Opinions Needed on Lionel F3 6-38368

Charlesp34:  As you know, the New York Central never had the "RED" lightening stripe paint scheme. This rendition was called the "Showroom Models". I cannot add any truth to the reality of it for the showroom.

          I do have the F-3 AA's as well as the available matching F-3B unit.  They look great! I only test ran them and they did run good as they are Pullmore motored and have magnatraction along with tire traction. All the frames are die-caste as well as the truck sideframes and pilots. They are using screws to attach the pilot and sideframes instead of staking; an improvement for sure when maintenance or repair needs to be done. The power unit has the electronic reverse unit and a signalsounds board for horn and bell. The fuel tank encloses the speaker and gives some nice "tone" to the sounds.

          The only complaint I have is with the pullmore motors as they messed up with the armature because it has the brush commutator up way too high! To correct for this, the install a spacer washer over the two lamination staking studs to lift the brushplate high enough to clear the commutator. The motors run okay, but it asks the question  WHY????  The motor also has a new (Improved?) ball bearing race that has  Nine(9) balls vs the more common five(5) balls. I asked if this was to be the norm but was not able to get a definite answer.

          The other oddity is with the F-3A dummy unit as regards the die-caste frame.  This time they have used a power frame, with Keyhole openings rather than the regular small pivot hole of past production. They still wanted to use the regular dummy trucks, so the screwed metal plates with the smaller holes over the keyholes so that the regular trucks could put mounted to the frame.  It looks a bite  "HOMEMADE" not what one would expect from LIONEL and the Iconic F-3.

          Other than these few quirks, they are fine and I enjoy them.

Dennis M.

I haven't run mine yet, so I can't speak on its performance. But I have seen them on display. They in my opinion are the nicest looking traditional sized F3's Lionel has ever made. The red striping really makes it nice.

Bill

Dennis,

Thank you for your review. Do you think anything you pointed out will cause problems down the road?

Regards,

Charles

Charlesp34:    "Cause problems down the road"?  No, I don't think that they will cause problems. As I stated, my short testing of the units showed that they performed as most F-3 pullmore locos do.  My concerns are more with why they tampered with a proven drive train and frame unless it was only to save a few bucks!

          The problem here goes much deeper than "This is a toy train"; it is a philosophy of the  1 percent to have total control and they are squeezing at the short hairs. I'm not going to get into this further, as this is not the place for it; but we see it now in New Jersey and the metropolitian area with the slowness of help going out to the people HIT HARD by SANDY! 

          God will have little mercy on them when they stand before HIM in judgement. To paraphrase - Much will be expected of those to whom much is given!  Enough said.  Dennis M.