Rail King to Lionel Equivalent

IMO , the Lionmaster line of locos is comparable to Railking imperial.

Lionmaster engines are similar in " semi- scale"  and better proportionately than some of the Railking engines.

Some of the Railking engines are more compressed in one area or another. I.e the Railking y6, has a shorter boiler than it should ,while the Railking Allegheny has a shorter tender in relation to the loco.

Tmcc Lionmaster offerings, were bigboys, challengers,  class A's ,cab forwards, J3a hudsons and SD80/90 diesels.

Some of the models, except for the Hudson have been offered with Legacy, and more recently Lionchief 2.0, which also has TMCC features.

Lionel’s smaller TMCC diesels, Geeps, RS11s, and others in the 14” to 15” range blend in nicely in a Railking environment. Lionel makes a nice RK sized Hudson, too, in LC 2.0+, that is TMCC.

LionMaster is a good answer, but throught the years, there haven't been many different locos offered in that product line.

I would say LionChief Plus is roughly equivalent to RailKing in terms of size, features, price, and appeal.  During the first years of LionChief Plus, these locos were bundled with their own simplified remote control.  However in the last few years, the newer LionChief Plus "2.0" can be run with Legacy or TMCC, so that might be the best choice for you.  My $.02.

If command control is what you are after, then Lionchief plus 2.0 is what you're after.

I reckon you've noticed some railking diesel locomotives are scale in size, some arei. I don't believe any LC+2.0 are scale in size, and IMHO, their details generally aren't quite as good as railking (railings imo standout here). Feature wise, they are very similar.

Lionchief plus has no TMCC, so no command control, although the Bluetooth operation isn't bad at all. Even the rtr set engines seem to hold a nice constant speed, though not a ton of 'steps'. The lionchief engines, mainly diesel, are extremely lightweight and do no have flywheel motors.

@Rod M. posted:

If command control is what you are after, then Lionchief plus 2.0 is what you're after.

I reckon you've noticed some railking diesel locomotives are scale in size, some arei. I don't believe any LC+2.0 are scale in size, and IMHO, their details generally aren't quite as good as railking (railings imo standout here). Feature wise, they are very similar.

Lionchief plus has no TMCC, so no command control, although the Bluetooth operation isn't bad at all. Even the rtr set engines seem to hold a nice constant speed, though not a ton of 'steps'. The lionchief engines, mainly diesel, are extremely lightweight and do no have flywheel motors.

Actually i have a new Lionel Lionchief Plus Doodlebug.  It runs fine with my TMCC remote.  These doodlebugs are some of the RailKing tooling that Lionel bought from MTH.

@trumpettrain posted:

Actually i have a new Lionel Lionchief Plus Doodlebug.  It runs fine with my TMCC remote.  These doodlebugs are some of the RailKing tooling that Lionel bought from MTH.

I was under impression lionchief plus was the same as lionchief, but adds conventional ability?

I also only see the doodlebug in lionchief plus 2.0? Which has TMCC, where as lionchief plus, does not.

@Rod M. posted:

I was under impression lionchief plus was the same as lionchief, but adds conventional ability?

I also only see the doodlebug in lionchief plus 2.0? Which has TMCC, where as lionchief plus, does not.

No - LionChief Plus also adds Fan Driven Smoke, Electro-couplers, Firebox Flicker (steam) and 2 chuffs per revolution (versus 1 chuff).

I want to run Lionel TMCC steam engines only. My preference is for Rail King size engines (no scale size). What Lionel product line is a match?

"Lionchief plus has no TMCC, so no command control,"

Just to be clear, LionChief control, whether radio frequency or Bluetooth is a form of command control. Indeed, LionChief (as opposed to LionChief Plus or LionChief Plus 2.0) cannot be operated in conventional mode.  LionChief cannot be controlled at present with a TMCC cab-1 or Legacy cab-2.

In answer to the original poster's question, there is no precise analogy in the Lionel line to Rail King.  The LionChief locos have command control, but unlike RailKing, do not require any additional purchases to operate in command mode.  In that sense, the value equation of expense to operability favor LionChief, which are usually quite a bit less expensive than their RailKing equivalents. On the other hand, LionChief locos almost always resemble less detailed postwar and MPC Lionel models, unlike RailKing, which is a step up from postwar and MPC in quality and features. RailKing locos have more robust motors, drive trains and generally more detail than LionChief.  Lionmaster, as suggested, is closer to RailKing in quality and detail, with some compromise in sizing, similar to RailKing.  Lionel Legacy locos are more expensive and detailed than RailKing, but will operate under TMCC.

So you have to decide what compromises to make.  LionChief is less detailed, less robust, but less expensive than RailKing.  Can be operated with the App, Universal Remote or sometimes a dedicated remote than comes with a set.  Cannot respond to TMCC.  Older TMCC secondary market locos might be another option, but no warranty.  Legacy locos will be more detailed and flexible in operations than RailKing (cab-1 TMCC, cab-2 Legacy, Universal Remote, LionChief app) but significantly more expensive in most cases.

Just to add. I'm thinking the Lionmaster line has been absorbed by the LC+2.0 line. My LC+2.0 Big Boy from a few years back was in a box labeled with "Lionmaster" on the box but I do not think it was advertised as Lionmaster. I believe the Cab Forward the next year or 2 was the same way.

Brad

If you want to remain with TMCC (using the original TMCC Command Base and Cab-1), you have two groups from Lionel to choose from. Used or NOS TMCC OR Lionchief Plus 2.0 (but not Lionchief or Lionchief Plus).  These groups include a lot of semi-scale/Traditional sized as well as a few that one might refer to as O27.

I think most will blend nicely with your Rail King engines. I have the same mix.  The 4-6-4s and 4-6-2s match up.

I'd suggest avoiding the O27/Junior Berks in Lionel original TMCC or in newer LC+2.  To me, anyhow, they are noticeably smaller than the Rail King Berks and I just feel a Berk should be more majestic. Lionel has produced some of the postwar replica 2-8-4s with TMCC, LC+, and LC+2, and they're closer in size to the Rail Kings and are nice choices.

I also have two 2-8-2s from Lionel, one with original TMCC and one with LC+ (not LC+2) that uses a dedicated remote. One could argue they look a little smallish compared with my Rail Kings but, to me, they're fine.

So, short story long, when it comes to TMCC or LC+2.0 steam on a layout with MTH RK, I've been pleased with everything but the Lionel Junior/O27 2-8-4.

@Landsteiner posted:

"Lionchief plus has no TMCC, so no command control,"

Just to be clear, LionChief control, whether radio frequency or Bluetooth is a form of command control. Indeed, LionChief (as opposed to LionChief Plus or LionChief Plus 2.0) cannot be operated in conventional mode.  LionChief cannot be controlled at present with a TMCC cab-1 or Legacy cab-2.

He asked specifically about TMCC, not a form of command control. That's all I've got.

"He asked specifically about TMCC, not a form of command control. That's all I've got."

Just wanted to have readers who aren't familiar with LionChief to realize that it's command control, just like TMCC, Legacy, DCS and the Menards locos. They operate just fine in a TMCC/DCS command environment, but you need a separate LionChief remote, Universal Remote or the LionChief app to operate them, and cannot use the TMCC remote.  Have no idea whether this is useful to the original poster, but suggesting that there is no command control with LionChief is incorrect.  Just no TMCC .

I'd consider it remote control, not command control since it requires a dedicated remote and not an entire command system. Otherwise I'd consider conventional to be command control because I command control it with a transformer throttle and bell/whistle/direction button.

But if others other than the op stumble across this thread, you've explained quite a bit about non TMCC engines.

As I said, the lionchief is pretty impressive the way they can hold a constant speed using their respective remotes, the universal remote or the phone app. There appears to be a limited number of 'speed steps' built in to these Bluetooth engines, and if you set the track voltage to say, 16 volts, the first speed step is what it is, but you can vary that step by increasing or decreasing the track voltage. To me, this separates command from remote.

They'll actually crawl pretty slow by lowering track voltage, though when this is done, they aren't as consistent in maintaining speed around curves, through switches, etc, as is the case with true command control with TMCC/legacy/PS2/PS3.

To me command control is when one can uniquely and specifically address a loco,  and change speed, direction, trigger sounds regardless of what other locos are on the layout and what those other locos are doing.   And by doing so, one is addressing the specific loco but has no effect on any of the other locos.  So by that definition, I consider LionChief and the Menards locos command control, no different in these regards from DCC, PS2, PS3, Legacy and TMCC locos.

If one prefers the terminology of remote control, no problem.  It's worth remembering that conventional remote control also exists, which doesn't have these capabilities.   Examples of conventional remote control that controls the track voltage rather than a specific loco, include the Z4000 and its remote, or the cab-1 or cab-2 addressing Powermasters.   So there is remote control of the track voltage (not specific locos) without command control (which addresses specific locos).

I would imagine if Lionel considered lionchief and lionchief plus, command control, they'd advertise it that way.

But then people would be confusing it with 'real' command control 😉

@Bobby Ogage posted:

I want to run Lionel TMCC steam engines only. My preference is for Rail King size engines (no scale size). What Lionel product line is a match?

LionChief Plus 2.0.  They should blend in very well with your RailKings.  One of the posters above neglected to mention that they have speed control, which is on-par with MTH's ProtoSound 3.  Try one, I think you'll like it!

Advertising aside, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck .

@Ted S posted:

LionChief Plus 2.0.  They should blend in very well with your RailKings.  One of the posters above neglected to mention that they have speed control, which is on-par with MTH's ProtoSound 3.  Try one, I think you'll like it!

Glad you mentioned these. Lionchief Plus added nice speed control, I believe, to all LC+ engines (one of the pluses over LC).  LC+2.0 also added 4 chuffs per revolution for steam which, ironically, was one of the features (along with greater variety and a larger semi-scale Berk) to add DCS about 2 years before LC+2.0 came out.

Thanks all for your replies. The comparison between Lionel & MTH Rail King / Rugged Rails is very confusing. I run TMCC through my MTH DCS, so it appears I need to be careful of the Lionel engines I might buy to assure compatibility.

"I run TMCC through my MTH DCS, so it appears I need to be careful of the Lionel engines I might buy to assure compatibility."

All TMCC, LionChief Plus 2.0 and Legacy equipped locos should work.  If you don't mind another handheld remote, you can also use LionChief (and LionChief +) with the loco's own remote or a Universal Remote.

Sounds like you prefer one integrated system,  with a single remote (DCS along with an attached TMCC command base). If I've interpreted your preferences correctly, probably should stick with TMCC/Legacy/LionChief Plus 2.0 locos which can operate through your DCS system/handheld remote/TMCC command base as you are now doing.