Well, first, it is designed to run through curves as tight as O-27 – and there are still plenty of operators using O-27, O-31, and O-54 curved track.
Second, the tooling is new. This isn’t a lame attempt to get one last run out of some 50-year-old tooling. The castings are as clean and crisp as can be. New is good.
Third, as a rendering of a 2-8-4 Berkshire, it’s no slouch.
Fourth, and perhaps most important, is price. At $229.99 for a die-cast-metal, conventional-control locomotive with RailSounds, it is reasonably affordable enough for a grownup to buy for his own layout or for the pike of a child!
The model
Rivet counters be advised that this isn’t a model pretending to be a scale re-creation of the venerable Louisville & Nashville M-1 class locomotive. It is a nice rendering of a Nickel Plate Road Berkshire done up in L&N colors.
Now as a toy model, this product is pretty darned good. As stated, the tooling looks great and captures as much cast-in detail as you would hope for. You’ll find cast-in rivets, pipes, boiler bands, and even builder’s and trust plates, although the plates themselves are blank. Of special note are the cast-in pipes coming down from either side of the sand dome and the deeply cast latches right behind the smokestack.
You get a headlight and marker lights, but no firebox glow or backup light at this price. The bell on the smokebox is solid, and handrails run along the sides of the boiler.
The cab is nicely done, with backhead detail cast very deeply into the metal. There is even a cast-in brake stand. You’ll find slide switches for the smoke unit and reverse unit at the bottom of the backhead, on either side of the firebox door.
For an inexpensive model the paint job is fairly complex. The locomotive has a smooth satin black finish; gray covers the smokebox, the firebox sides (and its zillion cast-in rivets); a yellow accent stripe runs along the boiler; and two lines decorate the cab. Twin accent stripes run mid-height on the tender, and the “L&N” initials and engine number are on the tender. The numbers are repeated on the cab and sand dome of the locomotive. It is all very well done.
The drivers would seem to be more at home on a workhorse Consolidation 2-8-0 than a Berkshire, measuring 58 scale inches in diameter (1.8 inches) compared to the prototype’s 69-inch drivers. But the silver rimmed wheels have attractive running gear and sport two traction tires on the rear drivers.
As coupled, measuring from the tip of the dummy coupler on the pilot through the drawbar and ending on the tip of the tender’s knuckle coupler, the engine and tender are 191/2 inches long (78 feet in O scale).The prototype M-1 measured 105 feet, 6 inches long.
On the test track
This was a very smooth running locomotive. It is ultra quiet, and with RailSounds turned off all I heard was the metal-on-metal sound of the running gear and the drivers on the rails.
In testing, our low-end speed average was 20.2 scale mph, while the high-end speed average was 104 scale mph. The drawbar pull for the locomotive was 1 pound, 9 ounces.
The locomotive’s power pickup rollers are 3 inches apart, and this caused a bit of balkiness running slowly through a few switches, but it wasn’t the limitation I thought it might be.
The smoke unit isn’t super-powered, but it delivered a nice stream of smoke worthy of an entry-level locomotive.
The Lionel RailSounds package is very good. The die-cast metal tender does wonders for sound reproduction. The chuff rate, although not synchronized with the drivers, changes appropriately with speed, and when the locomotive is in neutral you get cab sounds. You’ll find two pickup rollers for the RailSounds circuits 31/2 inches apart on the tender and there are both volume and sound on/off controls on the belly.
I don’t think I’ve ever used the word “dandy” to describe a locomotive, but this little Berkshire is big “D” Dandy. It is well made and nice running, and is priced to be an impulse buy or a great gift. I hope Lionel keeps it up!
I currently have two of these locomotives, one in Nickel Plate Road livery and one in Chesapeake & Ohio. I am very pleased with both of them and run them quite frequently on my layout with no problems whatsoever thus far. Great locos for the money.
I have a later New York Central one from 2004, and is a very nice operating loco.
I have the Chessie Steam Speacial. The details and decoration are first rate. The locomotive operates very well, but the speed range could be a bit slower, command mode operations help with low speed operation. Overall, I'm very glad I made the purchase.
I have the santa fe one from a few years ago. Great runner! never lets me down.