What to look for in Lionel Limited and Service Station sets

Its a great area to collect, i too look for these sets and have many, theres good deals to be had at reasonable costs, i perfer the sealed box sets, not always available or reasonable, and have had good luck with a few previously loved sets. The advantage here is train sets only, no unwanted track or transformers in service station sets.

You will get to see the progression of electronics from year to year, different trucks, and coupler styles, different motors, some sets have different numbered locos and separately numbered cars not found else where. Special colors, carriers or advertising can also be found, its an interesting selection.

Id highly recommend the fire rescue set, just full of some great cars each has something extra about it, the fire instuction boxcar is tmcc, and has great sounds even in conventional.

The Western Maryland coal train set offered 2 extra separately numbered cars and differnt numbered locos, 2 sets make a really great, long coal consist. 

Good Luck and Enjoy. 

One of my favorites, from 1990:

Service station sets are great watch out for Ebay price gougers and questionable equipment.  I reccomend Gryzbroski his selection is superb and new and work prices are also great. Great service from them.

I have at least 10 service station sets from 70's forward 

My favorites are the 1977 Budd set and the 1978 Minn & St Louis Geep set. The Budd set is the only one I have.

bajinnova posted:

I'm starting think about building up a "collection" of conventional engines and cars to run on a layout I hope to build with my kids soon.  Looking at what's for sale, it seems to me that the Limited and Service Station sets might represent a good value compared to buying engines and cars individually.  As far as I know these sets (at least with conventional control engines) spanned the late 70's to late 90's, and there were a lot of them.  I think all of the sets I have seen had die-cast trucks on the rolling stock, while a lot of the rolling stock Lionel made during at least some of this period had plastic trucks.  The diesel engines included with the sets have different features: one or two motors, mechanical vs. solid state e-unit, diesel horn vs. no horn.  A lot of the diesel engines have stamped steel railings while others have wire railings, which look less kid-proof to me.

Are there any rules of thumb about better or worse products in terms of years or features or particular sets?  Durability/reliability are my main concerns.  Thanks for any guidance you can share.

Have a D&rg #1450 set in real nice shape. Would be willing to part with .Also comes with a bonus car.All boxes also in good shape ,but no masterbox. price is $195.00. I have other o-guage rolling stock available along with another nice set of c/n gp-7 1974 era locos ,if interested. Thanks Jack

Yes, the SS sets offer great fun and play value.

One of the last SS sets made was led by a Delaware & Hudson RS3 (Coastal Freight Set). It's a very colorful set with a nice variety of rolling stock. Usually can find these for reasonable prices. 

I like the Great Lakes Express but it has a crappy running engine.

My favorite SS set has the black and gold NP GP engine from the 70s.

The collector line top of the line diesel boxed sets are some of my favorites from this era of Lionel modern era. Although I prefer the new engines with DC can motors, the rolling stock in these sets are still really great. Very little to worry about, except for the SD40's prior to 1987 have a tendency to crack at the screw mounts on both ends of the body.

The 1987 Conrail Limited Set and the 1990 Santa Fe Freight are two of my favorites. The latter even came with a RailSounds boxcar. I've purchased the cars from the former set to head behind the new Legacy SD40's to get the best of both worlds.

I had a couple TMCC service station sets.  The NS with the vans.  Great GP9 engine.  One of the best.  Had/has a unique towercom message.  Like ‘head to your nearest service station’.  I still have the Lionel Lines C420 service station engine.  You could upgrade it to TMCC, which I did.  Was a big fan of the Post War Celebration Series.  Still have the Hudson set.  I miss my other guys. Especially the Marines Missile Launch set.  That was cool.  I always thought it was the best value to get one of these sets, especially for the angle you are taking.  Have fun!

I liked the "limited" sets, where the cars and engines came in gold colored boxes. Although not really near scale like the later SD40 sets were, they were some nicely decorated and detailed cars, cabooses, and engines.  

But then I liked most all of the FARR sets also.

Up to that point in lionel history,  I think they were the best looking and operating for the money.  The heavy sprung trucks kept them on the track and the fast angle wheels easily allowed 30 cars behind the engine

Keep your eyes open for Warhorse series. Unique engine weathering and cars. If your patient these can be found very reasonable. They are also TMCC.

Jim 1939 posted:

I like the Great Lakes Express but it has a crappy running engine.

How so? I’ve always liked the looks of this set; I believe the engine is a can-motored 2-6-4? Is it underpowered, rough, etc?

Thanks!

They're pretty rough at slow speeds until they're thoroughly broken in.  The effect is less noticeable if you're pulling a long consist, but forget about putting ERR cruise in one of these!  They used a small can motor which has a very pronounced "cogging" effect, and spur-gear drive with a high reduction ratio that lacks the coasting / freewheeling tendency of the original postwar 2-6-4's.  If the cab can be transferred to a postwar #2037 chassis, I would be tempted to go that route.  Still a nice set.

So it runs basically like a “starter” 4-4-2 of that era?

No, completely different but both barking dogs in my opinion, and I've had a few examples of each!  The 2-6-4 is grindy and "snatchy" (wants to stop or hang up) at very slow speed, especially when running just the E&T.  This tendency improves after a LOT of high-speed break-in running; I think maybe the motor magnets weaken over time?  The 4-4-2's / 0-4-0's have cheap motors that are subject to cogging as well.  I've tried installing ERR cruise and so has Gunrunner John (one of the tech wizards on this forum.)  It doesn't work; the motor / drivetrain are just really low-budget and the cruise can't react fast enough to tame the surging.

The 4-4-2s are pretty smooth starting out with a consist, but running solo they have no train-like gravitas:  the speed wanders all over the place and it's hard to compensate for it, even with a skilled hand on the transformer lever.  They'll slow noticeably entering a tinplate-radius curve, and then reach some pretty high speed on the straightaway.  Not realistic at all.  Not even compared to a postwar 2-6-4, which is still geared too tall IMO.  I own multiple examples of all steam locos from that era, and eariler.  Believe me, Postwar locos run better.  But it really took until about the year 2000 (i.e., Railking with PS2) before we had a traditionally-sized steam loco that gave good all-around performance.

When I first got into O gauge I bought an MTH set and then a Santa Fe service set. I still have it and plan to give it to my grandkids when I get the green light.  This is not a photo of my set.  Mine has some slight wear but still runs great.

johnstrains posted:

Yes, the SS sets offer great fun and play value.

One of the last SS sets made was led by a Delaware & Hudson RS3 (Coastal Freight Set). It's a very colorful set with a nice variety of rolling stock. Usually can find these for reasonable prices. 

That looks like a nice set.  I noticed that the loco has dual can motors: how do you think that compares to the single or dual Pullmor motors?

pennsynut posted:

When I first got into O gauge I bought an MTH set and then a Santa Fe service set. I still have it and plan to give it to my grandkids when I get the green light.  This is not a photo of my set.  Mine has some slight wear but still runs great.

Nice, I like the crane with the work caboose.  I'm curious, does that set have metal trucks on the cars? 

Mikado 4501 posted:

The collector line top of the line diesel boxed sets are some of my favorites from this era of Lionel modern era. Although I prefer the new engines with DC can motors, the rolling stock in these sets are still really great. Very little to worry about, except for the SD40's prior to 1987 have a tendency to crack at the screw mounts on both ends of the body.

The 1987 Conrail Limited Set and the 1990 Santa Fe Freight are two of my favorites. The latter even came with a RailSounds boxcar. I've purchased the cars from the former set to head behind the new Legacy SD40's to get the best of both worlds.

The railsounds boxcar looks interesting.  I don't really want to go to a command control system, but this (if I'm understanding correctly) would add some nice sound to the layout with conventional control.