Taking LionChief Plus • 4-6-4 Hudson NYC, for a ride.

Gary, keep up the great videos and congratulations on the grandson!  

Thanks,

Mario

I love the LC+ steamers - have four now and about 400 operating hours among them.  They are close to bulletproof, heavy, and quite powerful.  I have had a pacific and a Hudson each pulling 22-25 scale reefers and a scale caboose up a 2.5% grade with no problems.  

I have had no control or operating problems with any steamer, other than this: near the end of battery life, but before the remote will die completely, things will start to go wrong: the train will beep its not getting a signal or the remote will indicate it does not see the loco on both, or the loco may not respond when the remote's button's are pushed.  Anytime I have a problem (so far) fresh batteries fix it.  The batteries last quite a long time, too.  In an oversight, I left three remotes on over and entire weekend, Friday evening to Monday afternoon = maybe 60 hours, and they worked for quite some time the next week.

Hey Mark, That video was done after Christmas when the trees came down. During Christmas we were using the LionChief Polar Express on the same trackage the PE at one time was pulling 13 coaches around the trackage. The LionChief + NYC Hudson has even more power than the PE LionChief.

For comparison sake the Hiawatha sharing the track in the video is a RailKing Imperial from the 2006 catalog.

Great review GARY!!!  Enjoy!!!

i missed this video on the first go around.  Great job Gary!  Very nice video that rally showcases the LionChief+.  This should help sell more.

Well, I pulled the trigger yesterday on a LionChief Plus!  After an indepth e-mail conversation with Lee Willis, Lee's and Gary's videos, and everyone else's comments, I decided to buy one.  It conveniently happened that I had to make a trip from my home to see my aunt in a senior facility the town of Zelienople, normally a 35 minute drive away in a blizzard.  Well, it so happens that C. T. McCormick's Harware is in Zelie right before I get to my aunt's.  I often stop there to buy Lionel and MTH trains.  Jeff had two LionChief Plus engines, the NYC Hudson and the PRR Mikado.  Well as of a half hour before closing he only had the Hudson.  The price in the store was a lot less than he had on his Web site www.cttrains.com  If I had a larger hobby budget, I may have purchased the Hudson to compare side by side to my MTH Hudson, but with limited funds, and having grown up near the Pennsy, I purchased the Mike for the best price I have seen.  If someone out there is looking for the Hudson, get over there before Jeff sells it.  I recommend him for in store and mail order service.  Also, this visit, he told me about the huge layout he is building with 48 DCS controlled switches.  That's another story.

I am very happy so far with the Mike, it looks good, sounds good and runs good.  This comment is taking into account it is a far cry from the high end locomotives, but it is worth a fraction of locomotives like the Vision Line Big Boys; but I will always have to stay in the lower price range.  No matter, I am very pleased.

I just took a video on my under construction 4x8 layout with my junky old digital camera.  I will post the video another time, as I don't have time this evening.

Congratulations Mark. I think you will really like the LC+ Mike. I love my NYC Hudson. I am very impatiently waiting for the LC+ NYC RS3. I think these locos are perfect for us guys with smaller layouts.