Recently Lionel resumed production of their venerable 022 switches. A few of us in the local TCA chapter wondered if they were as good as the orignals, but I guess none of us wanted to take the chance that Lionel had "improved" or cheapened our favorite switch. I had enough switches to complete my current layout, so I waited for someone to review these "new" 022s.
As fate you have it one of my switches started to act up. I removed it from the layout and tuned it up, but after a while it began to balk and the non-derailing feature was sluggish. The switch had a lot of years on it and the tops of the railheads on the ends were worn out in a U shaped pattern. Time to pull it off the layout and find a replacement.
There were no shows coming up soon to look for vintage examples, eBay is hit or miss, and since I'm hosting a TCA chapter meeting soon (and wanted everyhting on the layout to work properly) I decided it was time to try out a new Lionel 022
A close-up of the name plate on the new switch (washed out in the comparison photo) shows that it's almost identical to the original.
The differences are very subtle; Lionel Corp NY has been replaced with Lionel LLC, and just above the connectors on the switch motor (below the circle L) they've added the numbers 1,2 & 3.
Inside the new 022s switch motor. My comparison photo didn't come out, but mechanically the new and old switch motors appear to be identical. The bulb on the new switch motor is a bayonet-base.
After taking the photos I installed the new switch and it works great. My old 022 was connected to an SC-2 for switch control - no problems with TMCC and the new switch.
The 022C controller that comes with the new 022 is basically the same as a vintage 022C except that painted bulbs have been replaced with red and green colored lens caps.
