Well, no one else has said this, so I guess I'll have to be the bearer of bad news... actually word of warning is better stated.
These are both older stock sets and Lionel only services products within one year of purchase AND only 3 years on past manufactured stock. That means you're out of luck should you need any warranty service, or if it doesn't work out of the box. So I would strongly advise you to find out the retailer's return policies. And better yet, if they are a authorized service station. Otherwise, if you need any repairs out of the box (or later), it's at YOUR cost: Parts, labor and return shipping. Out of curiosity, I checked on Lionel's website and to my surprise, most parts (not all though) are still available for both sets, including the remote for the PRR set, and the circuit boards for both sets. BUT who knows how much longer that will be. It's a non-Bluetooth board, so I would imagine, when it's out of stock, it's gone for good.
My thought of the two sets, is the NJT set would be the better of the two choices. It has transformer control and the transformer would be useful for running other trains. And should the Railsounds board go bad and become unavailable, you could probably have an after-market sound board installed OR still run it albeit, without the sounds. Although I personally like the looks of the PRR set, it's only one circuit board: Should that have a problem, it'll probably effect everything in the engine. But I have no personal purchase experience with LionChief.
Even better yet, I think there are better sets out there for less money. Seems to be the trend that many want the "bells and whistles" on their trains. But as witnessed here on this forum, there are liabilities with all the electronic features, of which parts and service seem to be the most frequent grumbles.
But I've learned here, you can't tell people what to like or purchase. My own preference is to buy things trains that have a proven reliability record. And to buy trains that were made in large production runs, and that share common parts between different models. So should I need parts and they become unavailable, I can still cob them from another model. Do I have as many options as far as different models and variety? No. But I don't have nearly the frustration either. Everything I've ever bought, ran out of the box and still runs to this day. And on my regular run-of-the-mill MPC stuff (low end), that is 50 now years old, or will soon be... not bad for trains that get little respect from many on this forum.
