Official link to the 2020 American Flyer catalog is here

No surprises since the YouTube leak from two weeks ago.

Thoughts/Opinions:

The anniversary passenger train looks...  Well...  I'll be polite: Terrible.

Pacific's:  Nice to see them back.  I hope Lionel's finally run out of the gray they used on the Berkshire smokeboxes and located some proper Graphite colored paint.  And get the correct color of Cascade Green for the GN, instead of the split-pea color used recently in the O Gauge line.

Passenger sets: About $300.00 too expensive.  Why does the rolling stock average out to $175.00 a car when the separate sale are $90.00 each Army cars average out to $95.00 per car?

EP-5's: Returning due to low pre-orders.  Is Voice Command the only supposed improvement slated for these things?  I thought there were going to be other improvements also. "Dave put a lot of time into redesigning these to make them better (similar to the way the Baldwin Switcher and GP7 have been improved over the originals.)" -Ryan Kunkle

Passenger cars: GN & NH re-catalog.

Hoppers, Tank Cars:  Good selections.

Army cars:  Over all, pretty good for those interested in building a troop train.

Christmas Cars:  Something I'm personally not interested in.  I guess good for those who are.

Polar Express: Back again.  Searchlight car is new.

Track: Nothing new.

Voice Command:  Now you can yell at your trains if they don't run and maybe they'll listen..

Missed anniversary opportunity to look forward:

Rusty

Here is what I notice in the catalog. The Pacifics have not been modified to include the flickering firebox effect as on other Legacy engines, minor item. There is no mention of the IR interface for the Sensor Track communication. If it is not included that is a major shortcoming, at least for me.

The passenger cars in the AF set, the Reading and Northern set and the US Army have LED illumination with the Army cars also listed as sprung trucks. The Great Northern and New Haven passenger cars have "flicker free" lighting, no mention of LED. The hoppers are made in five road numbers. Almost all the freight cars are listed with sprung trucks.

The only justification I can see for the set prices is the cars and engine are not available for separate sale and possibly a distinctive set box? The sets do not include any track or transformer.

The sets with the Legacy Pacific engine list 27"R minimum. Must be something that changed about the engine that is not obvious. I think that will have a significant negative impact on sales. If it is true Lionel should have packaged the sets with 27"R FasTrack.

EP 5 Conventional control with DC POWER ? Another typo? New tank cars with no improved details.

Not a very good offering of anything.

Gunny

@AmFlyer posted:

Here is what I notice in the catalog. The Pacifics have not been modified to include the flickering firebox effect as on other Legacy engines, minor item. There is no mention of the IR interface for the Sensor Track communication. If it is not included that is a major shortcoming, at least for me.

The passenger cars in the AF set, the Reading and Northern set and the US Army have LED illumination with the Army cars also listed as sprung trucks. The Great Northern and New Haven passenger cars have "flicker free" lighting, no mention of LED. The hoppers are made in five road numbers. Almost all the freight cars are listed with sprung trucks.

The only justification I can see for the set prices is the cars and engine are not available for separate sale and possibly a distinctive set box? The sets do not include any track or transformer.

The sets with the Legacy Pacific engine list 27"R minimum. Must be something that changed about the engine that is not obvious. I think that will have a significant negative impact on sales. If it is true Lionel should have packaged the sets with 27"R FasTrack.

The 27" radius minimum is a misprint.  Has to be.  The previous Pacific's ran fine on R20 and I don't see how Lionel could screw them up enough to force them to run on R27 minimum.  If the Large Lad's, Challenger's, Y3's, Northern's and Berkshire's can do R20, there's absolutely no reason the Pacific can't.

Notice the passenger set cars make no mention of sprung trucks.  I'll believe sprung trucks on Flyer freight (with the exception of the cylindrical hoppers) and passenger cars when I see them.

If the Legacy electronics are like the TMCC electronics in the previous runs, the firebox is jam-packed and there's no room for a flickering firebox.

Maybe the "Boundless Journey" on February 2nd will enlighten us...

Or, there's the Ryan and Dave show at 3p.m. Eastern today.  Hopefully it won't be another dog and pony show.

Rusty

I find the appearance of the "Peace on Earth" Christmas boxcar on the bottom of the page where the Army stuff is shown ironic/amusing.

I am fairly sure that the 'sprung trucks' is a cut-and-paste typo by 0 gauge centric copywriters. The usual oversized trucks are pictured for the freight rolling stock. A Modern Era Lionel catalog without typos doesn't exist. Looking for them provides for a bit of "Where's Waldo?" fun.

How amusing!

Bob

The prices are high.  I wonder if that means the Chinese manufacturers have boosted prices a lot.  I also wonder if prices will mean not enough orders to go into production. 

The Anniversary set early order price from Charhes Ro is $1,199.99, which takes $250 off catalog.  His early order price foe a pacific is $579.99.

Ro has these marked for 4th Quarter delivery so we won't know for quite a while. 

@Bob Bubeck posted:

I am fairly sure that the 'sprung trucks' is a cut-and-paste typo by 0 gauge centric copywriters. The usual oversized trucks are pictured for the freight rolling stock. A Modern Era Lionel catalog without typos doesn't exist.

Bob

And if they were going to have new, sprung trucks, you'd think there be a nice, big, friendly word balloon announcing it.

Rusty

It looks like everything is in fourth quarter sorta like Tom Brady in a Super Bowl.

I like the 75th anniversary train set. I hope it gets made.

Yep, catalog says "sprung trucks" for the freight cars, but the illustration is still the same "old" ugly flionel "improved" trucks. Also states the PE requires 36" curves. Hmm, another typo, no doubt. Note that the new sleeper cars have the lettering "POLAR EXPRESS" over the windows, but the set cars have it under the windows, as they are in the movie.  more boo-boos??? Yeah, I know, you couldn't put the car name under the windows if POLAR EXPRESS was there.

Pricing? makes no sense--the PE set is ~$400, but the other sets are almost $1K more????

And, yes, the anniversary set, ugh. Who came up with that paint scheme????