Scale Polar Express Set

I suspect we are due for another Scale Berk in the PE line in a year or so.  These are hard to find and usually command top dollar.  The passenger cars I've seen fairly regularly especially the "add on" cars.  They do make a nice set though once on a layout.

That is a very expensive train. I forget what I paid for mine but just the cars were over $700.00 plus $150.00 for the abandoned toy car. I think the engine was around $1400.00. I have never run across a used set.

I've picked up a few scale cars at the Lionel warehouse sale each year for a steal ($25-40) but the Berk is a) hard to find and b) I've never seen it below $1400

I was not prepared to put out that level of money.  I wanted one with plenty of the movie clip dialogues.

Bought the Lionel Lion Chief Plus 2.0  Polar Express Berk....still available at Trainworld.   Plenty of movie dialogue and a nice running and smoking engine.

Check YouTube.

Added a few of the plastic cars and one has a nice set for Christmas time.

I agree with Marty that another run of these has to be getting close. They sell well when they’re cataloged and then fetch premiums in the years they’re not. The most-recent add-on cars (hobo, RPO, sleepers) have clear windows and LED lighting - a nice improvement over the original cars.

I was seeing Scale Polar Express Berkshires on the bay but they were asking ridiculously high prices for them. There's one now asking $4,950.00.

@NYC Fan posted:

I was seeing Scale Polar Express Berkshires on the bay but they were asking ridiculously high prices for them. There's one now asking $4,950.00.

They can keep that one.  I'll wait for the next run!  HAHA.

I became aware of the O Polar Express Berk in 2015 but missed the 2014 production run; looked high and low and could not find one at Lionel dealers; waited till 2017 and saw that BTO production run and ordered it from Trainworld $1400; didn't show up till 2018; my dates may be a year off.  Yes, the movie never gets old; part of Christmas movie time.

Marty, are the squeeling wheel sounds coming from the engine or cars??

I made my own version by upgrading a Series 2 set engine to TMCC and fan driven smoke and adding a bunch of the set cars.  I added my remote controlled sound board to the baggage car and filled it with movie clips that I can play on demand.

@RickM46 posted:

Marty, are the squeeling wheel sounds coming from the engine or cars??

Hmmm.  IT was a while ago but I believe they are from both the tender and the "Hot Chocolate, not really" sound diner car.

@NYC Fan posted:

I was seeing Scale Polar Express Berkshires on the bay but they were asking ridiculously high prices for them. There's one now asking $4,950.00.

I believe last Christmas there were some going $7K on up to $10K IIRC.  Simply insane. 

I think at a minimum they will release them at 5-year anniversary intervals.  We have to be coming up on the 15th year soon.  They, and all other PE stuff, are such a huge cash cow for Lionel that they are not going to sit on it for too long.

I hope they release the Gold version again as well.  I didn't have the money during the last release.  I still don't, but it's nice to see it in a catalog again and dream about it.

@towdog posted:

I believe last Christmas there were some going $7K on up to $10K IIRC.  Simply insane.

I think at a minimum they will release them at 5-year anniversary intervals.  We have to be coming up on the 15th year soon.  They, and all other PE stuff, are such a huge cash cow for Lionel that they are not going to sit on it for too long.

I hope they release the Gold version again as well.  I didn't have the money during the last release.  I still don't, but it's nice to see it in a catalog again and dream about it.

15th anniversary was 2019 - Lionel did a RTR set as well as some commemorative scale cars.

To my knowledge, the latest run of the Scale PE Berks were in 2017.

I agree, it is a good seller and I would expect another run soon as the market is not saturated.

It's a good bet Lionel will do something for the 20th anniversary of the PE movie in 2024; am hoping I'll still be sucking air, and earning an income.

I was standing in line with my wife on a chilly November evening in 2004, waiting to see the PE in IMAX 3-D. It was a wonderful experience. The movie provided the proverbial "shot in the arm" for electric toy trains and starter sets sold like hotcakes.

Lionel made a pretty big deal for the 10th anniversary in 2014, with both the Gold limited edition PE Berk & cars plus the more accurate blackened PE Berk with extended pilot. Those puppy's sold out very fast...with Charles Ro shorted on their allotment, and Lionel came through and produced another batch in 2015 just for them.

@NYC Fan posted:

I was seeing Scale Polar Express Berkshires on the bay but they were asking ridiculously high prices for them. There's one now asking $4,950.00.

Sad part is this is not even the 6-11451 Anniversary Edition and the Guy selling is selling everything overpriced and he tells you it has problems with the white stripe.

If Lionel hadn’t run out of the scale PE pilot assembly, a nice scale PE locomotive could pretty easily be built from a NKP or other berk,….I built this one for a forum member,…..

Pat

When I first got into railroading in 2014, I bought the Lionel scale O Pere Marquette loco; it was just a few pages down in the catalog for that year from the O PE loco (doh); going back, the only difference I saw was the pilot assembly (what I erroneously called the cow catcher, hey, I was rebuked handily for that); it gets better, then I saw a video where a guy bought the PE tender (offered by Lionel as a separate unit) and hooked that to his Pere M - looked good; so, I found that tender on the bay and bought it - new, never used; I didn't use it either because Lionel finally did another production run of the PE and bought that instead; what a tangled web we weave.  Finding the PE cars is another story.

Nothing like a PE discussion to get the creative juices flowing

When the 10th anniversary PE Berks were shipping it was exciting news, albeit it was not covered extensively on the forum back in those days...eventually people were talking about them, including rumors about not receiving their preorder. It was then I realized that something was amiss, and that perhaps I was one of the unlucky blokes. I called Charles Ro and found out they were indeed shorted; and, at that time, they were unsure if they'd ever get their allotment. After pondering what to do, I scrambled and got lucky at another dealer who happened to order extras. I paid about $100 more than what the pre-order would've cost me, but PE fever knows no bounds UPS arrived 2 days later ~ it was the day before Thanksgiving ~ and it was snowing .

As a little kid on Christmas morning, I opened that handsome 10th Anniversary PE box with colorful graphics, and like Charlie Brown discovering rocks in his candy bag, I found a PM tender with the PE Berk! RATS. Santa's elves may have been drinking a bit too much egg nog, perhaps spiked with Yagermeister ! Quite probably, there was some other chap in toy train land who had a PM Berk and a PE tender! It took about 3 weeks, and Lionel made good on the swap, and all's well that ends well...except the smoke unit crapped out on what happened to be Christmas Day just as I was running the trains for family ; I think I was the only one who noticed that dumb cab blinking in increments, and that it wasn't smoking...so back to the North Pole that Berk went, where elves were once again called upon to repair a train from the island of Misfit Toys.

The PE Berk lives; and I've added Arttista cab figures to bring a human element closer to the magic steel machine.

I bought the original Legacy PM 1225 and the add-on Polar Express tender when they first came out.  I suspected the coaches would be following.  The coaches arrived some time before I joined the Pittsburgh Independent Hi-Railers, and our Kennywood Holiday Lights setup gave me the opportunity to really run it, and it was a big hit.  I get lots of questions about it every year -- "How much does it cost?", "Who made it?", "Where can I get one?", etc. -- but the best one was "I have a Polar Express around my tree at home... why is yours bigger than mine?"   On nights when I am not running, we even get questions on when it will run again.

When the 10th anniversary edition came out, I got one so that I would have one with the "correct" pilot, and as I had accumulated more cars from the set and some extra coaches, I decided to start double-heading them to pull the still-growing consist.  Again, a big hit at Kennywood.  When the new snow-covered roof cars came out, I started buying them, and in 2019 I began running them as two separate trains on the same line.  It is a little more work to keep an eye on them to ensure there are no rear-end collisions, but our Kennywood layout is so big, it would take some time before one caught up with the other.

As an added special touch, I use MegaSteam's Hot Chocolate smoke fluid, and a lot of people notice it.   I am so ready to run it again this year!

Here is a video of the last year I double-headed them:

Andy

I’ve slowly but surely been picking up the scale PE cars w/ snow covered roofs. Hopefully Lionel will rerun the berk soon. With the recent surge of demand in the hobby (since COVID) and the prices these are catching on the 2nd hand market, it seems like the timing is right for a rerelease.

While searching for the O PE loco in 2015, I expanded the mission and went looking for the PE heavy passenger cars produced in 2014 (no snow); took a month of internet searches of a bunch of Lionel dealers; found 7; two had trucks with the faux plastic suspension components broken.

Regarding the crazy prices on e-bay for PE Berks, I am not confident any of those sales were legitimate.

While we're on the subject of re-issues , an obvious upgrade to Lionel's scale Berk is to eliminate the U-shaped boiler; add realistic cab figures - potentially even animated figures, e.g., fireman shoveling coal, engineer's head turning, etc; create an authentic sound set whereby operators can choose sound bites (as opposed to random); add icicles where appropriate and snow on coal load. For the scale cars, I envision animated children, conductor, and Hot Chocolate servers

@Paul Kallus posted:

Regarding the crazy prices on e-bay for PE Berks, I am not confident any of those sales were legitimate.

While we're on the subject of re-issues , an obvious upgrade to Lionel's scale Berk is to eliminate the U-shaped boiler; add realistic cab figures - potentially even animated figures, e.g., fireman shoveling coal, engineer's head turning, etc; create an authentic sound set whereby operators can choose sound bites (as opposed to random); add icicles where appropriate and snow on coal load. For the scale cars, I envision animated children, conductor, and Hot Chocolate servers

Paul - sounds like you're envisioning a vision line brass-hybrid version!

@Paul Kallus posted:

Regarding the crazy prices on e-bay for PE Berks, I am not confident any of those sales were legitimate.

While we're on the subject of re-issues , an obvious upgrade to Lionel's scale Berk is to eliminate the U-shaped boiler; add realistic cab figures - potentially even animated figures, e.g., fireman shoveling coal, engineer's head turning, etc; create an authentic sound set whereby operators can choose sound bites (as opposed to random); add icicles where appropriate and snow on coal load. For the scale cars, I envision animated children, conductor, and Hot Chocolate servers

Paul, Regarding the crazy asking prices, there are no completed sales listed for a scale PE Berk at those prices, so for now all we have confirmed is an asking price. Without any sales it's not an indication of the value. I saw a couple of Pere Marquette Berks go for between $1500 and $2000 a while back, one was numbered #1227. And I like your ideas for a reissue, but can't imagine the price tag on that one. Would have to surpass the recent Strasburg RR #90 and cars.

Sean, this is obviously not the best time of the year to be looking for a good deal on a Polar Express Berk. You are more likely to find a better deal after the Holidays. In fact I bought mine over the summer several years back.

Prices are still all over the place, especially on eBay. I have been watching several 28072 New York Central Hudson's and almost all that I have watched, have not sold. Most get relisted for the same ridiculous price and stay there until the period ends.

Now, here is the interesting part, because I have been watching, so called deals have been thrown at me. One seller had theirs listed at nearly $900, the first offer took off about $80, that didn't sell of course. Seller than reduced their price by a little over $100 bringing it just a little under $800, still not selling. Last time I checked, the seller had further reduced the price down to mid $600's.

To contrast this in regards to something newer, one of the sellers has a VL Niagara, which was originally priced around $2400. Of course like all the others, the prices on the Niagara's have moved either nowhere, or slightly down until someone has bought.

This particular seller kept their price up until recently at $2400, now I believe it is sitting north of $3200 or so. The main reason is probably because the seller sees that there are no other Niagara's currently listed so they figure they can get a slam dunk on someone who wants one.

The big problem there is that there are quite a few CC Niagara's that with a little bit of fixing, will be far better a deal at the price being asked(even though that is high too). There are also some MTH Niagara's, Williams as well but I don't know if that's a deal or not on those.

One other thing, I'm going to my LTS this weekend, I could ask if they have a scale PE there, but I doubt it. I'll let you all know if there is one

Well, I knew the answer to the scale PE engine being at my LTS, nope. I talked a bit with Krissy since Tony is at Allentown today and tomorrow, not there. I also asked about the regular sets, they aren't in yet because of delays like other things.

@Paul Kallus posted:

Nothing like a PE discussion to get the creative juices flowing

When the 10th anniversary PE Berks were shipping it was exciting news, albeit it was not covered extensively on the forum back in those days...eventually people were talking about them, including rumors about not receiving their preorder. It was then I realized that something was amiss, and that perhaps I was one of the unlucky blokes. I called Charles Ro and found out they were indeed shorted; and, at that time, they were unsure if they'd ever get their allotment. After pondering what to do, I scrambled and got lucky at another dealer who happened to order extras. I paid about $100 more than what the pre-order would've cost me, but PE fever knows no bounds UPS arrived 2 days later ~ it was the day before Thanksgiving ~ and it was snowing .

As a little kid on Christmas morning, I opened that handsome 10th Anniversary PE box with colorful graphics, and like Charlie Brown discovering rocks in his candy bag, I found a PM tender with the PE Berk! RATS. Santa's elves may have been drinking a bit too much egg nog, perhaps spiked with Yagermeister ! Quite probably, there was some other chap in toy train land who had a PM Berk and a PE tender! It took about 3 weeks, and Lionel made good on the swap, and all's well that ends well...except the smoke unit crapped out on what happened to be Christmas Day just as I was running the trains for family ; I think I was the only one who noticed that dumb cab blinking in increments, and that it wasn't smoking...so back to the North Pole that Berk went, where elves were once again called upon to repair a train from the island of Misfit Toys.

The PE Berk lives; and I've added Arttista cab figures to bring a human element closer to the magic steel machine.

You guys got me running the Polar Express this afternoon! It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

Here's a video of my Polar Express Layout with a scale PE set.

Awesome layout and video Skip - thanks for posting!

Wow, that was a winter blast of fun, Skip! I could feel the chill from those frosty scenes (the temperature dropping outside here in PA may be adding to the effect . I love the 3-dimensional aspects of your PE layout, too; and the ambient lighting is so cool - how is that accomplished, halogens and blue lighting?

@NYC Fan posted:

Here's a video of my Polar Express Layout with a scale PE set.

I remember your first post when you first got this layout delivered.  What a jaw dropper.  TW Trainworx creates masterpieces with these PE layouts.  The HO set going up the mountain is the icing on the cake.  You should really share this layout again to the forum going over all of the details.  I cannot believe you get to have this in your home.

@Paul Kallus posted:

Wow, that was a winter blast of fun, Skip! I could feel the chill from those frosty scenes (the temperature dropping outside here in PA may be adding to the effect . I love the 3-dimensional aspects of your PE layout, too; and the ambient lighting is so cool - how is that accomplished, halogens and blue lighting?

Thanks Paul! I bought some blue flood lights and put them in the 4 high hats on the mountain end of the layout. The rest of the high hats in the room are soft white.