@@charlesheinke8381 that's a great idea for the observation car!

@@lowercentenary that is an original Plasticville station that I have had since I was a kid. The vehicles are 1:48 scale from Menard's. Thanks for checking out the video!

Thanks for the reply and again, great video!

@@frankbruno9499 Welcome Frank!

@@cak813 thank you

@@clearlycaribbeanreb2895 cool I'll check it out!

@@w.rustylane5650 that's cool! Where in TN are you? My Dad's side of the family are all from Monteagle.

@@OgdenTunkRR amazing how good that little speaker sounds.

@@DelHudson1 thanks Del 😁

@@Eyrrll I couldn't find any information on it. But that doesn't mean that it does not exist.

Greetings. They do indeed make the dummy unit. #157. It's in the 2024 catalog. I picked one up in Nov 2024 as a Xmas present to myself. Expensive - it also has no lighting - but is worth every penny and looks super cool! It's nearly as heavy as #159 as well. Being a dummy engine, I was expecting it to be light. Love your vids and layouts btw! Thanks for sharing them.

There is a dummy unit as well as 5 add on cars . Baggage car, passenger car,two regular vista dome cars one is number 500 and second is 501 and then there's the full vista dome car. I will hopefully be preordering the 501 vista dome car this coming week which will leave me just short of the full set because I didn't get the dummy unit

@ScramjetNY cool. Thanks for the update. I will check that out. I'm starting to wonder though, even though the locomotive has two motors, having a dummy a unit and all cars for the contest might start to be a little heavy for that one locomotive.

@@davidheilman other than the dummy unit which I just became aware of, we're missing the baggage car. But as I said in the video I'm hoping that that is going to be a birthday present here in about a week.

@@SoCal_Jerry thank you Jerry. I used to have the post-war Super Chief but somewhere along the line I think my dad sold it. Lionel has a number of offerings on Amazon. Normally I get things from my buddies train store but my wife was just poking around trying to figure out what to get me for Christmas and saw this. She went down the rabbit hole and at a 40% discount she had to buy it!

That was a real deal!!!!

@@RABSTRAINS thank you. Glad to have you in as well. I don't have the Texas special Lion Chief set. I do have the post-war Texas special set from the 1960s. At least the locomotives.

Yes. You are correct. That was a mis-speak that I didn't catch before the video went live. It's a Prairie.

@@krtrains123thank you!

@@CloverdaleTransitAuthority lol , I think I need that set . 🙂

@krtrains123 silver the the word of the day!

@@cak813 thanks for sharing that story. Yes Lionel stopped making trains during the war and was working on navigation equipment for the Navy. The drawbar connection with the tender is definitely a bit fiddly on this model. The Taco on the top is for the unit that sets what did the train can go into forward or reverse using the transformer, or whether it just goes in the same direction it last went when you gave it power. It's called an e-unit.

@CloverdaleTransitAuthority: Thanks for the reply. I’ve subscribed to your channel. I love seeing the postwar Lionel trains and accessories.

@cak813 more fun to come!

@@SoCal_Jerry thank you. I remember seeing pictures of that train in Disney promotionals back in the seventies. They have a "zoo ride" version they are restoring add a park out in Portland Oregon I think it is.

I am trying to decide which is worse. Whining in a KZbin video, or watching someone whine in a KZbin video, and then whining about someone whining in a KZbin video 😆 It's a vicious circle!

Sounds like someone hates the model train hobby. Why are you here?

@ You whined first!

@ Hahahaha. I am a big supporter of the model train hobby. Its the continued whiners about the high cost of trains because of the INFLATION, that are damaging to the hobby!

@RippysRails well I understand and I appreciate the humor however I will say this. My video is really to talk about the business model that Lionel has. It seems to me from my backseat driving position, that their marketing to a very small section of the consumer whereas before they were a broad model that marketed to a lot of different consumers. If whining about the price of something was destroying that industry then whining about the price of eggs and milk is destroying the farming industry not the inflated price of eggs and milk. Anyway like I said this is my opinion on it. Other people have different opinions that's fine I'm just putting my stuff out there to get a discussion going which is what you and I are doing. And I appreciate it.

@@OgdenTunkRR thank you. I Love Lionel and I love a lot of the stuff that they have done but I think their market research on this one was just off. Hey everybody has a bad year. Maybe they can learn a few things and make up for it in the volume two catalog. I'm not a big fan of battery owes either. But when you're looking at a cheap price for a family to start the kids off with an inexpensive train, this may be the solution. But then you've got to have something to move to. I realized that the legacy and vision Line stuff is for the high-end collectors and operators. However you've got to really focus on the mid-range Market two. You sell more Honda civics than you sell Maseratis.

@@genemanno1533 welder? That's very specific! 😁

People who own all of those things (minus a welder because... why would I want a welder?) and have this concept called "disposable income" are interested in this. I don't need another car (mine has 927 miles on it.) My appliances all work fine. I'm not an ammosexual. A service plows the street for me.

MTH is now an also-ran by their own actions. They offer zero to new hobbyists. Now if MTH had something like Bluetooth to introduce their brand to others not wanting to invest in a control system, they may start recovering market share. Without out something like that they are just a boutique brand in a niche market.

@@RixTrax You lost me at "is ran". Why would we take the opinion of an illiterate seriously?

@@tim3172 thanks for pointing out that I forgot the hyphen. I fixed it. You may want to look up also-ran. In this case, it’s a noun indicating a loser in a race. Which is what MTH has become by Wolf ‘s own egomaniacal actions. But hey yo do you.

@@UncleSalty-nz5uk whew! It's supposed to be minus 12 here tonight.

@@ELWtrains Thank you.

@@CloverdaleTransitAuthorityAwesome Video! Thanks for helping me getting the word out

@@railchief74 thanks for bring this together.

@ Don’t mention it 👍🏻🚂

@@cameroneverhart6443 no truer words have ever been spoken!