I just received an email from Legacy Station that the PRR Traditional sized Sensor Car is not going to be produced. I increased my order for the Scale REA one. People might want to check their orders.
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If true, that would be most upsetting. I bought a bunch of new Legacy stuff because this car was in the catalog. Not cool, Lionel, not cool.
Steve
What more can you say! Maybe, me ands will come out with one first. They seem to be a bit more organized....to bad not open tech.
RideTheRails posted:If true, that would be most upsetting. I bought a bunch of new Legacy stuff because this car was in the catalog. Not cool, Lionel, not cool.
Steve
If the orders are not there it's cost prohibitive to make. I would suspect it maybe re-offered later. Tell the folks at the Lionel booth at York or write "Talk to Us" about your concerns.
I thought the sensorcar would have been a popular item. Simple less expensive way to add that technology to your train. The technology provides the opportunity to add significant functionality to ones layout. At this point I'm glad I held off my investment in sensor track. Maybe Lionel has plans to bring it back with added capability. How about a sensorcar/sensor track bundle.
They apparently dropped all the traditional sized sensor cars, they're still making the scale ones. I'm a bit bummed, I had two of the traditional sized ones on order to pirate the electronics and retrofit some TMCC stuff with sensor technology. They just ran up the price another $20 to do that. 
The sensor needs to be done in Traditional....and it will be a staple....it needs to be available over years.......
I am bummed about the New Haven LC plus set camncellation!
Peter
Trust me I have played with a demo Lionel was gracious enough to let us have for the Legacy Users Meeting a year ago. It is a fun car and adds some great functionality to older Legacy engines and some cool features to TMCC cars. I really hope they circle back with the traditional car. I would still say go to the booth a let 'em have it. If enough folks want it, they will make it. I didn't order any because they weren't BTO so I figured there would be plenty around.
I actually pre-ordered two, obviously I'm not going to get them.
I
MartyE posted:I didn't order any because they weren't BTO so I figured there would be plenty around.
Same here Marty.
Hmm Lionel have just stopped the cheapest way to get hold of the sensor electronics for kit bashing into other items.
Nick
MartyE posted:... I didn't order any because they weren't BTO so I figured there would be plenty around.
I think we're gonna be hearing a common theme on this one. And it really begs the question of what criteria is used for cancelling non-BTO items. I doubt it has anything to do with low dealer orders on these cars, 'cause this is undoubtedly THE kind of product dealers would have ordered a bunch "on spec" -- thinking these would get gobbled up by the non-scale crowd.
For the time being, this cancellation is quite puzzling to say the least. 
David
MartyE posted:RideTheRails posted:If true, that would be most upsetting. I bought a bunch of new Legacy stuff because this car was in the catalog. Not cool, Lionel, not cool.
Steve
If the orders are not there it's cost prohibitive to make. I would suspect it maybe re-offered later. Tell the folks at the Lionel booth at York or write "Talk to Us" about your concerns.
I sort of agree with you MartyE, regarding cost prohibitive. However there are many common parts between the scale version and traditional. Seems the only change would be the chassis, drill a hole for the sensor and some two sided tape, to secure the electronics, and you're done.
gunrunnerjohn posted:I actually pre-ordered two, obviously I'm not going to get them.
I ordered one REA scale and one Penn traditional. I emailed RO yesterday and asked them to change the Penn traditional to the REA scale one if it's true that it's been canceled.
We shall see...
RideTheRails posted:MartyE posted:RideTheRails posted:If true, that would be most upsetting. I bought a bunch of new Legacy stuff because this car was in the catalog. Not cool, Lionel, not cool.
Steve
If the orders are not there it's cost prohibitive to make. I would suspect it maybe re-offered later. Tell the folks at the Lionel booth at York or write "Talk to Us" about your concerns.
I sort of agree with you MartyE, regarding cost prohibitive. However there are many common parts between the scale version and traditional. Seems the only change would be the chassis, drill a hole for the sensor and some two sided tape, to secure the electronics, and you're done.
I still like the idea of a kit. The traditional box car was sort of kit priced, but hey, if Lionel can't pry loose boxcar price plus sensor, then let us build them ourselves. After all, setting up the whole sensor thing on the layout costs many hundreds and kits would encourage more of that.
I bought the traditional sized sensor car because I was looking at using the electronics in another car or engine, similar to John's idea. It is a shame they cancelled it for those who wanted one, but I guess I'm neutral on this since now I'll wait to see if someone actually makes a successful transplant in the future.
The scale car with the REA logo has a too new paint scheme for my layout. I did buy one hoping to switch out the shell with another reefer that has a shell that fits my era.
Like others, I support the idea of a kit.
Sensor kit, good idea for an ERR product! 
gunrunnerjohn posted:Sensor kit, good idea for an ERR product!
Yes...an obvious solution. Wonder how it works. Constantly transmitting an ID like the contents of an orange module? Be interesting I you could write the info from the base or rather LSU into the IR chip. Then it could retrofit the ID of any engine, accessory, etc. that you have stored into the base into an IR chip and selectively trigger the sensor tracks.
Lionel's cancellations, which have grown larger in frequency and number, are troubling. Just as disturbing and surprising are the apologists who periodically surface on this forum to sympathize and rationalize this conduct (i.e. poor Lionel didn't get enough pre-orders, etc., etc.)
These cancellations speak to a larger issue of trustworthiness. We cannot count on Lionel to follow through with anything. Lionel needs to "man up" and assume some degree of business risk, commit to a product, catalog it, and get busy producing. To be certain, people do indeed make plans around announced products. Cancellations are disruptive and costly to everyone. Every business takes risks. The timid fail.
A business with common sense would seek customer feedback, implement satisfaction surveys and gauge interest in certain products. They would do so before issuing a catalog. We can all observe the striking absence of any outreach for customer feedback at Lionel. After all, when was the last time you received a survey which included questions such as "rank our quality control on a scale of 0 to 10"? Never. Lionel communicates one-way only. Perhaps this cult-like corporate opacity is a lingering relic of their long-lost monopoly, in a long-lost world where collectors gossip over the next big announcement from the "great leader" of toy trains. To Lionel, I supppose we are all children who should "take what you get and don't throw a fit".
cjack posted:gunrunnerjohn posted:Sensor kit, good idea for an ERR product!
Yes...an obvious solution. Wonder how it works. Constantly transmitting an ID like the contents of an orange module? Be interesting I you could write the info from the base or rather LSU into the IR chip. Then it could retrofit the ID of any engine, accessory, etc. that you have stored into the base into an IR chip and selectively trigger the sensor tracks.
It obviously transmits continuously, as you don't invoke it when you run over the sensor track. You can write the stuff to be transmitted from the sensor car with the CAB2 or LSU, there's no other way to get engine specific data into one of those.
Chuck, you have exactly described how the sensor car works, the whole point is to allow you to use other engines and control activity with the sensor track.
Yes, I was thinking since you can make orange modules with LSU, then the hardware is already there for making Sensor transmitter modules.
The way the demo one we had worked, if you look at you version 1.6 Cab2 is and additional setting for setting up an ENG. Can't remember the exact label but something like IRTX. You use this to pair the sensor car to a target ENG ID. The base then recognizes the sensor car, because it's the same ID as the paired engine it is following. I'm not sure what info is actually stored in the IR sensor car if any or does it reference the Base for the ID over the sensor track and also uses the ENG ID to trigger the Legacy "actions". I suspect if it's transmitting anything it's the ID of the paired engine. The base possibly does the rest. I'm not sure you are putting a name, road number etc. into the sensor car. I could be totally wrong but from my experience that seems to be what could be happening.
Maybe Jon or Rudy can give a better or more accurate operating mode.
It certainly could be using the engine name & number, but something is collecting that data so that the engine data is displayed when you drive over the track.
I'll also await the real explanation. 
The sensor car could be simpler than I had imagined. 
I'm just not sure you need to store that info in the car if it's already available in the base.
Well that's it I think. If you pair a sensor car ID to an engine, then when ever you pass over the sensor track, the base transmits whatever was recorded, to that engine or elsewhere. My thinking on recording engine info would eliminate the need to pair. But pairing is simpler and the sensor car could be switched to any engine just by pairing...faster and simpler.
But the recording to an IR kit would allow you to retrofit an IR to an older diesel or tender and in effect update the engine to being IR equipped. Older Legacy engines without IR are not as desireable as those with IR. YMMV.
Do these sensor cars have a run/program switch on them? If so, I would guess, that they read the assigned address in program mode, and send it out over the IR when running. If they don't, I have to guess that each car will have a unique ID number and that the Legacy base pairs that ID to a particular engine or car.
Here's a question. If you have an LCS recording for one engine when it passes a sensor track, does the recording play back on another engine set to the same address?
JGL
JohnGaltLine posted:Do these sensor cars have a run/program switch on them? If so, I would guess, that they read the assigned address in program mode, and send it out over the IR when running. If they don't, I have to guess that each car will have a unique ID number and that the Legacy base pairs that ID to a particular engine or car.
Here's a question. If you have an LCS recording for one engine when it passes a sensor track, does the recording play back on another engine set to the same address?
JGL
Yes at least the demo had a PGM / RUN switch. I assigned it the same ID as the engine I was pairing it with.
John I assigned the sensor car to an engine on another track and pulled it behind a different engine. It caused the sensor track "actions" to happen on the other track engine paired with it. Once paired, until re-paired, it will always cause the action to be sent to the paired engine. Does that make sense?
As far as a recording, I'm am not 100% sure the sensor car can trigger a recording initiated only by it like the engines but I don't see why not.
JohnGaltLine posted:Do these sensor cars have a run/program switch on them? If so, I would guess, that they read the assigned address in program mode, and send it out over the IR when running. If they don't, I have to guess that each car will have a unique ID number and that the Legacy base pairs that ID to a particular engine or car.
Here's a question. If you have an LCS recording for one engine when it passes a sensor track, does the recording play back on another engine set to the same address?
JGL
If I understand, the answer to your question is that the recording is made for a specific engine ID or any engine, your choice.
Thank you, Marty and Chuck...
Having the switch leads me to believe that the car is programed to report some changeable set of information.
Chuck, I understand that you can program the instructions for one engine or all engines. What I'm asking is, if programed for one engine, does it only work on that exact engine, or if that engine is removed for the track, and another engine with the same assigned address is put on the track, will the second engine follow the program of the first? In other words, is the IR sensor sending engine address information, or is it sending unique, locomotive specific, information?
I know that there has to be some level of unique information as the legacy system can read in information on the engine type and such over the IR, but I'm unsure what information is used by LCS do determine when a particular engine passes the sensor.
JGL
I'll bet the sensor car only reacts to the engine number. Whether it stores the name/number internally or gets them from the base, it has no idea what engine is responding to that ID, there is no feedback path from the engine, it's a receive-only interface. I'm sure you can plop any engine on the track with that ID and it'll react the same way. Legacy has no idea if an engine is out there or not when you send commands, it just assumes it's there.
I can imagine the pairing in the base can raise up (check) the engine data when the paired IR car passes over the sensor, let's see what purpose? Since you make the recording with the paired engine and IR car, then the attributes of the Legacy or TMCC engine will be in place in the recording. If you then pair and run the IR car with a different engine, same ID, will it play the recording under Legacy or what? Seems like it has to be the engine that was originally paired with the IR car which made the recording.
If you just run the programmed ID IR car over a sensor, can you record without pairing to an engine? What? Switch changes maybe? And if you do, then play that recording when it again runs over the sensor? That would be kind of cool for something...maybe an IR car under gravity power down a hump. Why not?
The fun is always the unintended consequences...
Chuck, there's no way for them to check if you have the same engine paired, if you simply take that engine off the tracks and put a totally different engine on the tracks with the same TMCC ID. Whatever stored program is in the sensor track will run the same way it did for the other engine. They don't have a clue that you swapped engines, there's no mechanism for them to find out.
GRJ, Is this known to be a fact, or is it a best guess? I would assume that the sensor car is just "broadcasting" one of the 99 available engine addresses, as this would be straightforward and simple. However, it is still possible that the car is sending out a unique ID address many bytes long, and that the LCS system then associates this unique ID with a particular engine address. I don't suppose the sensor car's method will be testable until the car hits the streets, but the test with two legacy engines can be done today by anyone with access to two legacy engines with the IR and a LCS system with sensor track.
JGL
If my suspicions are correct, if you swap engines without reloading the info for that particular ID in the command base, it will ID it as the engine originally paired with. I still suspect the base is the source of sensor cars pool of information so until the base info it's changed or its repaired with a new ID it will display the original info from the engine paired with.
All that aside, it's a fun car. The week I had our demo was a lot of fun. I was triggering recordings and even running it behind and engine it wasn't paired with. It made for some fun when it triggered a whistle or what have you for a train it wasn't behind.
Ill see what info I can get from Lionel today.
Well, there is one fact. The Legacy locomotives do not get their data from the command base, and the sensor track sends the complete data packet. I know that because I can take a sensor equipped engine and run it across my sensor track and it'll fill in all the stuff like name and cab number. Also,stuff like fuel levels and the like are transmitted from the locomotive. It's not just the ID.
gunrunnerjohn posted:Well, there is one fact. The Legacy locomotives do not get their data from the command base, and the sensor track sends the complete data packet. I know that because I can take a sensor equipped engine and run it across my sensor track and it'll fill in all the stuff like name and cab number. Also,stuff like fuel levels and the like are transmitted from the locomotive. It's not just the ID.
Yep. That is correct. And I maybe 100% incorrect on my thought process and all the paired data is loaded to the car. I'm trying to remember if I cleared the engine out of the remote when I had the demo if it went back in when I rolled over the sensor track. Obviously if it did, then the info does get stored in the car. I just can't remember if I tried that.
I ordered one each. Hopefully my dealer can get a second one of the scale car.
I had one scale and two semi-scale on order, I'm going to get two scale ones. It's still very disappointing that there isn't a reasonable cost way of obtaining the sensor track hardware to upgrade non-sensor locomotives. I think it would be a plus as it would expand the use of LCS, a synergistic way to get the system more widely accepted.
I agree John. A kit would be nice. We can only hope someday.
