Why no Legacy upgrade kits?

Lionel should be able to sell a kit if it was similar to the K-Line cruise kit, ie included a replacement motor with speed sensor attached. More difficult would be to include a smoke unit that would fit. One kit would not fit all applications.

 

Pete

Its not too complicated. Lionel wants to protect its products and make sure that they are the exclusive manufacturer of this technology. Prices can remain at a premium,  and thus we will return to purchase the reissues. Too bad because I would love to upgrade a few locomotives here.

 

Legacy upgrade kits would be great!!!

Lionels sound, features, and performance, has change drastically over the last 10 years or so. MTH sounds have been pretty standard,speed control,idle sounds, 2 different chuffs, at the correct 4 chuffs, a relible high output smoke unit, and a choice of whistle. I would guess Lionel upgrades could become increasingly expensive depending on how many more electronic updates  would be needed to allow for the "standard" legacy features to be obtainable on a TMCC loco.TMCC locos are practically "feature-less" when compared to legacy. If it wound up costing $500+ dollars to r&r the drivetrain and all of the electronics including the smoke unit, many would just consider a new loco.

 

 

 

I don't agree that a Legacy upgrade would be all that expensive or difficult to produce.

 

First off, we're not talking about duplicating EVERY Legacy feature, just having a locomotive that will run and give us many of the features of Legacy.  Would a Legacy update duplicate every feature on a typical Legacy locomotive?  Probably not, but it could give you many of the features.

• RailSounds 5 enhanced sound
• 200 step speed control
• More lighting outputs
• Multi-mode smoke
• Sequence control
• etc.

 

I believe the primary reason that they're not available is Lionel is simply protecting it's unique place in the market for as long as possible.

 

It is possible to upgrade to most of the Legacy features with the exception of the Legacy railsounds. The various board are available just not the sound boards.

The sounds is high on my list, as are additional properly controlled lighting outputs.  If I don't get RailSounds 5, IMO I don't have "Legacy features".

The main difference between say Legacy and the K-Line cruise kits is K-Line only used one motor, the Mabuchi RS385 which by itself is very inexpensive. Lionel has used that one and many more including at least two types of Pittmans which can run close to 100 bucks without a sensor. If they didn't supply the motor for a particular engine with a sensor attached they would have to come up with sensors that fit all their motors. 

People do Legacy upgrades. I plan to do a few myself by don't trivialize what is involved. Its nowhere as easy as an ERR upgrade.

 

Pete

There is no reason a "Legacy" upgrade couldn't use the ERR scheme of back-EMF for speed control, Lionel owns the ERR company.  It works very well and would solve the problem of multiple flywheels.  I also hasten to add, MTH manages to provide upgrades for a variety of motor types, and so far they've worked quite well for me.

There is no technical reason that a very nice Legacy upgrade kit isn't available IMO, this is strictly a marketing issue.  If someone knows different, I'd like to hear about it.  While it may not be possible to cover every Legacy feature, you could have many or most of the Legacy features in an upgrade.  Whether this would be cost effective is another issue, but I don't believe the technical issues are what is holding this back.

Please explain where you get the components.

Original plan was to offer upgrade/board swaps.  These were demo'd at a train show in Denver just after the system was released.  It turns out that enough changes were made in the Legacy loco's that the replacement boards couldn't deal with all of the variations of product that had been released in the previous 10-12 years.  The boards had a high failure rate.  This would have made a Legacy "upgrade" that would have been similar to a PS-2 from PS-1.  aka A strip down to the chassis and replace almost everything.   By the time you do that you may as well just buy a new engine with all of the new features instead of a franken-loco hybrid that might crap out at any time. 

I'm not sure I agree that problems with an early demo with high failure rates justifies the statement that it's impossible to offer Legacy updates.

If you were to upgrade a diesel loco to Legacy control. What advantage does Legacy provide that a ERR CuiseCommander + RailsoundsCommander cannot?

The stock Legacy boards were designed for the Legacy equipped engines.  When they tried to use the stock boards on older equipment not designed for Legacy they found that either the Legacy boards started failing or they began to damage the equipment they were trying to control.

 

This isn't a case of someone saying that they couldn't design or build a set of Legacy boards that would do the retrofit, this is a case of deciding not to do that (aka not spend the R&D for generic retro boards).  If they could have used the standard sets of boards they were going to do it.  This is also not a licensing issue as all of the equipment is Lionel.

Chuck:

 

Thanks for giving us all a very good and factual answer to this question.

Some have no problem buying legacy engines to run with TMCC without accessing newer features, while others running their TMCC engines "as built" with Legacy Cab 2 and access improved performance.

Others continue to run both types in conventional only and still today can't open a coupler by remote.

It takes all types..

Joe

Buying a new engine with Legacy already installed from Lionel is not a option for me at least.  I have to many engines, Mostly Kline, some 3rdrail that more than likely will never be produced again in my lifetime.

 

With that said, my only option to upgrade, for better smoke, speed control and sounds is PS2.  My railsounds 4.0 sounds are really getting old and boring.

 

Now if Lionel wants me to purchase Legacy in the near term, come out with a kit so I can add at least some of these great features.

Gee, I think my original statement that this is simply a marketing decision and not a technical issue was pretty "factual", what part did you disagree with?

There was an interview with the president of Lionel AFTER the Denver show (like the following spring BEFORE York).  The question was asked about what happened to the upgrade boards that were demo'd in Denver.  That was the situation/explanation offered at that time.

Thanks Chuck, I have heard of this explanation before, just did not remember where or when.

I suspect for many of us just releasing RS-5 would be a substantial upgrade. Add a pin on the sound board to drive a smoke fan and they would fly off the shelves.

 

Pete

I'd be very happy if we could get RS5 boards, I'd be one of the first in line to get a few!  Being able to have synchronized smoke would even be cooler.  We have the capability of speed control, and I've worked around most of the lighting issues with some custom circuitry, but the sounds are problematic.

Lionel is in the business of selling trains. They must compete in the market with every train they have ever produced plus all their competitors offerings too. You can't really blame them for wanting to sell you the whole train to get the latest features. Otherwise they would be competing against themselves too. Like John says it is a business decision.