When I first saw this engine, I was over the moon. Thinking Lionel was going to stop the unnecessary holiday gimmicky trains, this would be their redemption
@@Coloribus2004 i KINDA like the holiday gimmick trains because i love running them during holidays but i do want more realistic sets and more variety in locos. overall i wish they'd release more standalone affordable lionchief locos by themselves too
All the money they throw at licensing IP might be better spent re-invested into the traditional O line for some truly new locomotives and rolling stock toolings, maybe some new operating accessories. Or at the very least they could keep the quality up and bring the sticker prices down a few notches to be more competitive. Most new things I've bought recently have been from Menards, and that's all down to price.
All things considered, you've got to give props to Lionel for using the old MTH tooling effectively here. It is genuinely nice to have an engine like a 2-8-0 in O Gauge for cheap, considering how ubiquitous they were (and still are.)
Two things: 1. the voice recording is hilarious. i have the polar express set and i recorded the fnaf 1 night 1 phone call, you have better / slower speed control in the app, and momentum settings for slower take offs which is great 2. i was really excited to see old MTH tooling and i kinda hope they get some more. the blue comet needs an affordable redemption arc as well (i have the original PS2 blue comet)
Yes! I’ve been noticing that they list “oad specific crew dialogue as a “premium visionline feature” and I think that’s just silly especially with these getting it. I understand legacy and visionline will usually have more intricate and detailed crew talk with dispatcher talking back but I just don’t understand why that can’t be something most of all their new engines have. Even Menards has road specific dialogue on their engines.
The modern o gauge Lionel trains like that, the 0-8-0 and even the 4-4-2 sets from the early 2000s are pretty good However they don’t hold a candle to the rugged reliability to postwar locomotives. All my original train set engines have issues including my original polar express. Yet a postwar engine can sit in an attic for 50 years and with just light cleaning will work flawlessly. Newer Lionel rolling stock though is absolutely fantastic. I don’t mind tossing modern made cars in with my postwar cars
Bluetooth actually “saved” me with a LionChief set. Got a Santa Fe ft and some cars for under 200, and the remote that came with it was broken. Luckily I can still run it worth bluetooth, and not have an expensive paperweight. Still prefer running the original postwar F3 for some reason.
Maybe it's because I'm still partial to MTH but the one thing that Lionchief has never managed that TMCC models had was quality of the audio. It just sounds so bit-crunched compared to the Legacy system. MTH used the same speaker quality in each, and it never felt they belittled the semi-scale guys that way.
I will say, I think I preferred the MTH version since you could change the chuff rate to be 4 chuffs per revolution, it had fan driven smoke instead of puffing smoke, you could play more than one sound at once, and you didn't have to deal with a broken terminal track since they gave you a lock on which could be used on any track piece. Not to mention that it even came with command control. All for about the same price that Lionel is offering it for now but with less features. If you ever get the chance to pick up an MTH ready to run set, I would highly recommend it, especially if you get one with a railking Imperial locomotive.
we need MTE to cover Lionel's 'Readt-to-Play' sets. I quite like them, and they're good for garden railroading or large layouts indoors. oh,, and Christmas trains.
I bought the up 0-8-0 for pretty cheap a few years ago and I will be honest it’s brought me back into trains I grew up playing with conventional trains but found that lioncheif engine for a good deal and fell in love. I love the Bluetooth and the easiness of it. It’s game changer when you have a big layout and you can walk around and see the layout. Since the first one I have bought 4 more sets and a legacy sd90 and with the updates app where you can run multiple trains it’s so much fun. I think 450 is steep for the sets but if you wait a few years most come down to 350 or less which I think is reasonable all things considered
Man, you’re not kidding about the sound! I know from experience given I have an original Lionel Polar Express set(yes, the original which they’re remaking/rereleasing this year in honor of the tenth anniversary of the movie and set), and _it_ came with FasTrack too. Boy, was it noisy on hard floors. Heck, it also shows here with it nearly drowning _you_ out at some points. Still, plenty fun(if I can get my poor set running again, hasn’t had a proper cleaning in a looong time 😔)
I got the LionCheif Pennsylvania Flyer 0-8-0 for Christmas as a kid. Almost 10 years later, and it still works flawlessly. I haven’t had issues with the drawbar on it or my other LionCheif steam locomotive, and I’ve also never had a FasTrack terminal go out on me. Perhaps you got a bad terminal? It’s weird that the dispatcher never responded. On all of my LionCheif locos, and on all the other ones I’ve seen, there’s always a dispatcher responding to the crew.
8:02 It might be the ZW because I once tried to run a modern Lionel locomotive (SD40T-2) at a slow speed and big puffs of smoke came out of the ZW, but both the engine and loco where fine afterwards.
one huge nitpick I have with fasttrack is after a while when you connect and disconnect the pin gets lose which causes dead-spots on the track. Also yeah I agree fast-track is loud.
You should check out the Lionel Vision Line Triplex locomotive. It's huge, powerful, and is really awesome! It has whistle steam, a bell that moves on its own, wheelslip for the tender driving wheels, two smokestacks, and awesome lights and sounds!
Regarding the poor low speed control: try running it on a lower voltage. I've gotten some Lionchief engines to creep decently well that way, especially older pre-Bluetooth ones. Newer ones like this may not get quite as much of an improvement from it, but it should help at least a little. To find the minimum voltage it will run on, turn up the throttle on the Lionchief remote and then turn down the power on the ZW until the train stops.
Have you tried putting back the wires for the terminal? They can get loose. My draw bar broke on a Lionchief general from 2016. It was terrible because an asked a friend to fix it and instead he broke the motherfrickin speaker. Otherwise good model. Loved this honest review.
It’s all fixed, I soldered it all back together and wrapped it with some electrical tape. I also ended up making the hole for the wires a bit larger and using some electrical tape to give them a bit more relief.
@@cobramercilesswhat about the track piece that powers up the track? I feel like you could fix that too. Probably a broken wire connection to the track? I have the polar express set and I couldn’t hardly believe how bad the wires are on these sets. They are so small and break very easily on the locomotive and the lighted passenger cars.
the one thing I hate about Lionel lionchief steamers is that stupid drawbar electrical connection. my Santa Fe 0-8-0 is currently away being fixed because of that
I've been kicking around the idea of getting this set. I absolutely do not need it, but...just look at it. As an NYC fan, I quite like it, the fact that it's a PRR engine in NYC paint is something I can overlook in a set like this. Also, I want to try FasTrack...
Having tried Fastrack... I wouldn't buy it again. It's very noisy, even on carpet, and I've found the electrical connections between track sections to be quite unreliable (and you can't just tighten them with pliers like you can with tubular). If you're curious, by all means get a small loop and experiment with it, but don't get your hopes up too high.
The metal used is cheap, corrodes easy, and kinks easy. Wiggling the sections to disconnect them, as shown, will also ream the ends of the rails wider, resulting in poor conductivity. It's expensive, noisy, and not reliable. The hollow roadbed acts like a resonating chamber, amplifying the track noise too.
I have the Lionchief Polar Express and an LC2.0 Hudson, why does this starter set engine come with road specific dialogue but my $600 engine does not???
@@cobramerciless For what it's worth a switcher locomotive will usually do tight curves even if it's Legacy. They said their A5s and SW1s could do O31 and I've seen MPC era engines made on older versions of those toolings handle O27.
I thought these locomotives looked a lot like MTH's starter set steamers, personally I would say it looks a fair bit worse than the 0-8-0, something about the pilot just looks really cheap and toy-like to me. I understand why they do it but I always really disliked the look of the simplified valve gear on these starter locomotives. Interesting that it was so much quieter on the tubular track for you, personally I screwed my fastrack down and once I did that it actually ran a fair bit quieter than tubular track. I never used the terminal sections either so now I almost want to pull one apart and see if I can find out why they seem to break so easily, I know a lot of the fastrack pieces with wiring are just using quick-disconnect spade connectors that can fall out pretty easily so I wonder if that's what happened to yours or if there was something wrong with the barrel plug.
Meh. When it comes to O scale anything, I prefer 2 Rail O scale. I just don't like that center rail for power as it look odd to me. I am just too used to 2 rail trackage ,lol.
To me, the current Lionel starter sets lack the quality that older sets had. The Lionchief stuff is nothing compared to the PS3.0 that MTH was putting in their starter sets. The trains aren’t as durable and I feel as if people aren’t getting the bank for their buck when it comes to these modern starter sets
I haven’t dealt with an MTH set yet. I’d like to someday, but my only current MTH locomotive is currently sitting on a shelf currently bending its own frame somehow
#1 you should be hard on them, they do have terrible QC and they are making questionable designs. #2 This set, while it's a good thing was previously the extremely well built MTH 2-8-0 starter engine- Lionel took that tooling, made a puffer smoke unit, cheapened the material for the gears, but hands down the failure point is the wiring to the drawbar in the tender. If that shorts to the metal frame (they left no room for flexing over time and runs across the sharp edge of the metal tender frame with no loop or room for flexing- if that shorts- it will blow the board sky high. You've been warned.
Every product I've had from them is fine qc wise minus some terrible ho stuff. This set still runs fine and I've put quite a few hours of runtime on it with no issue. The tender had a drawbar issue but I've already addressed it and it works just fine.
The hate isn't fully wrong. The quality control is bafflingly bad. I had to send my ready to run Polar Express back because of malfunctioning mechanical and digital hardware.
I do understand that, but I do beg to differ. The MTH was more expensive and requires a special system or command control station. This one is one self contained unit that just needs a power connection to run everything.
@cobramerciless I don't believe the mth one was more expensive. Atleast when it first came out. But even so it's system was included in the starter set and allowed you to upgrade to the full layout control system. Mth ran off one system... DCS. It was the same system no mater what it was in. Starter set, high end set, etc. Not lionel with it having 3 separate systems.. LC, LC2.0, and Legacy. Which only just now have been able to all be completely controlled on the same system but can not be used in conjunction with one another. Such as lashups. Mth's DCS was a way better system compared to lionels 3 totally different systems.
For this particular locomotive, I wouldn't be surprised. I would like MTH a lot more if my only MTH locomotive didn't have crap paint application and didn't bend itself
The dispatcher left to get the milk and never came back
I died laughing at the goat scream whistle
5 chimes always scream that’s why I love them
When I first saw this engine, I was over the moon. Thinking Lionel was going to stop the unnecessary holiday gimmicky trains, this would be their redemption
@@Coloribus2004 i KINDA like the holiday gimmick trains because i love running them during holidays but i do want more realistic sets and more variety in locos. overall i wish they'd release more standalone affordable lionchief locos by themselves too
I wouldn't count on it. The way Lionel presently is run, even the scale items are getting the pop culture/licensed paint jobs and holliday schemes.
@@Shipwright1918hey at least it keeps them afloat
All the money they throw at licensing IP might be better spent re-invested into the traditional O line for some truly new locomotives and rolling stock toolings, maybe some new operating accessories. Or at the very least they could keep the quality up and bring the sticker prices down a few notches to be more competitive.
Most new things I've bought recently have been from Menards, and that's all down to price.
I have to agree about the holiday trains, honestly how many first time buyers are going to buy one
All things considered, you've got to give props to Lionel for using the old MTH tooling effectively here. It is genuinely nice to have an engine like a 2-8-0 in O Gauge for cheap, considering how ubiquitous they were (and still are.)
Two things:
1. the voice recording is hilarious. i have the polar express set and i recorded the fnaf 1 night 1 phone call, you have better / slower speed control in the app, and momentum settings for slower take offs which is great
2. i was really excited to see old MTH tooling and i kinda hope they get some more. the blue comet needs an affordable redemption arc as well (i have the original PS2 blue comet)
WAIT WHAT ABOUT THE FNAF 1 PHONE CALL LMAO?
@@sfm_ferguson5033 yeah i recorded a whole minute of it 😭 i also did the vine boom sound lmfao
Didn't MTH recently say they were doing a Blue Comet rerun?
@@asteroidrules oh??👀 i wouldn't know lol
@@asteroidrules ohhh yeah but those are spensive, i meant the budget one making a comeback like the ready to run set
I find it funny that the newer ready to run sets get road number specific dialogue yet for scale offerings its only for the visionline engines
Yes! I’ve been noticing that they list “oad specific crew dialogue as a “premium visionline feature” and I think that’s just silly especially with these getting it. I understand legacy and visionline will usually have more intricate and detailed crew talk with dispatcher talking back but I just don’t understand why that can’t be something most of all their new engines have. Even Menards has road specific dialogue on their engines.
Lionel’s decision making process is a little…odd
The modern o gauge Lionel trains like that, the 0-8-0 and even the 4-4-2 sets from the early 2000s are pretty good
However they don’t hold a candle to the rugged reliability to postwar locomotives. All my original train set engines have issues including my original polar express. Yet a postwar engine can sit in an attic for 50 years and with just light cleaning will work flawlessly.
Newer Lionel rolling stock though is absolutely fantastic. I don’t mind tossing modern made cars in with my postwar cars
I have that locomotive in PRR from MTH, runs like a charm
Bluetooth actually “saved” me with a LionChief set.
Got a Santa Fe ft and some cars for under 200, and the remote that came with it was broken. Luckily I can still run it worth bluetooth, and not have an expensive paperweight.
Still prefer running the original postwar F3 for some reason.
The player is the dispatcher.
I'm sorry, the custom sound bit gets me every time!😂🤣😆
Maybe it's because I'm still partial to MTH but the one thing that Lionchief has never managed that TMCC models had was quality of the audio. It just sounds so bit-crunched compared to the Legacy system. MTH used the same speaker quality in each, and it never felt they belittled the semi-scale guys that way.
I'd like MTH a lot better if their equipment actually played nice with other systems and their locomotives didn't bend themselves
@@cobramerciless real
I will say, I think I preferred the MTH version since you could change the chuff rate to be 4 chuffs per revolution, it had fan driven smoke instead of puffing smoke, you could play more than one sound at once, and you didn't have to deal with a broken terminal track since they gave you a lock on which could be used on any track piece. Not to mention that it even came with command control. All for about the same price that Lionel is offering it for now but with less features. If you ever get the chance to pick up an MTH ready to run set, I would highly recommend it, especially if you get one with a railking Imperial locomotive.
IVE BEEN WAITING FOR A VIDEO ON THIS!!!
we need MTE to cover Lionel's 'Readt-to-Play' sets.
I quite like them, and they're good for garden railroading or large layouts indoors. oh,, and Christmas trains.
I bought the up 0-8-0 for pretty cheap a few years ago and I will be honest it’s brought me back into trains I grew up playing with conventional trains but found that lioncheif engine for a good deal and fell in love. I love the Bluetooth and the easiness of it. It’s game changer when you have a big layout and you can walk around and see the layout. Since the first one I have bought 4 more sets and a legacy sd90 and with the updates app where you can run multiple trains it’s so much fun. I think 450 is steep for the sets but if you wait a few years most come down to 350 or less which I think is reasonable all things considered
If I get into O scale, I'll probably get this set, since I like New York Central.
THAT CAR ENGINE AS IT WENT BY IS AMAZING XD
First
1986 Ford Taurus
1930 Ford Model A
1993 Ford Probe
@@vehicles_n_stuff 1903 ford model a
@@J50Fan202008 ford crown Victoria
2010 ford mustang gt
Wow I love train sets. I used to have many of the old Lionel train sets. I still have a old engine left 😢
I like this set. You’re right about the price to value ration. I would pay more than $400. $375 ideal. Nice review!
Man, you’re not kidding about the sound! I know from experience given I have an original Lionel Polar Express set(yes, the original which they’re remaking/rereleasing this year in honor of the tenth anniversary of the movie and set), and _it_ came with FasTrack too. Boy, was it noisy on hard floors. Heck, it also shows here with it nearly drowning _you_ out at some points. Still, plenty fun(if I can get my poor set running again, hasn’t had a proper cleaning in a looong time 😔)
Fun fact, the Long Island Railroad, being a subsidiary of Pennsy ran the H8. One wonders why Lionel doesn't make a starter set for that.
11:17 now this is cool lol
Also FINALLY SOMEONE DID A REVIEW ON THIS SET
I got the LionCheif Pennsylvania Flyer 0-8-0 for Christmas as a kid. Almost 10 years later, and it still works flawlessly. I haven’t had issues with the drawbar on it or my other LionCheif steam locomotive, and I’ve also never had a FasTrack terminal go out on me. Perhaps you got a bad terminal?
It’s weird that the dispatcher never responded. On all of my LionCheif locos, and on all the other ones I’ve seen, there’s always a dispatcher responding to the crew.
You should look at Lionel’s new Prairie Flyer set. Retro done right!
9:27 Road number specific crew talk?! Now that's pretty sick.
8:02 It might be the ZW because I once tried to run a modern Lionel locomotive (SD40T-2) at a slow speed and big puffs of smoke came out of the ZW, but both the engine and loco where fine afterwards.
I do slow starts on lioncheif locomotives using a lower voltage on the transformer, it doesnt even effect the sounds
Lionel , all the way !
one huge nitpick I have with fasttrack is after a while when you connect and disconnect the pin gets lose which causes dead-spots on the track. Also yeah I agree fast-track is loud.
I have this set and it’s a absolutely amazing I love this train set
the voice streaming is the best feature ever i have the santa fe dash 8 set and i made the crew suffer through the aftermath of a Taco Bell fiesta
You should check out the Lionel Vision Line Triplex locomotive. It's huge, powerful, and is really awesome! It has whistle steam, a bell that moves on its own, wheelslip for the tender driving wheels, two smokestacks, and awesome lights and sounds!
@@AnimalsVehiclesAndMore wish I had that sort of money and space :/
Ive been happy with the ho Lionel stuff i have. They fill a spot no one else does. Bob Ross, super hero stuff. Polar express
Regarding the poor low speed control: try running it on a lower voltage. I've gotten some Lionchief engines to creep decently well that way, especially older pre-Bluetooth ones. Newer ones like this may not get quite as much of an improvement from it, but it should help at least a little. To find the minimum voltage it will run on, turn up the throttle on the Lionchief remote and then turn down the power on the ZW until the train stops.
Oh yeah that’s a trick I’ve messed with a couple times, disappointed it can’t do a smooth couple without it though :/
Cool. I've had my eye on this retool of the MTH 2-8-0 for a while, bit on the fence about getting it as I have the original Railking version.
The cabooses are likely descendants of the Lionel SP style caboose toolings from postwar era
11:13 Screaming Train (Goat)
Seems like a pretty cool set, you should add a rodney kantorski audio to it since it's NYC lmao
You’re a genius
Have you tried putting back the wires for the terminal? They can get loose. My draw bar broke on a Lionchief general from 2016. It was terrible because an asked a friend to fix it and instead he broke the motherfrickin speaker. Otherwise good model. Loved this honest review.
It’s all fixed, I soldered it all back together and wrapped it with some electrical tape. I also ended up making the hole for the wires a bit larger and using some electrical tape to give them a bit more relief.
I’m glad.
@@cobramercilesswhat about the track piece that powers up the track? I feel like you could fix that too. Probably a broken wire connection to the track?
I have the polar express set and I couldn’t hardly believe how bad the wires are on these sets. They are so small and break very easily on the locomotive and the lighted passenger cars.
@@Toadster250 didn’t bother with it since I had my ZW to power this whole shebang
10:56 I might buy the set just for this feature
Most of the newer Lionchief Bluetooth locos have this feature.
On the topic of O-gauge trains, could you review Menard's train sets too?
@@BlueCometDude I would like one just to see what they’re like. Main issue is that I’m just not interested in F units :/
If possible I recommended Santa Fe Super Chief set that Lionel offers.
Either that or the Pennsy keystone. Both fabulous sets!
the one thing I hate about Lionel lionchief steamers is that stupid drawbar electrical connection. my Santa Fe 0-8-0 is currently away being fixed because of that
I've been kicking around the idea of getting this set. I absolutely do not need it, but...just look at it. As an NYC fan, I quite like it, the fact that it's a PRR engine in NYC paint is something I can overlook in a set like this. Also, I want to try FasTrack...
Having tried Fastrack... I wouldn't buy it again. It's very noisy, even on carpet, and I've found the electrical connections between track sections to be quite unreliable (and you can't just tighten them with pliers like you can with tubular). If you're curious, by all means get a small loop and experiment with it, but don't get your hopes up too high.
The metal used is cheap, corrodes easy, and kinks easy. Wiggling the sections to disconnect them, as shown, will also ream the ends of the rails wider, resulting in poor conductivity. It's expensive, noisy, and not reliable. The hollow roadbed acts like a resonating chamber, amplifying the track noise too.
Also magnetraction from postwar trains won't work on FasTrack
@@michaelramsey82 I don't have any interest in using it beyond a loop on the carpet. I already have a large amount of tubular track.
those customs sounds got me lol
I wish they brought the transformer in sets back, the lionchief remote has always felt "gimmicky" to me
My voice recording feature never worked on my switcher locomotive I got which is too bad
Glad the lionchief app is put to use💀
I have the Lionchief Polar Express and an LC2.0 Hudson, why does this starter set engine come with road specific dialogue but my $600 engine does not???
Ex MTH tooling but the Bluetooth technology is nice
I just want a conrail starter set
The only issue i have with thr ho sets is they tend to derail easily and tend to lose power easily other than that they're pretty good
@@katerinakittycat3849 mine was abysmal. Constant derailments, cars that wouldn’t roll, track that didn’t work. All around poor product
Wait until he discovers Ready to Run sets
I know about them. They’re fine toys, nothing I’m too interested in
@ yeah they are pretty nice, just wish the Pennsylvania Flyer one didn’t have a reskinned Polar Express Berkshire. But that’s just Lionel these days
You should get a Legacy locomotive. They cost a lot, but they are so fun.
I just can’t afford one. Not exactly thrilled at the idea of having to replace a lot of my curves just to run one locomotive as well
@@cobramerciless For what it's worth a switcher locomotive will usually do tight curves even if it's Legacy. They said their A5s and SW1s could do O31 and I've seen MPC era engines made on older versions of those toolings handle O27.
I thought these locomotives looked a lot like MTH's starter set steamers, personally I would say it looks a fair bit worse than the 0-8-0, something about the pilot just looks really cheap and toy-like to me. I understand why they do it but I always really disliked the look of the simplified valve gear on these starter locomotives. Interesting that it was so much quieter on the tubular track for you, personally I screwed my fastrack down and once I did that it actually ran a fair bit quieter than tubular track. I never used the terminal sections either so now I almost want to pull one apart and see if I can find out why they seem to break so easily, I know a lot of the fastrack pieces with wiring are just using quick-disconnect spade connectors that can fall out pretty easily so I wonder if that's what happened to yours or if there was something wrong with the barrel plug.
will you start to focus on your o gauge more
@@mountainscoutrails it’s been out more this year so maybe?
@@cobramerciless thank you👍
Meh. When it comes to O scale anything, I prefer 2 Rail O scale. I just don't like that center rail for power as it look odd to me. I am just too used to 2 rail trackage ,lol.
I’m going to need proof that your cat can run this. Definitely not an excuse to see a cat. Definitely
To me, the current Lionel starter sets lack the quality that older sets had. The Lionchief stuff is nothing compared to the PS3.0 that MTH was putting in their starter sets. The trains aren’t as durable and I feel as if people aren’t getting the bank for their buck when it comes to these modern starter sets
I haven’t dealt with an MTH set yet. I’d like to someday, but my only current MTH locomotive is currently sitting on a shelf currently bending its own frame somehow
Lionel might’ve cooked this time…
I just subscribed to your UA-cam channel
Now if Lionel could redeem their Ho scale and quit charging us so much for the g scale trains…
Did you just sneezed into your audio? lol
I was going to record something stupid, then had a coughing attack and considered it good enough to leave in
#1 you should be hard on them, they do have terrible QC and they are making questionable designs. #2 This set, while it's a good thing was previously the extremely well built MTH 2-8-0 starter engine- Lionel took that tooling, made a puffer smoke unit, cheapened the material for the gears, but hands down the failure point is the wiring to the drawbar in the tender. If that shorts to the metal frame (they left no room for flexing over time and runs across the sharp edge of the metal tender frame with no loop or room for flexing- if that shorts- it will blow the board sky high. You've been warned.
Every product I've had from them is fine qc wise minus some terrible ho stuff. This set still runs fine and I've put quite a few hours of runtime on it with no issue. The tender had a drawbar issue but I've already addressed it and it works just fine.
I couldn't even hear you over that Fast Junk, ah, I mean, Fast Track noise.
why must lionel be so expensive :(
@joeyBirskovich and features
8:39 i have that xbox
The hate isn't fully wrong. The quality control is bafflingly bad. I had to send my ready to run Polar Express back because of malfunctioning mechanical and digital hardware.
I hate the fact the engine is ex mth tooling yet does less than half what an mth engine can do
I do understand that, but I do beg to differ. The MTH was more expensive and requires a special system or command control station. This one is one self contained unit that just needs a power connection to run everything.
@cobramerciless I don't believe the mth one was more expensive. Atleast when it first came out. But even so it's system was included in the starter set and allowed you to upgrade to the full layout control system. Mth ran off one system... DCS. It was the same system no mater what it was in. Starter set, high end set, etc. Not lionel with it having 3 separate systems.. LC, LC2.0, and Legacy. Which only just now have been able to all be completely controlled on the same system but can not be used in conjunction with one another. Such as lashups. Mth's DCS was a way better system compared to lionels 3 totally different systems.
Second
Third
that aint it. THAT AINT IT.
MTH did it better
For this particular locomotive, I wouldn't be surprised. I would like MTH a lot more if my only MTH locomotive didn't have crap paint application and didn't bend itself