Lionel LLC's Farmrail Set
When MPC/Fundimensions brought Lionel trains back to life, I delighted in the fun and excitement of opening a new set box, anticipating the thrill of opening the individual boxes inside and first examining and then running the locomotive and its variety of cars. Every time I open a new set box, I feel like a youngster again, such is the effect of these sets, and I continued to enjoy this after the MPC/Fundimensions era and well into the LTI period. With the advent of Lionel LLC, however, quality problems and costs grew concurrently and my decreased Lionel purchases no longer included complete sets.
When I saw Lionel's new GP-7 Farmrail set in the catalog, however, I just had to take a chance on the quality problems that I had come to associate with the LLC suffix and order the set. The allure was simply too great to ignore. Now that I have received the set and have opened,
examined and run it, let me share what I found inside that great set box for any who may be "fence sitting" wondering whether to chance buying the Farmrail set. There are some very nice things, a few sadly bad things, and even a couple of "I don't believe even LLC was dumb enough to do that!" things.
Leading the "good" list is the packaging. Each item is in its own individual plastic bag. Each bagged item is inside a plastic clamshell or, in the case of the locomotive, a Styrofoam cradle with lid. Each of these is in its own blue and orange display box, which is wrapped inside its own plastic bag. Finally, each of these is laid inside the set box, which is sealed in plastic wrap, though that last layer will go when the set box is opened. The protective packaging gets an "A," and that would have been an "A+" had all the cars been in Styrofoam cradles instead of
the clamshells.
Also on the "good" list is the GP-7--sort of. It still uses the old style shell with the big smooth rectangle on the sides where access doors ought to be, but at least it was shown that way in the catalog, so that was no surprise. The flashing strobe light on the cab roof works well and looks good, and the paint scheme is very well done--just don't grab that cream colored shell with greasy fingers! I wish LLC had used a DC "can" motor instead of the AC Pullmor motor so that slow starts would have been possible because that Pullmor really jumps into action at around 10 Volts, but that again is old-style performance to complement the old-style body. The "Signal Sounds" system is most interesting. The bell sound is a great rendition of a mechanical bell, and the sound has very realistic depth to it. I have no idea what kind of bell was on the real GP-7, but this one sounds good! The horn is something else. The sound starts as a rather flat "blatting" noise reminiscent of the early electronic diesel horns euphemistically referred to as "sick cow" horns from MPC/Fundimensions years. As the whistle button is released, the sound jumps to a resonating, echoing warning that sounds as realistic as any produced by full-featured sound
systems. Actually, it's a fun sort of horn, though the distinct change in the sound halfway through each blast takes some getting used to! I'd rate the locomotive a "B+" just because I know that Pullmor motor is not going to last through a day-long running at a show without being taken
off line to cool down periodically.
Third in the "good" list is the caboose. While K-Line's O scale cabooses leave it in the dust from the standpoint of fine detail, the Farmrail caboose is nicely painted and fully meets its cataloged
description and this buyer's expectations. I'd have to give it an "A" simply because my expectations were in line with its reality, not because it beats any other brands in a comparison contest.
One car, the flat carrying the Ertl combine, is definitely on the "bad" list. The so-called flat car is only the floor from the screened auto carrier cars. The same floor has appeared on the I-beam lumber carrying cars and the bulkhead flats with wood loads (such as 6-16951). The floor works just fine when it is reenforced with a superstructure as on the screened auto carriers or with a wood load that provides the same sort of structural reenforcement. It is not fine when used as a flat car! By itself, the floor is weak and too flexible. Place the Ertl diecast combine in its place in the center of the car and watch that car bow! Also, if anyone has figured out how to use the 1- inch single tiedown to hold the grain pickup head attachment to the car, please tell the world how you did it! The tiedown is simply too short and breaks when stretched as directed by the instruction sheet. (In the catalog and box cover photos of this set, the tiedowns are NOT in place on the flat car; I presume that Lionel LLC couldn't make all of them work either!)
If all of this weren't enough, the red paint was flaked off the top edges of the Ertl model! For operation, I'd suggest replacing the car with a K-Line or perhaps a Weaver scale flat car. The Lionel "floor" doesn't cut it and rates about a "D-" on the grading scale, and that's because I'm a generous grader.
Now we come to the fun part of the evaluation, the two 3-bay covered hoppers. They both look flawless--until one begins to read the small print on their sides. Instructions on the Farmers Elevator Inc. hopper direct: "DO NOT US STEAM BOILING WATER OR SHARP OBJECTS TO CLEAN." Silly me, I was brought up believing that the verb was spelled with an
"E" on the end to form the word "USE." The Cargill hopper is even better. Perhaps the painter feared it would burst into flame because he tells us "DO NOT SHIP CAR EMPTY OR LOADED UNTIL MATCH COVERS AND OUTLET GATES ARE CLOSED AND LOCKED." I always thought that those were HATCH covers! Oh well, a number of my freshman students could never figure out the difference between an M and an H either. How shall we grade these cars? They should definitely receive an "A+" in the Unintended Humor category, but a humorless evaluator would not treat them so kindly!
Now for the perverse conclusion. Knowing what I now know about the set, would I still buy it? The answer is still "yes" because of its novel road name. We're not treated to many small, regional roads, and I do like to imagine this set rolling through the Oklahoma grain country.
Would I buy another set of similar composition? Not unless Lionel LLC replaces that bowing floor with a real flat car equipped with adequate tiedowns and learns how to proofread the lettering on the hoppers.
--Feature Editor, Switcher
--Lionel Operating Train Society
