Can someone provide a review of Lionel's R-16 subway four car set, 6-31797? What do you like about the set and what do you wish could be improved? Do the automatic doors work consistently or are there still issues that prevent them from working properly all the time?
Comments both pro and con will be appreciated.
I own one MTH Premier and one Railking set but no Lionel versions.
email in profile.
Thanks.
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You asked for it and here is my opinion, This set is a ten! But before you consider this set, remember, it is a Legacy set and the reason i bring this up is that if you run them in conventional mode,you can not use the special effects all that well. When i bought the set ,i ran conventional, then went to a train show with the set and tried it on the demo R.R. by Lionel and was so impressed that i bought a legacy system on the spot. The station announcements are good, i really like the conductor randomly yelling to stop holding the doors in the back! happened all the time when we rode this train. The sound of the jointed rail that is variable to speed is neat,the squeaking of the end gates and various compressors when at idle sound exactly like the real thing,like the air release when the doors are shut.This train can crawl if you want and in legacy mode when you pull back gently on the brake button you can get just wheel squeal like when the cars are in a sharp turn and if you are coming to a stop it squeals differently and will even chirp if you stop while crawling.When you reverse its nice watching the destination boards on the sides of the cars all change and best of all the look when all the cars doors open and close.i bought the add on for a six car train which looks more believable.I also run this train on a simple loop with 072 curves, so with that i custom made new draw bar couplers to get the cars almost touching like the real thing and changed out the front of the lead cars with scale non functioning couplers, and as many of the subway forum people have seen, i started to gradually as time allows to start weathering the fleet. Although i heard of other R16 owners with random door issues, the few times it happened to me was because of my track being dirty and not having enough voltage with the six car train, my Lionel ZW-L transformer put that issue to rest. I also have the R 27 set (6 car also) but plan to paint it over the the late 1990s red bird scheme as this is what i rode on.i can not speak for the MTH to compare by because i have none, but i was looking for scale subways and detail and was going to get those Premier R 32s ,but for me, it was the opening doors that got me to buy the Lionel sets.And i treat the trains as a base line to be further detailed from here including populating the interiors and eventually building a double track shelf layout that resembles a Elevated with at least one station so that the stops can be called. just my opinion,respectfully Galo 3rd.
I'm a subway lover and I have the six car set.
I love it.
Doors open/close properly.
Gotta have this.
Scrappy
I too have this set (6 car) and love it. I did send all back to Lionel for loose windows and they fixed all plus problems I had not even discovered. Great runner and lots of fun too.
Its a great set and works great. Only problem was that every window was floating around inside the body when I opened it
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