2014 Lionel Catalogs

[Andrew Falconer]

Monday morning Lionel revealed the 2014 catalogs on-line.

Signature

Ready to Run

American Flyer

Track and Power

Holiday Memories

 

The Holiday Memories catalog is a mix of all type of Lionel or railroad items for decorating. It is not like the Christmas catalog last year. There might be another catalog, or not.

 

The big news for me in the Signature catalog are the 86' auto parts boxcars.

 

What I have been waiting for in the ready-to-run catalog is the CP Rail Auto Carrier that will match all the other CP Rail cars available.

 

They are making a Marquette train set based on the popularity of the Pere Marquette items in the past.

[David Barker]

Thanks for the information.

[cheapclassics]

Good evening all,

Some good stuff in there.  May order some Santa Fe items.   Very disappointed the Scout cars only have 2 axles and fixed couplers.   For $25 more, you can have a "real" set with 8 wheels and operating couplers. 

Keep on training,

Mike C. from Indiana

[sir james I]

Some real nice steamers but the prices are beyond what I'm willing to pay for something that won't have parts available in just a few short years. I might pop for a diesel or two though.

S.J.

[sir james I]

The catalogs are online at Lionel's website.

[Andrew Falconer]

The Ready-To-Run 2014 catalog contains the most toy-like trains.

 

The Signature edition is full of more expensive O Scale models that require large radius curves.

Some of the Value-added-dealer sets from the Ready-to-run catalog do appear at the back of the Signature edition catalog.

 

Andrew

[cheapclassics]

Good evening all,

One of the more impressive catalogs is the Ameican Flyer.   With the new track and switches, I might be tempted to get a set.

Keep on training,

Mike C. from Indiana

[Andrew Falconer]

The printed catalogs could be available in hobby shops next week.

[joe323]

i wish they would make them as downloadable PDF's

[trestrainfan]

The catalogs can be downloaded as pdf documents.

After you click on the catalog you are interested and it loads, there are a number of icons in a column on the left side of the page. Click on the one that has a down arrow. A little black box pops up in the middle of the screen that says download? and has a symbol and the words pdf. Click on the symbol or the word pdf and wait for the catalog to download. They tend to be pretty large, so it may take a few minutes.

[Andrew Falconer]

There is an O Scale BNSF Gondola with Covers that must be in a Maintenance of Way paint scheme.

 

The O Scale Penn Central E8 diesel locomotives appear to be a Very Dark Green in the catalog images, but as you might know, colors in the final version could be much darker.

 

[Penny Trains]

I got all 5 catalogs Friday from my LHS.  The owner said Lionel decided to release all of their catalogs at the same time this year and they're not planning any more this year.  Strangely, the Polar Express items (flags, art, etc.) have "PENDING LICENSOR APPROVAL" emblazoned accross the bottom of the pages, which seems counterintuitive for a catalog.

The big item (2700 bucks) is the Vision Big Boy and some of the new tricks it can do, most notably the "Depleting Coal Load" function in the tender.  The control system synchronizes the speed and stress loading of the locomotive to give a realistic representation of a locomotive that goes from full load to one that needs refueling.  (Realistic, if you ignore the fact that the loco would run out of water several times over before the coal pile would reach the bottom of the bunker.)

More importantly the Big Boy and most of the other high end locos and sets are now labeled "BUILT TO ORDER" with multiple delivery dates for each item.  To me it's irrelevant because I can't afford such nice toys (If I did have the money, I'd go after the 6-81295 Chessie Mikado).  But I would imagine that knowing that trains won't be made unless and until orders are recieved may help eleviate some of the issues of the past concerning delivery schedules.

Finally, where are the lineside signals?  For the second year Lionel is cataloging only 6-12883 dwarf signal.  No semaphores, no position lights, no signal bridges.  What's up with that?

Becky