Western Maryland Shay "Big 6" Recommendations

There are reports of the new Lionel Legacy shays coming with gear meshing issues - something to keep an eye on if you seriously lean Lionel. The MTH I believe is a 4 truck model while the real WM6 is a 3 truck. Arguably, the Lionel is more accurate to the real one. I have not heard much about the gearing issues lately - dare I say it isn't that big of a deal....?

Grab the Lionel and don't look back. Love mine.

The new Lionel Western Maryland Shay is the most accurate of all the WM shays. I have them all, Lionel and MTH. The new legacy Shay has the correct in service paint scheme and all the correct details. Legacy with whistle steam and 200 speed steps and a great sound system makes this in my opinion the best one. That being said, a post went up by another forum member that alerted us to a gear mesh problem on his new Shay. Thankfully I read this because the post was quickly taken down. I opened mine and found it had the same problem. I was able to fix mine. The original poster contacted me about the fix. He was unable to fix his, so back it went. Hopefully mine will stay in mesh. I have a brand new WM tmcc Shay unopened in the box if you decide not to spend the bucks for the new one. I am now waiting for my new Lionel NW 2 to arrive. From what I am reading on the forum sounds like I may be sending this one back. I'm not willing to fix this one after fixing the Shay.They build great engines but there QC is horrendous.

                           Happy Railroading             

                                                JG

I have the Sunset/3rd Rail model from some years ago, and it is EXTREMELY accurate. I had it up-graded to DCS, and it performs beautifully.

Hot Water posted:

I have the Sunset/3rd Rail model from some years ago, and it is EXTREMELY accurate. I had it up-graded to DCS, and it performs beautifully.

The 3rd Rail models were excess stock from a run by Right of Way.

The positives are:  brass, well detailed, Pittman motor, 042 operation, correct whistle and bell digitized from WM #6 (if you get a RoW version).  Built by Ajin of Korea, the best of the builders.

The negatives are: conventional operation, Seuthe smoke unit (not fan driven).

This was the first Shay built for 3 rail O.  I remember we had to shag the engineers from Samhongsa away from the booth at York because they were taking pictures; they couldn't figure out how we made the loco run on 042.  They were working for Lionel at the time.

I was really pleased with the way the sounds turned out, got some good echo on the whistle; shoveling coal sound for neutral sounds.  That was a fun project.

Lou N

Lionel WM #6 Shay is not scale?????? I have one and always understood it was scale......it's big I know that!!

Yes, the Lionel and the others discussed are all scale. Dimensions measure quite close to original drawings. Mike Wolf did the original for Lionel when he worked for them. The only Shays that are oversized are the Lionel and k line two truck shays, which are lighter two truck  model B shays. If they were built to scale they would be quite smaller. But they are beautiful models. I have the Lionel   And it has a really nice whistle.

Thanks....I thought they were scale....had never heard they were not!!