Hey Everyone!
I picked up 2 of these sets for my under the Christmas tree layout and my 4 and 5 year old grandsons and everyone really loved them!
My niece, her husband and their 1 year old son loved it so much that I ordered a set for them to have under their Christmas tree.
All of the LionChief sets come with the wireless remote control, power supply, track and a complete train. Depending on the set they have steam or diesel locomotive sounds and smoke. Remote activated crew dialog sounds, horn, bell and other sounds. My Silver Bells set even plays Christmas music and it sounds pretty good too! Each set can have different sounds so check the features of the set you may be interested in.
They come with a plug and play DC power pack, but they can run on any 18 volt AC system too They will work with Legacy, TMCC or DCS systems. For those of us with Legacy, TMCC or DCS systems all you have to is put the little one's LionChief train on the tracks and they use their own LionChief remote and they are running their trains with us on our Legacy, TMCC or DCS layouts! They even work with conventional AC transformers. You just set the voltage and then use the remote to control the train.
I built an O gauge Lionel floor layout for my grandsons to play with some months ago and they enjoy playing with them, but they really love the remote control of the LionChief sets. Why would they not? Many of us enjoy the Legacy, TMCC and DCS remote controls.
After playing with the LionChief remotes under the Christmas tree now they want remote control for their layout! I don't blame them its fun for me too! I wish I had waited for the LionChief to be available, but now I have an excuse to buy more trains. This way they will be able to both run a train on the same track at the same time! I will let you know how durable they are after the first train wreck.
The best thing is it won’t cost a fortune to get them up and running with a remote control system for their layout! The prices are amazing with complete ready to run LionChief sets starting at $144.99 for the Santa Fe Scout and $179.99 for the Pennsylvania Flyer from MB Klein/Model Train Stuff. I don’t need the extra O36 curves, but that sells fast on eBay.
The LionChief is not a full featured sophisticated remote system. I just think this is the best way to introduce young people to model railroading. I wanted to share this with other grandparents, parents or anyone that buys gifts for youngsters. Technology comes easy to the youngsters, they love remote control and to be independent when they are playing with their trains. They love for us to watch, but my grandsons want to do everything themselves!
The LionChief sets provide a remote that is kid friendly and they can take full advantage of all the features as soon as they start using it. All I had to do is to show my grandsons one time which button did what and they never needed my help again and like I said before they are only 4 and 5 years old.
Of course you can never leave them unattended because it is an electric toy.
I think Lionel is really on to something here. This maybe something that brings model trains back to the Christmas lists for Santa of many youngsters.
