Lionel offers M-7's

[pnaw10]

that would be great if they offer the m-8 even better if its in ho scale but they will probably come out with an lirr m-7 sooner

I'm kinda surprised they don't have the LIRR M-7 already. Lionel probably doesn't care about differences like the third-rail shoes. As far as they're concerned, LIRR models would just need different numbers, yellow ends instead of blue, and decals with the words "Long Island Rail Road" instead of "Metro North Railroad." Pretty cheap and simple changes, that don't require altering body molds. (After all, this is the company that's passing off their generic, old-timey (wooden) station platform as a Metro-North platform, with the only difference being stickers with Metro-North "signage" included.)

As for the M-8, that might be kinda pushing it. Making models of Metro-North and LIRR are already kind of a "niche" market to begin with (they appeal mostly to folks in the NYC area, as opposed to Amtrak models that would be more familiar on a nationwide scale), let alone narrowing it down to just the New Haven Line. Making an M-8 isn't just as simple as painting the ends red instead of blue... M8's would require changing the mold to reflect the different top headlight design and other car-shape differences, as well as adding pantographs. If you insist on Lionel and you want M-8s, you'll have to settle for buying M-7s and modify on your own.

Perhaps a specialty maker like IHP will produce M-8 shells, but you'll pay a lot more (being a smaller operation, they invest a lot of time and money into building products that are usually handmade, not mass-produced). Chances are, even this will not happen unless they receive plenty of requests from reliable customers... and in that case, the scale will depend on the majority of those requests.

[Otto Vondrak]

that would be great if they offer the m-8 even better if its in ho scale but they will probably come out with an lirr m-7 sooner

I'll file this under "not bloodly likely."

-otto-

[pnaw10]

Metro-North M-7's

In the set you get some signs, which include station-finders for Beacon, Southeast, Port Chester, and Harriman. M-7's only go to one of those places...

I got a set for Christmas. Yeah, I felt a little old asking for trains for Christmas, but I recently had to spend a big chunk of cash on car repairs, I'm trying to save for a wedding, and... mostly, with this being a limited-edition set, I know I'd be kicking myself if I lost out by waiting for the money situation to improve.

Anyway, the set includes a sheet of stickers -- with signs for every Metro-North station. You choose which stickers you want to affix to the four blank signs they included. So, it's more of a (potentially harmful) "clueless ad wizards" problem than Lionel completely screwing up. Still inaccurate to include all the diesel-only territory stations, but you still have the options there in case you have kids who just want their local station regardless of reality, or if you're a foamer who dreams of M-7's someday making the trip to Poughkeepsie. I suppose if anyone has their own diesel MNR equipment, the extra stickers could come in handy for that too. There are four blank signs included for these stickers.

Until I actually buy a house (as opposed to renting) where I can set these up permanently, they'll be staying in the box -- but I did take one car out for a closer look. (The Harmon Open House demo was always running, and they -- reasonably so -- were not allowing people to pick up the cars or touch them.) The cars look pretty good. Hard to see inside without the interior lighting, but there are blue seats inside, and there are "glass" divider walls between the vestibules and the seating areas. Various slight inaccuracies (like the "Grand Central" destination board in Helvetica, rather than in an LED-like font) but nothing major. Obviously the couplers are also wrong, but necessary so these long cars can handle the tight curve radius typical of an O-scale layout.

The only complaint I have is the location of the lever to open the doors. (The lever itself is cool, just not the location.) It's located on each side of each car, right in the middle, just below the edge of the "steel" siding. Seems convenient when you're holding a car in your hand, but if you're platforming these to a model station (an accurate high-level station, that is -- not the standard low-level one Lionel has been selling for years) there's no way to reach that lever -- it would be obscured by the platform. Guess if you want to be that realistic, you'll need to rig up some kind of "catch" that can fit between the platform and the train (perhaps even retractable within the platform). I'm guessing any further discussion of that would be best-suited for another area of this forum... and I probably went too long in this message anyway. (Sorry.)

[pete1606]

I had my set on pre-order and I still didnt recieve mine. Where did You get Yours for. Im getting tired of waiting lol. Is anyone else still waiting?

Peter

[pnaw10]

I had my set on pre-order and I still didnt recieve mine. Where did You get Yours for.

"Santa" wouldn't tell me where these came from. But printed on the side of the box, it says the trainset was manufactured in October 2008. Funny, considering many retail websites were taking pre-orders starting nearly a year ago, claiming the product would be delivered starting in April...

Actually, looking back at old e-mail, the one site I recommended to "Santa" was trainz.com -- at the time, the set was listed on their pre-order website.
Now, it's listed on their main site for $222.99 (the MSRP is $279.99) plus $10 S&H anywhere in the lower 48. I don't know if "Santa" followed by recommendation or bought them elsewhere.

Here's the direct link to the item page. If the place you pre-ordered from can't give any firm answers on when they'll begin shipping, perhaps you can cancel them and order from these guys instead. (And no, I'm not affilated with them or getting any kind of "referral" incentives for the mention.)

[ajp]

i got my original set from readyto roll in miami

i saw several sets at the train show at westchester county center before christmas

betcha there will be some at the greenbergs show in somerst nj this weekend

try trainworld in bklyn also