Lionel's Powerful New 2-8-2 L1 Mikado Steam Locomotive: Let's Check It Out! 

A guy over at the Colorado Railroad Museum named Mark, or Hyce if you only know his RU-vid handle, discussed the doghouse. It is officially known as the front brakeman's coupola, and it was where the front brakeman would ride while the train was going down the track back when air brakes either didn't exist, weren't widespread, or were not very good. They would climb out of it and run along cars to set hand brakes with wheels, and they would watch the journal boxes to make sure the bearings weren't running too hot or going up in flames. With the introduction of roller bearings and better air brakes, the coupola was no longer needed. Eventually, the caboose was removed from the required equipment list for trains due to the roller bearings as well as train cars being as tall as the coupola on the caboose. Some cabooses had a handwheel only for the brakes, others had a handle to apply the brakes if there's a problem. Interesting history, but very cool.

A bit of prototype information. The classes L1 and K4 shared the exact same boilers in terms of size and construction. They literally could be swapped between the two classes in a class 1 overhaul in the backshop.

I picked up number 1369. It represents the Pennsylvania Railroads early experiments with a Trainphone system. Really cool.

The non opening smokebox door is likely due to the much smaller more prototypical hinge detail on the door. Lionel engines have oversized out of scale hinges to allow the door to be opened without breaking the hinges. While the opening feature is somewhat neat. I seldom use it, and scale hinges make the locomotive look more realistic. Regardless, Im glad to see Lionel make use of MTH tooling, which tends to have superior detail in most cases. As always great review Eric. I dont know if its the smell of opening a new engine, or its just like Christmas moring every time.🙂

Video Notes: 1) This video has chapters for those who wish to skip around. 2) Check out the ant cameo on the cab roof at 11:12

I’m waiting on my Mikado at Nicholas Smith. I got the lionchief model. I can’t wait!

Nice! They did a great job on these! I can't stop running mine, i picked up cab number 1369 with the radio antennas going on top of the boiler

I personally can’t wait for the brass hybrid challenger I ordered to come in Lionel has them today!

Got the Lehigh and New England 501. It's great with Pere Marquette 1225's whistle!

WHISTLE 4 IS 1225 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩 can’t wait to see that in the catalog next year

That is a really cool model Eric!!

Excellent choice on the Pennsy. Dog house all the way!

What an amazing model! I love this!

Beautiful engine Eric

The second whistle reminds me of the old tmcc T1 Duplex model

I like the second whistle and the first bell

I have the two MTH Premier versions. The prewar uncataloged version and the postwar one that was in the 2007 catalog. Love them both and they're 15 years old in mint condition.

Anyone else notice the ant on the cab at 11:12?

This is a nice release. But It will never outmatch its life as an MTH piece in my book.

that is a beautiful motel

Excellent video Eric. Great camera angles.

That locomotive is really awesome.

Such a Nice looking Model, This Engine sure is Powerful., the Sounds in this is Amazing.👍

Hey Rich Melvin's back!

That's a great-looking engines you got there Eric and it looks like it's a great running I always wondered what that little building was on the back of the tender thanks for that little bit of info 👍👍

I quite like the Banshee Whistle on this engine. It would be nice if some LionChief Plus Mikes in Pennsylvania (as the Pennsy and subsidiary Grand Rapids & Indiana did own several USRA Light Mikes) and undecorated (for those who want to paint up their own engine) had this type of whistle over the rather tinny-sounding one they possess. It would also be great for Halloween! Great video as usual Eric and continue to enjoy your trains!

Nice model! It would be great if Lionel will make the Vision line triplex in the future from MTH.

Great Video Eric!

Whistles 2,3,5 are awesome for this locomotive

Well, I ended up ordering the Cumberland Valley freight set. I live in the Cumberland valley so it's pretty special. Engine is #520 the one in Strasburg. Super excited!

Excellent steam engine Eric!!!

I watch but rarely comment. This model is a beauty

Very IMPRESSIVE LOCO! love it!👍👍👍👍👍

Nice job. I enjoyed it very much. JH

Beautiful locomotive ❤ 🚂 . Running on awesome layout.

Hi Eric love your videos you do a awesome very informative an enjoyable so thank you you trains 🚂

I got to admit this. U really go through every aspects of the trains u show. Engines and cars For this I thank you.

Love it, wish I could have ordered one!

Beautiful steam engine 😊

This is why I subscribe, for videos like this. Thanks.

That is a very nice loco!

Love your content

Fun Fact: Not only is L1 Mikado No. 520 the only survivor, it also wrecked due to a boiler explosion on November 14, 1942. So No. 520 is a lone surviving locomotive with quite an interesting career story.

I live in Altoona about 15 minutes from the museum.

Awesome vid that I watched all of Don’t mind the fact it came out 52 seconds ago

Extraordinary sounding locomotive ✨️✨️✨️✨️👍🏻

Very nice!

#2 is the whistle. Only one I would ever use.

Hi Eric I want a very excellent l locomotive I like it I always buy Lionel they make excellent products

11:13 so we all just watching that lil bug exploring the cab?

Like a new car smell funny but so true 😂

8:25 suicide steps, I thought they were called switcher steps!?

Cool beans, kinda wondering how the ex-Railking 2-8-0 is going to turn out as a Lionchieg engine after seeing this.

Hi there Eric I was wondering if you could do a video on how to service and clean the smoke stacks on 1 of your engines as I am curious about it

17:14 right here gave me Chills, put ur Airpods in to find out

Great review, Eric did you ever think of making a Calendrer? Watching this review I noticed how great pictures of these trains running on your layout would make great theme for a calendar.

Neat!

Nice engine, love seeing more lionel ex-mth stuff

LIONEL TEM MUITA HISTÓRIA ❤

Want the emporer of the north version👌🇺🇸

I found out my foreman’s dad used to be signal maintainer for the Pennsy.

Love your channel, and passion for the hobby Eric. But what are you doing with a Saturn V on a flatbed? The rocket is 4 times taller than a legal rolling stock. Anyway, always found that piece amusing… back to the Mikado.

Beautiful Pennsy Eric. How much did you pay for her?

It is indeed a very nice model but my only concern with it is that it’s a little too green. That green is no where close to what the Pennsy applied to their engines.

Great review, do you like Microtech knives? I just got a microtech stitch and love it

The boiler end when the gray start the gray is the smoke box and smoke box door

For how expensive the model is, figured we would get some basic details right. Paint color and lettering are wrong. MTH did it right, and need to point out Lionel’s faults.

Whistle 1 - 13:21 2 - 13:30 3 - 13:38 4 - 13:46 5 - 13:56

Are you getting more ho scale trains

Did anyone else notice they Cameo from the ant?

I am curious, why doesn’t Lionel make the smoke come out of the whistle instead of a hole in the engine? MTH has a few more new steam engines with smoking whistles now and I see them actually coming from the whistle. So why didn’t Lionel ever do that?

Does this engine come with different smoke stack attachments?

How do you change the whistle and bell tone?

Eric I bet you have enough trains to start your own train store and put legacy station out of business 😂

Do you have any websites to recommend for getting Lionel Halloween O gauge train cars?

8:26, you shouldn’t say suicide on RU-vid, it could get you channel demonetized

If you load some freight cars with real weight, can the motors take the load? At a $1000 engine, I hope so.

Im not very good at math so Ill ask you. If you scaled the toy loco weight like you do its size how much would one of these scale models weight?

Why doesn’t Lionel use scale coupler’s?

Do you have any 1940?

i idea build american train model museum

Can anyone help a fellow RU-vidr here please? Thanks! Was this engine given the nickname hippo or am I thinking of a different class of locomotive?

Nice to bad its Pennsy!

Lionel just released their version of the MTH I1 and unfortunately it shows that they got the color completely wrong on this L1s. I's really a shame Lionel can't be more consistent with their colors. Though, I have to say, it's really tough to be an NYC fan right now. The colors on the 20th Century Limited are just plain awful. Another downside of these L1s is the poorly designed gearbox it shares with the Legacy K4s and Legacy H10s. They have a terrible problem with gear alignment and they end up chewing apart the intermediate gear that Lionel had to add because of that tiny Mabuchi 385.

1000 dollars is away to much for this locomotive its just not worth it