are getting out of the game, but you can find them in their sets.

http://shop.bachmanntrains.com/

http://www.trainworld.com/manufacturers/williams/

I don't know that Lionel is done producing A/C motored engines but in today's "lowest cost possible" business environment it is certainly a legitimate conclusion.  The difference in cost between a/c and d/c motors might represent only a very small percentage of the retail price but when dealing with small quantities may determine whether an item is produced or not.

Williams by Bachmann has plenty of conventional locos that will run circles around Lionel conventional locos.

Command control (DCS TMCC or whatever Lionel has now) is why I have bought ONE new loco in the past 3 years from Lionel or MTH. I don't want the electronics. Too many conventionals on the secondary market to choose from.

I think they are just responding to market force, and here I seem to be mainstream.  I'm a traditionalist but not so much that I want to buy AC motors rather than can motors (quieter, use much less current, slower, smoother) and magnetration (doesn't work too well on my Atlas track).  However, all the locos I have bought recently are conventional in one sense: they run superbly in conventional mode.  I'm quite pleased.

I agree.....I do not miss open frame AC motors.  A big DC can motor beats it every time. I think the issue is paying for electronics, and the issues that may follow, rather than motor type......for me anyway!!

 

 

The universal Pullmor motors (they're not designed to just work on a/c alone, hence the 'universal' nomenclature they're also called) are considerably more expensive to build, rather than utilize readily available DC can motors.  That in itself may be indicative of why conventional engines built with those specific motors are not done on a consistent basis.  Can motored engines tend to run smoother at slower speeds (typically 6-8 poles as opposed to just 3 on the pullmors) with less cogging, and the brushlife on them tend to also outlast those in pullmors.

 

Some people will debate reliability of can vs. pullmores till the cows come home, but former EnterTRAINment public layout owner Elliot Feinberg(?), aka "Big_Boy_4005" on the forum, used to have much longer running hours in a week than most average home layout owners do in a month, can attest to which ones hold up better in the long run before wearing out, if he so choses to participate.

I see this question posted every now and then. For those that want conventional there are so much on the secondary market it is not funny. You even have a manufacturer that makes nothing but conventional and that is WBB.

 

most people today don't want the old open frame motor. It was a lousy motor then and even worse today. Let it die. 

 

If you want conventional trains just go buy them and stop complaining. 

 

 

People who want conventional trains are living in the past.  They should either get with the times or get out of the hobby.

*sarcasm*

It won't happen, but I'd love it if Lionel made available the chassis of the F-3 Legacy Neil Young series. I'd have a big time with those, swapping shells with my older MPC era F-3s that came with the aluminum passenger sets.

Wow Mike!!

At first I missed the *sarcasm* remark.

 

I thought OH MY this guy is gona be shot at sunrise!!!

 

Larry

I thought about putting my PRR F3 shells on TMCC chassies more than once.  Just never got around to it.

The few F-3 A/C motored diesels produced in recent years by Lionel (NYC, Wabash, ATSF Black Bonnet) didn't seem to sell very well based upon all of the blowout pricing I have lately, which is probably a good indication that desire for these offerings has diminished.

 

I did buy the ATSF and Wabash and I'm glad I did.

The past is a nice place to live. Black and white TV ain't so bad, plus stuff is cheaper here. It's the commute to the present to go to work every day that's killer though.

Sarcasm or not, this is not an attitude conductive for the hobby in general.

 

Rusty

Lionel is simply reflecting what their market wants and what they will buy.

For the 2015 v1 catalog, there are six dealer only conventional sets which I noticed don't seem to include track or transformer. In the 2015 RTR catalog there are two conventional sets. There were a lot more Lion Chief sets and Lion Chief Plus engines. The Lion Chief Plus engines will also run in conventional, as do the Legacy engines.

 

Another thread the other day also got me to wondering about this so I looked up the 2014 conventional sets. The 2014 v1 catalog also had 6 dealer only conventional sets, 3 Postwar classic sets and 5 PWC engines (actually one engine in 5 road names). The 2014 RTR catalog had 22 conventional sets.

 

The direction they are headed looks pretty obvious, more Lion Chief and less conventional. Will be interesting to see if there are any conventional sets left next year? I am all command control so it doesn't affect me, but I know there are still a lot of folks that run conventional that will possibly be disappointed. I don't see conventional operation going away because of this, but they must not be selling many new conventional sets? The LC & LC+ lines seem to be doing very well though. 

 

Lots of wear and tear on the Flux Capacitor too.

Interesting thing about some of the comments on conventional trains -- and the fans of these trains --- is that they still remain the vast majority of the hobby. Trains with modern electronics and control systems are great, too, and are very popular here on the forum

 

But conventional trains operated by transformers are the bedrock of the hobby.

Pun intended?  Seems appropriate based on the discussion...Jeff Davis

       
       


...and it's sometimes an all-too-common attitude around here, which is why I made fun of it.  I have never owned, and probably will never own, a command-control system in any scale, so I'm firmly in the conventional camp.  Flippant remarks like those from david1 above irritate me to no end and so I thought I'd take a shot at this attitude.  Sorry if anyone took it the wrong way.  I should know better than to say certain things around here.  Won't happen again.

I'm a conventional operator, and I don't mind the lack of conventional engines in the catalogs, but I wish they would scrap Lionchief and make all those sets Lionchief Plus so that we could run them without the handhelds.

 

I mean, who wants 10 handhelds?

Getting there, don't get me wrong, I like running conventional engines also, depends on my mood.

 

Art

This will aggrivate the techies, but I'm 41 now. Just old enough to be from a slightly simpler time. My dad's PW era & my own MPC trains are what I remember, they're what I wanted back then, & they're what I want to keep running now. I like traditional, conventional Lionel trains with Pulmor motors that smell like ozone, gears that growel, & clunky reverse units that buzz. I find all those sights, sounds, & smells comforting & I don't mind having to man the throttle because they don't have cruise control or any of those wiz - bang features. I'm a simple man, easily satisfied to run my simple trains, remembering my dad & enjoying the hobby with my son. I like to see other people's layouts with all the gadgets, but it's not for me. The new, electronics loaded items are way out of my price range & I don't like other off brands of repro type products like Williams or whatever, so when Lionel started making their new production, old style locos, now that was something I could get excited about. I'd rather they were made here & not in China, but if the price is right, I really would rather have that sort of thing. I got my son the NYC Red Lightening for his birthday & we love them. They look great & run like the old ones. If I had to nit pick anything, the only thing I can say is that I miss that "thunk, waaaa, thunk" noise the E-unit used to make, but that's about it. I don't forsee buying much else new like that, especially if they're done making this type. I noticed they already developed traditional looking F-3's with can motors & electronics, so that's probably what they'l release future products based on. It really doesn't matter much to me anyway because I've got just about enough trains to keep my layout full without setting the wife off Megaton over some crazy priced train in the future. I'm doin' allright.

This is a very good point. I'm no marketing expert, but I have wondered why they didn't make the LC engines with conventional capabilities since they were first introduced? Seems like they are missing out on a part of the market here? And they offer no sets with LC+, just the engines sold separately?

 

I also thought all the remotes were a bad idea, but it actually makes sense if you have several people wanting to run their own train (if layout permits, of course).  I think it's also a good idea for folks with more than one child that wants a train set. No fighting over who gets to run the train. It also allows them to combine all the track that comes with the sets for a bigger layout and still be able to run all their trains. I wouldn't want 10 remotes either, but someone with multiple kids and others want to run trains just might.

Stay tuned on this (the multiple LC+ remotes). Remember -- during the Notch 6 podcast with Lionel there was some teaser about upcoming technical announcement on LC+.

 

Maybe at York?

No, don't stop speaking out.  If no one speaks up, any Lionel policy-makers poking around this forum will get the idea that "death to conventional" is representative of the entire 3-rail hobby.

 

I'm all for scale locomotives.  I'm even fine with DC motors.  But I do not want, and will never use, command control.  And that doesn't mean that WBB fits my every need, or that everything I could possibly want is there for the taking on "the secondary market."  And, like Colorado Highrailer, I don't like paying for something I'm never going to use.

 

 

I am a conventional operator and for what I am doing this mode of operation is fine, at lease for now.

If you are worried about the locos with pullmore motors going away just look around. The market is flooded with them; at the train shows, eBay, estate sales and just about everywhere. There is no danger of extinction as they will last nearly forever. I still have trains that were built 80 years ago and with a few drops of oil, they still run like the day that they were built. I expect that by the year 3000 they will be running the same way, fast, loud and powerful. 

 

As for the statement (yes I understand the sarcasm)"People who want conventional trains are living in the past.  They should either get with the times or get out of the hobby." 

My response: The antiques market is still quite brisk and millions of people own them.

Some people love to own old classic cars, telephones, clocks, radios, tools, furniture and yes classic trains.

Does the commonly expressed dislike of all of today's "new fangled electronics" also extend to the use of electronic rather than the old electro-mechanical E-units? I seem to remember the mechanical ones being a source of frustration, often needing cleaning or adjusting on older conventional trains.

 

Personally, I have never liked having to cycle though F-N-R to change direction, especially to do switching moves.

 

Bill in FtL