Not quite sure what type of information you are looking for, so here goes...
The expansion packs are just Lionel O-27 passenger cars. I have a Lionel Lines O-27 three car set from 2005 and the additional two car expansion set. I love them.
The size looks and works very well behind both the O-27 diecast steamers (the $90-$100 engines) as well as the "Traditional" O-31 sized engines. The size also looks and works well with William's semi-scale engines.
Since they are O-27 they will go around any curve. I run them through modern Lionel O22 (O-31 sized) turnouts and don't have any problems. I find that the basic three car set is a good length. While I do have five cars, I find that all five cars makes the consist just long enough that it becomes difficult to create isolated blocks on small layouts that are long enough to hold all five cars plus the engine. Three cars plus the engine allows for more possibilities.
I think the plastic is pretty durable. My cars have had a few bangs by O-27 diecast steamers and haven't suffered any damage.
The lights for a line of five cars draws about 1 amp total.
The cars run well. The axles have a bit of drag compared to rolling stock because the wiring for the interior lighting uses copper tabs on the axles to help power the lights inside. This doesn't affect how they run when pulled, but they don't free wheel as rolling stock.
The couplers are standard plastic knuckle couplers. The arms look like they are held on by a screw so it appears that they could be replaced if a coupler broke.
The thumb tack uncoupling mechanism works well if you have an uncoupling section of track with 12-14 volts. I find that with the thumb tacks dedicated power for the uncoupler seems to work better than track power. With track power when you slow the train down as you pass over the uncoupler, you also have less power being generated with the electromagnet and it seems to have a hard time grabbing some of the thumb tacks. Dedicated power to the uncoupler lets you keep a good voltage to the magent while you to slow the cars down so the thumb tacks can be pulled.
Hope this helps.
Chris
traindaddy,This is the Christmas Expansion Passenger Set. I bought mine to pull behind the Christmas General that came out this year...Yes, that is a Christmas General, pulling the three passenger cars up a 5% grade!
lionroar88 wrote: traindaddy,This is the Christmas Expansion Passenger Set. I bought mine to pull behind the Christmas General that came out this year...Yes, that is a Christmas General, pulling the three passenger cars up a 5% grade!
traindaddy1 wrote: lionroar88 wrote: traindaddy,This is the Christmas Expansion Passenger Set. I bought mine to pull behind the Christmas General that came out this year...Yes, that is a Christmas General, pulling the three passenger cars up a 5% grade!Lionroar88: A CTT member asked me a question but I think it should have been sent to you. He wants to know how many feet of track did you lay to reach the 5% grade. (I'm sure he is viewing the forum) Thanks.
Each section of straight track is 10", each FasTrack trestle riser is .5 inches. So it takes 11 risers to go up 5.5 inches (height of tallest trestle)... so 11 x 10 = 110 inches.
To all,
I have several of the red-striped 027 Santa Fe passenger cars that came with and were added on to the Superchief set from the early 1990s. They run well on 027 track and Fasttrack as well. I hope they come out with some more of those sometime.
Keep on training,
Mike C. from Indiana
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.
Get the Classic Toy Trains newsletter delivered to your inbox twice a month