RE: Lionel Great Northern Heavy Mikado - photos

Nice, how about a video? Theres been only 1 other thread on these heavy "Mikes".

I guess Lionel did sell an awful lot of $2000 bigboys.

Wow very very nice, like RickO said. How about a video of it in action

Alex

I'm surprised we haven't saw more about these on the forum.

I'd like to see a video of it also.  I checked youtube this morning and didn't see any videos of the new heavy Mike either.

Strange it hasn't had more publicity.  

I guess I didn't realize that Great Northern had steam locomotives, especially 2-8-2s without Belpair fireboxes.

In fact, there haven't been any videos of it so far in the past two weeks since it was announced.

I guess by comparison it was overshadowed by the Big Boy, Berks, and Cab Forward.

GN had 4 USRA Heavy Mikados, Class O-3.

Pete

Pete-

Thats right. Oddly enough I still have my brass engine from HO days gone by...

I am not sure they painted this class with the green boiler but I do wish Lionel would have put the flying pumps on the front smoke box, and a high wall oil burning tender...

This one would be nice to detail up...

Cannot wait to see the video.

Well, this isn't my video, but here's one of the new CNJ version of the Heavy Mike. Maybe not the sound system I was expecting, but still good.

So much for the "all new soundset" as stated by MR. Ashba. Sounds like another rehash of the Pennsy K4 whistle , just like the light mikes. 

What a disappointment.

I sure hope the NYC version has a different whistle but I'm not feeling very lucky.

I may have  a sealed heavy mike for sale soon.

The M1a is great, guess I should have seen this coming. Some locos get great sounds others get "cookie cutter" stuff.

I'd like to wish Lionel good luck selling the "next batch" of heavy mikes for $1100.

It may be time to consider cancelling my j3a and swap it for an MTH J1e and DCS system for the same money.

Good choice with the Great Northern.

Thanks for posting he video. I had forgotten these had whistle steam. I hope to see mine next week. As for the whistle, who knows what correct whistle would be. The NYC parent company never owned heavy Mikes but the P&LE did. Maybe this is a Pennsylvania whistle.

Pete

Very nice engine. Enjoy your new purchase.

GN had nine O-3 class mikados, road numbers 3200-3208.  The locomotives did not get the face mounted air pumps until their 1943 rebuild, at which time they also got standard GN cabs, "blockhouse" looks to the tender, and footboard pilots.  By 1951, those still on the roster were converted to oil.  By 1936, all of the class were moved to the Mesabi Division, where they all remained until retirement.    

They would have also worn the green boiler jacket in their career.  In general, green boiler jackets were the norm up until 1949, but there was evidently a period of time in the 1930s when black was used as a cost saving measure.   

Information from "Steam Locomotive of the Great Northern Railway", by Kenneth R. Middleton and Norman F. Priebe.  An absolutely outstanding book, and I believe, still available through the Great Northern Historical Society.

The Lionel model is a fairly representative example of the pre-1943 look.  Not perfect, but for most folks, close enough. 

It would be an interesting bashing project to turn one of these into a post 1943 look, but, alas, so much to do, and so little time....................................

One of the former IHMD members had a MTH light mikado converted into something closely resembling the post 1943 rebuild, here is a video link:

Regards,

GNNPNUT

Engine looks great, but i hear the same sound set as the older Mikado's

Still a fantastic engine

Alex

I guess we'll see how the others turn out. I am a little disappointed it's only a higher pitched sounding version of the Light Mikes, but...hey, whistle steam! Okay I know that doesn't justify it. Looking at it now, I'm glad I opted for the NKP Berk as my 2014 purchase. Still, it is a handsome engine, and maybe Lionel will surprise us. Maybe.

I doubt it, lets not forget the "raspy hooter epidemic" in every loco with a 2-8-8-2 wheel arrangement.

Not only was it a poor attempt at a N&W hooter, it was as incorrect as it could possibly be for an em1.

Not disparaging the engine itself but I don't see anything that makes this group of lightly detailed engines worthy of its lofty street price.  Whistle smoke aside, its high cost is especially notable since the heavily detailed ex-JLC H-7 in the same catalog is listed at only $50 more then this model. 

Joe

Looks like a great new engine with the whistle steam. there were a lot of requests for heavy mikados.

with that said, don't say there will be an all new soundset, then ship it with the light mikado sounds??

Here are photos of my FRISCO Mikado,,,,she sure does smoke !

That is a gorgeous-looking loco you have there!

Jeff, you are fortunate to have an actual example of the GN whistles(s) but I was referring specifically of the P&LE/NYC version given few if any examples have survived. Also Lionel has deliberately modeled the as built version so to avoid road specific details. I would think all of them would have sounded the same when new. Who knows, maybe there are some wax cylinders with locomotive whistles recorded on them made in 1918 or whenever these were built.

Pete

NICE engines, guys!

Hi Guys, Great Looking Heavy Mikados, very nice video, all look really good. I get my L&N Heavy Mikado on the 16th. I wish I knew how to put the picture on the Forum. Thanks a Lot.

I thought it might be interesting to compare the Heavy Mike to the Lionel Light Mike that came out previously. 

 I would have still been more pleased with a "railroad specific" tone. A Pennsy whistle on a NYC loco just sounds out of place especially when its the same whistle offered on Lionels K4.

Even with the "new boiler tooling" this loco comes at a premium price for a small to medium sized loco with a smaller mabuchi can motor and only one speaker in the tender.

Lionel could have made an extra effort in the sound dept. Especially since Mike R. and Matt A. both stated that that was to be the case. Of course, I guess thats what the disclaimer in the catalog is for.

While  the exact " NYC mikado/ heavy mikado whistle" may be unknown. It is possible for Lionel and other manufacturers to get good audio of railroad specific whistle tones.

http://www.mdwhistles.com/available-whistles/

I hate to be sour grapes, but I'm a stickler for sound and its confusing when the "leader" in sound does the "meh, thats good enough".

Of course if you shell out $2000.........

This "Lionel" engine is a dead ringer for my three K-line Mikados. Don

The Great Northern Heavy Mikado is a beauty, well decorated and appears to be well detailed.

Unfortunately the Southern Railway version is a major disappointment. It carries road number 4866 which is an accurate number for a Southern Ms-4 heavy Mikado but lacks any of the detailing including a smokebox-mounted Elesco Feedwater Heater and extensive exhaust and water piping. In place of the FWH site on the smokebox Lionel has what appears to be the generator which on Southern steamers is mounted at the rear just ahead of the cab.

It is a shame that Lionel for all of its recent corporate improvements, in particular in the service area,could not spend 30 minutes on some research of photos that are abundantly available to offer a correctly detailed engine. The absence of a major appliance such as the Elesco FWH is not a minor error to lead one to pay a major price.

The accurate 4866 shown below courtesy of TIES Magazine. Schematic drawings of the class are in the book, Southern Steam Power by Rank & Lowe.

+1

It's nice, but glad I didn't buy one even at the 'street price' 

I hope those of you who did buy one enjoy your new locomotive.

It has a different boiler, I believe.

just for comparison purposes what are the prices of the other manufactures heavy mikados with tmcc?

charlie

The k-LINE looks longer but maybe its just the black paint job. All the other detail seems the same. I would like to see them side by side. I don't get the generator at all. Never have seen one up front like that. By the way I paid less than $400 for mine with all the bells and whistles. Love K-LINE. Don

The K-Line is like the Lionel light Mikado, but the heavy has a chunkier boiler (you can see it by noting the height of the cab roof above the top of the boiler), and the domes are shorter, among other things. 

Along with the larger boiler and firebox the heavy also had larger axles & cylinders.

Thanks guys. Learn something everyday on this forum. I think I like the light one better. Don

The Lionel light mikado is the K Line light mikado. Lionel aquired K Lines scale steamer tooling. Lionel made some errors as to which locos did or didn't get the high mount headlight whem the legacy light mikados were released a few years ago.

The model being discussed at the top of this post is a "heavy" mikado. Lionel made all new boiler tooling for this loco but the chassis and tender are still the K Line tooling.

Lionels legacy shay, A1 berkshires,  conventional 0-4-0's and recently offered  legacy 0-6-0's are all K Line tooling, as were the drivers on the VL hudson and possibly some of the add on detail. I may be missing one.