The Lionel Union Pacific Rocket Booster Train is finally out, and as an aerospace engineer formerly employed by NASA, this set hit home! I knew I had to have it the second I saw it advertised in the Lionel 2022 Volume 1 catalog!
The set isn’t a work of science fiction, either. The prototype Rocket Booster Train is designed to carry the NASA’s SLS rocket over a 2,800-mile journey from the manufacturing facility in Utah to Florida’s Space Coast.
Each rocket booster consists of five individual segments weighing 180 tons each. A planning team from each railroad the train travels over assists with transportation. They have to determine the best route and account for any obstructions.
360-degree coverage of this set! Watch it run.
The Lionel Union Pacific Rocket Booster Train
As soon as I opened the brown cardboard shipping carton and saw the unique, colorful box with an image of the rocket booster train across it, I knew I was in for an unforgettable experience.
After soaking in the colorful artwork, I opened the box and was greeted by a plethora of orange and blue Lionel boxes. This is easily one of the largest sets ever offered by the manufacturer. It includes six idler boxcars, five heavy duty flatcars with loads and protective covers, a 21-inch sleeping car, and a Union Pacific ES44AC locomotive.
A word of caution: you will need plenty of space to unbox the contents of this set. There are a total of 13 boxes inside the large one!
A lot of unboxing
Making my way through the unboxing process I opened the six standard O boxcars first. One of these features special clearance indicator bars. They serve to make sure the flatcars with the booster segments have adequate clearance along the train’s journey.
Be sure to check your layout for any tight areas such as low clearances and tunnels. The clearance car will work like its real-world counterpart and find them if you don’t. The remainder of the idler cars serve as braking and weight distribution.
Now for the good stuff. Time to unbox the five flatcars with the booster segments.
The protective covers for each segment are easily removed by simply lifting them off. The top of each cover is hinged to accommodate this process. Removing them reveals the different sections of the rocket, the most notable of which is the flat car that holds the engine nozzle and the nose cone.
Building the booster
After admiring the details of the entire unboxed set, I made it my mission to put the rocket together. This process requires patience as each section is held in place via a system of rings and screws. I carefully unscrewed each clamp from the bottom of the flatcars, then removed each booster section and started assembly.
Putting all the stages together, the booster was much bigger than I had imagined. It was at this point I knew I had to get the expansion pack which consists of five additional flatcars with the load (enough to build another rocket booster) and six idler boxcars.
After taking the booster apart and reinstalling each section onto the flatcars, it was finally time to get the train on the layout. What makes this set enjoyable is you can either run it with the protective covers or remove them to show off the rocket booster segments.
Calling an audible
The ES44AC that’s included with the set sounds and runs great and is a welcome addition to the modern power on my roster. Even so, I decided to spice things up a bit and grabbed my Lionel Legacy Union Pacific Veranda Turbine off the shelf to pull the booster set. It’s not prototypical, but it sure looks good!
Lionel’s Union Pacific Rocket Booster set will go down as one of the most out-of-this-world O gauge sets ever made. They are selling out fast, and there’s a good chances prices will rise on them in the secondary market.
If you think for a second that you need to have this set in your collection, it’s because you do!
Ben Laremont operates the Ben’s Trains channel on YouTube and Instagram.
P.S. My wife has cleared me for liftoff on the expansion pack!
The Lionel Union Pacific Rocket Booster Train
SKU: No. 2222020
MSRP: $1699.99
Website: Lionel.com
WOW! That is awesome. It kind of makes me want to switch to using Lionel from regular trains. That price tag is a little disconcerting though.
It’s good to see Lionel make a prototypical train. One thing to note that this looks like a space shuttle solid rocket booster with four segments and the nosecone and engine bell. The Space Launch System (SLS) has one more segment.