TrainWorld LionChief Plus A-5 steam engines on sale

[chuck]

TrainWorld has the LionChief Plus (NOT 2.0) A5 on sale for $220. The original MSRP back in 2018 was $450. These have RailSounds, fan driven smoke, front and rear remote couplers and they are BlueTooth compatible, aka you can control them with a smart phone as well as pure conventional. Several road names including the PRR which developed the originals. Nice yard goats. These are scale, not "tradititonal" sized.

[Norton]

Great deal. If I didn't already have a K-Line version I would jump on this. They appear to have an actual Mabuchi 385 like K-Line. With the diesels I am not too sure what they have for motors.

Pete

[chuck]

Demo Video was quite impressive. I was looking for a B-6 but this will do fine.

Just need a steam based yard goat for car float operations. I was blown away when I saw photo's of an old B&O unit working out of Staten Island to load cars for transfer to Brooklyn in 1968. I had always thought steam was dead other than excursion/museums. Even more astounding was to find out that the Yellowstones were still in use on the Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range for hauling taconite from the mines to the ore docks on Lake Superior into the early/mid 60's.

[Norton]

There is a K-Line A-5 on eBay for even less. Cab 913 has TMCC. Cab 94 is conventional. I upgraded by TMCC A-5 with ERR Cruise. Its a sweet runner and I think sounds better than the Lionchief engine. Electro couplers on both ends too.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/K-Line-K3180-0 ... SwACBfMdnd

Pete

[chuck]

Thanks Pete. Ordered the LC Plus unit last night from TrainWorld. Not that big a price difference.

Never been a big fan of FleaBay. We used to have to get obscure computer parts from them at work and it never was a good experience. The only thing worse was dealing with our own internal group, "Property Disposition". They overcharged for almost everything except what they didn't know about, which was a lot. People would come in and snap up custom made furniture for the wood (Mahogany/Walnut) for pennies on the dollar (renovations meant old piece didn't fit). Someone found a $10,000 signal analyzer that they picked up for $60. The stuff was exotic and they had no way to reference it. Computer parts they thought were literally worth their weight in gold.

[Norton]

I should have checked last night. Trainz is actually a good seller. If there is a problem they will usually rectify it. Early on their customer service was spotty but they have improved a lot. You can see from their feedback ratings they must be doing something right.

Pete

[Robert Bubeck]

There is a K-Line A-5 on eBay for even less. Cab 913 has TMCC. Cab 94 is conventional. I upgraded by TMCC A-5 with ERR Cruise. Its a sweet runner and I think sounds better than the Lionchief engine. Electro couplers on both ends too. <snip>

Pete

I own a K-Line A5 (PRR ... no dash, BTW) Cab No. 913 with TMCC. A neat piece and very affordable for the time. Double-heading it with a K-Line TMCC PRR B6b in my roster is lots of fun.

Enjoy.

Bob

[chuck]

Loco arrived in tact. Short video. I didn't know where I stashed the smoke fluid so I turned that off.

http://www.umich.edu/~chuck/A4.MP4

The only think I was disappointed in was the backup light on the tender doesn't work. It's not supposed to I have to download the BlueTooth App to run the engine from my phone. This was shot using the dedicated remote which is actually quite nice and light and easy to use.

[G3750]

Loco arrived in tact. Short video. I didn't know where I stashed the smoke fluid so I turned that off.

http://www.umich.edu/~chuck/A4.MP4

The only think I was disappointed in was the backup light on the tender doesn't work. It's not supposed to I have to download the BlueTooth App to run the engine from my phone. This was shot using the dedicated remote which is actually quite nice and light and easy to use.

Very nice!!!!

George

[chuck]

First LC Plus engine for me. It's very nice. I was giving serious thought to trying to pick up one of the RS-3's.

To many compromises on those in terms of "details". Wrong handrails, wrong truck side castings, wrong fuel tank, wrong sounds. I super detailed an old Lionel RS-3 with the cheap horizontal truck motors common on lower end units at that time (1980's). I corrected the hand rails by making new bras ones and used brass detail casting to fix everything else. I added a DC Commander and a RS board for an Alco prime mover with a single chime horn. Looks good, sounds great, runs like sh*t.

While I could probably figure out a way to swap the bodies and side rails there would still be the issues of the sound system and the fuel tank. I also don't know if AAR standard side castings are available on these. They look like Blombergs for EMD engines and they appear to be one piece Delrin castings. The tank casting is plastic and it's for an EMD loco as well (this is where the speaker lives). These are after all toys and they do run well and are definitely more "complete" than that old RS-3 I modified.

BTW, Lion Chief is only getting better. This is a LC + engine. It has BlueTooth support so I can run it with my phone. LC+ 2.0 will do everything this does PLUS it can be run from a Legacy remote.

[jlong]

220 bucks is HO money for a steam switcher with sounds and command control.

As far as prototypical correctness goes, be careful what you post. You might risk getting booted from the K Line club like Allan Miller did back in the day (anyone who remembers the AOL message boards knows what I'm talking about). Oh wait. The KLine club is no more.

[chuck]

Those were the days my friend, we thought they'd never end, ......

I did a lot of research on the RS-3. They were the first loco's I got to see up close and personal. We lived on the Pascack Valley line on the NJ border. I mean we lived across the street from the tracks and the station was about 300 feet south. 5-6 commuter trains a day plus a local freight, back in 59/60. The ALCO's were slowly being switched out for GP-7's. When I started looking for a train like the ones I saw it became clear that ALCO built the RS-3's to the individual railroads specs down to the type(s) of fuel/water tanks, location of air tank reservoirs, .... The closest off the shelf model was the really old Weaver with the crappy chain drive. Almost bought one but it had the "newer" EL livery. There was something like $200 in after market brass you could buy to "fix" the loco's. I only bought what I couldn't make but still spent ~ $80 bucks to get close. Learned a lot about compromise in appearance to get a working model.

Here is how it turned out

[Norton]

I have an early Weaver RS3 with the single tower chain drive. I understand the bodies are most prototypical in dimension but they are a huge current hog and have little pulling power. I figured I would just sit it next to engine house for display. I also have a K-Line RS3 with TMCC. I put a Cruise board in it and changed the smoke resistor. In thirty seconds it smokes out the room and runs great.
I don't know what the current Lionchief RS3s are like but the first generation ones should be avoided. They have the horizontal motors in the trucks and the gears are made of cheese. They wear out quickly and then lock up. A club member has three identical ones he lashes up and runs them with a single controller. One meet, two of them locked up and wouldn't run. I got one going using a gum wrapper as a shim but to fix these you have buy the whole truck.
I know folks like Lionchief control but many of the diesels have questionable drive trains, cheap motors and gears. The steam engines are much better for the most part though I think the 0-8-0s and Docksiders still have a tiny starter set motor.

Pete

[chuck]

The LionChief plus RS-3 has vertical can motors but the trucks look like they are an odd hybrid of old school and crappy horizontal motors. The "guts" seem to be similar to classic vertical motors but some of the gears look like they are plastic. The "side casting" are actually one piece Delrin casting more like the crappy horizontal motored trucks found on low end engines. The face plate and steps are cast in. I don't know about the pulling power but they have to be an improvement over the original horizontal motors. This also makes it harder to make changes as Delrin doesn't take glue well. The side castings on these units vary from locomotive to locomotive. The ones I could get a decent image on don't look like ALCO delivered trucks.

These also share the frame stamping with the earlier lower end units down to the folded side/front rails. I had to cut those off on my franken-loco and then custom solder brass railings and use PlastStruct diamond tread to cover the side walk ways. I could have bought brass cast stanchions but that would have been another PITA to install and about $30-$40 dollars that I didn't want to spend. The casting are actually out of scale. Prototype used a piece of flat iron/steel stamped into an S shape and either bolted or welded to the deck. ALCO did not switch over the attaching side railing stanchions to the side sill till later Century series.

1:1 RS units had narrow and short cabs. This tends to limit what you can fit under the hood. The early K-Line units sat very high on their trucks probably to accommodate the vertical motors? The "T" shaped fuel tank I needed to match my prototype was not suitable for a speaker and was too small to put any boards in. I tried to scratch build one but gave up when trying to make the "torpedo" air reservoirs located on the outside of the cnter mounted water tank (prototype was dual purpose passenger/freight and had a steam generator). I found an older Lionel version with the correct tank and passible air tanks and ordered the part. The TMCC and RS boards barely fid within the width of the hood.

Actually the hardest part was matching the Erie yellow to the decals. I think I had to custom mix EL yellow with something else to get a match. Loco looks great but is is a very poor puller. Since it never has to pull much its' not that big an issue.

Here is a short but crappy video of the model in action, pulling a typical Saturday afternoon consist

http://www.umich.edu/~chuck/RS-3.MOV

[Neil]

Nice work Chuck. Very nice.

I don't have experience with the robustness, or lack thereof, of LionChief drive trains as my locos spend almost all their time on a display shelf. But I've appreciated spending under $200 in many cases on postwar style command controlled LC and LC+ locos, such as a BN RS diesel, or perhaps a little more money (a New Haven Rectifier). I like the "free" included remote and the recent ability to use a smart device (which I'm not all that keen on).

As a comparison, I've used the infrared control on older MTH sets (ugh) and the new Explorer DCS device included in their sets, and have not been impressed with reliability, ease of use, instructions (as in none, with the set or device). Moot now that Mike Wolf is closing shop, but I personally prefer Lionel's approach to entry level stuff. No one needs PS3 in their first loco is my guess. I don't need it in any loco, now that I've "enjoyed" DCS and the Explorer version thereof. Unreliable, inconvenient and user unfriendly. LionChief is much more reliable and simple to use. Particularly for non-technical folks and children. Probably not an issue for experienced hobbyists of course, who have different priorities and needs.



I am of the opinion that LionChief and its more evolved versions will serve Lionel and the consumer well, since most are only going to be running these things on display layouts (drive train may be an issue here) and Christmas setups. Gets people into the hobby inexpensively and simply, which are important. I know these products aren't up to the drive train and aesthetic qualities of the more expensive (and MUCH quirkier in command mode) MTH products, but I think it's a reasonable trade-off. If the drive train is as bad as Pete says, hopefully they will reconsider this issue since these products are the ideal things to hand to kids at train shows with their inexpensive and simple remotes.