Terrible £10 Lionel Wagons | Worst Rolling Stock Of The Year? 

Lionel are just riding on their legacy of having built decent quality models several decades ago, and rich old people having nostalgia for those old Lionel trainsets they got as kids.

I dont think lionel should even bother with the HO stuff. They've tried many times, to varying degrees of success

The hopper cars (chessie system and reindeer cars) are not old model power moldings from the 1980s (Model power might have used the castings, I don’t know), they’re Marx moldings from the 1950s you can tell because of the small bar on each coupler, that’s to stop the tucks from turning too much and getting rotated the wrong way. Also the trucks themselves are another indicator because instead of being screwed onto the car they clip into place like a C clip Marx is the only manufacturer that I have come across to use that method although Marx used brass pins riveted to the chassis of the car instead of plastic ones as seen on the Lionel ones. If you look up pictures of the Marx hoppers they look suspiciously similar. So basically when you buy one of these hopper cars you are buying a less quality version of a nearly 70 year old casting!!! Edit: after a little more research the boxcar and the tank car are Marx castings too!!! The caboose doesn’t seem to have been from Marx which is ironic because one caboose Marx made is way better than this with separately fitted parts and some of those parts being metal!!

Lionel really should stick to O gauge stuff Sam. They make some great model. Cheers Jasper & Willow

Lionel's biggest problem as of the last 10 years and going forward is how they handle their Starter Train Sets with the same designs just being that Russian 0-8-0 Switcher or the Polar Express just being recolored and saying its "NEW" like that cheap cash grab New York Yankee baseball set 🤮 There are sooo many different steam locomotives they can model and put in their sets but they for some weird reason choose the Polar Express Berkshire! 🤧 If you look at their newest 2023 HO Catalog you can see how lazy they are just recoloring and added the Berkshire locomotive in every set with no other steam locos in sight 🥱 Personally I would LOVE to see a NYC 4-6-4 Hudson or a 4-8-4 Northern locomotive in their sets. Buttt no... we just get another Berkshire with a recolor and different road number 😒

Even in the 1960s and ‘70s brake wheels molded into the body were a sign of a low end model.

Yeah, what a shame. My great grandfather bought me an O scale Lionel train set when I was very young. Had thousands of hours playing with it too. Unfortunate that their HO stuff isn't nearly as good.

Lionel is also being sued over their HO scale offerings by the successors of Model Power because, shockingly, Lionel isn’t making any money on the Ho scale line. What is funny is Lionel is the Hornby of America (except in O Scale). Been around for forever, very recognizable brand, and over priced products. I do stuff with Lionel’s O Scale stuff on my channel.

Lionel intends these models for ages 14 and up because ages 13 and below can’t handle this level of disappointment.

When I was modelling US HO the rolling stock was just basic. You then spent money replacing axles, updating detail and generally reworking the things from the Walthers catalogue of parts. As long as the basic paint finish was ok you ended up with great items at pretty good prices. Out of the box they were a basis for modification. Once completed they were still cheapish but with a LOT of metal details and decent weight and running.

Lionel have really dropped the ball with their big come back to ho. Their legacy and vision line o gauge 3 rail stuff is surprisingly amazing. You should watch some videos on it. If only they put that same effort into ho…

Surely they should go above the Bachmann dance hall as they scored 5.69 as opposed to 5.34 for the dance hall ? They are only 0.12 behind the Hornby Gresley Suburbans ! 🤣

And this is why people should go with bachman or someone else for HO scale trains. The performance of the rolling stock could easily be improved with straight metal axles and properly sprung couplings.

I had mostly Lionel O scale as a kid (back in the '60s) and some Lionel HO stuff. I hated the HO stuff because it kept derailing all the time. I liked the O stuff better because stayed on the track a lot better. I always thought that was because the HO stuff was so much smaller, the wheels were too tiny to stay on the track very well. But the O stuff was a lot more expensive, I always thought that was because the O stuff was made of twice as much material. Now I wonder if it was because the Lionel O stuff was actually better quality.

Lionel's HO offering is truly a race to the bottom. That being said given the quality of their coupler set ups they do make it mildly realistic in that on real railroad equipment in the US sometimes you do need to give a knuckle a good shove with your boot to get it aligned, task failed successfully?

One thing noticeable on some of the cars is the date of manufacture of the original cars, Early 1980's also the details are of this era with top mounted walkways and multiple ladders (UP car and caboose), But even toys should couple and run together. Do not junk them. You have the basis of a train wreck, junk yard, or a car body used for a none railway purpose. Just like past UK rail stock (a lot of chickens lived in box vans.) Will need to kill the colours though.

For a few dollars more, you can get a Walthers Trainline rolling stock that is more detailed in terms of molding, crispier decals, metal wheels, more separately applied parts, and better performance. Walthers Trainline is so much better for your money if you were to compare the Lionel HO of the same caliber.

These models date from the 1970s from a company called Mantua. They're pretty much the same stuff you'll find in the cheap, used train section. They were later produced by Model Power and Lionel acquired the tooling cheaply after Model Power went bust around 2017. HO scale has never been Lionel's main focus, so they hardly ever gave much attention to HO. They mainly produced $1,000+ O scale trains which are some of the finest you can buy. 3:19 I believe the color combination is trademarked, similar to John Deere's green and yellow on their tractors. You're better off buying old Athearn blue box or Bachmann's warehouse finds rolling stock than Lionel's current HO rolling stock

I have those Happy Hooves covered hoppers. It works fine. I just ordered a few more Christmas themed cars made by Lionel. For 11 bucks I’m happy.

Ideal companions for Hornby's Steam punk stuff , along with the Lowmac Coca-cola and Victorian goods wagons. The packaging looked quite suitable for reuse on the plus side.!!

I “WAS” considering some of this rolling stock but decided to invest in higher quality rolling stock, thank you for saving me the trouble and headache 👍

I have a PS-1 boxcar from the same molding as your Union Pacific example. It came from an early 1960's Marx trainset. Of course back then it had horn-hook couplers and plastic wheel sets.

judging by the caboose and the boxcar, these do seem like thay are just slightly updated model power models from 20 years ago if not even older The only difference being they have metal wheels and knuckly couplers.

Can confirm: I once had a caboose identical to this one (aside from the livery) and it was under the Model Power brand. And yes, it was dreadful; poorly balanced, derailed constantly. That said, I do believe there could be a market for simple, basic, cheap, low detail train sets; not these, obviously, but something of a similar mindset that's slightly better made. The biggest problem with model railroading right now is the prohibitive barrier to entry price; it's just too expensive for young folks to want to take the first dive or buy a starter train set to get their kids hooked. And even when they do more often than not all you get is a loco and maybe 3-4 wagons and an oval of track, hardly hair-raising stuff. But if you could have a range that's cheap to mass produce to keep cost down but still looks halfway decent to the casual eye and can offer a fun and engaging experience for less than $300, that could be the hook needed to get youngsters and newbies interested before leading them on to the harder stuff. Like starting on beer before learning about whiskey.

Honestly I'm surprised all the Lionel trains you've tried have had poor quality and performance. Lionel is a pretty large and iconic brand here in the US, but granted they're mostly known for their older 3 rail O gauge and Standard gauge trains.

Feed them to the Evil Scrapman if they’re not that good. He needs his scrap sausages. The tankers especially look like sausages, the red box car looks like a steak and the yellow box car looks like a stick of butter. Delicious.

i really need your help sam, i just bought a model train (bachmann) and i just put it on my track, the train lit up but wont move, at full power the train stutters and slightly moves. any fix or is my train toast?

Said it before,in the states we DO NOT LOOK AT LIONEL for standards. It sucks we don't really have a good manufacturer. Bachmann is okay over here but I only buy bachmann UK. Sam is amazing and I laughed out loud when I watched this.

Maybe what you should do is bring them up to descent condition and tell us how much it might cost. It would involve two new bogies, a knuckle connector and maybe some weathering. Can the enclosed wagons be opened and details added there too, ps the caboose is around the wrong way.

Lionel is well known for their Diecast HO Models (Challenger and GTEL Turbine). The rest of their HO scale lineup is totally worthless. I say this because I own a Lionel HO Challenger and it’s worth it’s weight in gold as the entire model is Diecast and runs smooth as silk. I have yet to pick up the GTEL, maybe that will be my next Ho roster addition.

I love Lionel, but their modern stuff never really interests me with some exceptions. And their current HO brand confuses me. Their early HO stuff as well as the trains and sets that made during the Prewar, Postwar, MPC, and LTI eras were so much more interesting to me.

Since 1995 colors and color combinations can be trademarked as part of a product or service so long as they, like any other trademark: Serve a source identification function; and Do not serve a purely decorative or utilitarian purpose. A few other examples of protected marks include: Red knobs on cooking appliances (Wolf); Brown for parcel delivery trucks and uniforms (UPS); Magenta for telecommunications services (T-Mobile); and Orange for scissor handles (Fiskars). I had heard of someone copyrighting a shade of black, some know else could use.

Listen the “budget” RTR models on average uses tooling from the 1960s-1980s with new paint slapped on it for $50. It’s nothing new but people buy it as long as it had knuckle couplers and metal wheels. The state of American model railroading is a dumpster fire.

For me, coupling american freight cars with knuckles, replacing the factory plastic ones with better metal kadees works a charm, lionel did an okay job with their ho scale entry but id wish they’d start making some ho diesels and modern freight cars instead of steam era stuff, the only lionel ho stuff i have is the polar express and 2 coaches, replaced the coupler on it, had its tether fixed after it ripped and she runs fine and dandy, and pulls well! Replacing these wheels with all metal ones helps

as lionel fan... i'm hurt..

This is sad. At one time Lionel was known for Quality and mostly made O gauge trains and HO which later got phased out. Stuff ran correct straight out of the box. The line sold and changed hands twice and the stuff once made in the U.S. got out sourced to China and things have been down hill every since. I bought one Lionel HO Christmas flat car with two containers at the beginning of the year as it was on sale at Trainworld. Haven't really checked out the car much and was waiting for Christmas time this year to put it on the layout. I'm pretty much guessing the car I have will match those displayed in this video and will take some reworking of the trucks & couplers to get correct so it operates correctly. I would of thought the cheap toy trains of the past were gone replaced by better something better. Even the lower quality cars made by Bachmann tops this horrendously made Lionel stuff.

I would be interested to see if the wagons could be improved by placing metal wheels and better couplings.

These are former mantua, model power cars that have been updated and upcharged. They are great 5 dollar cars. The pennsy N6 cabin i got tons of those over the years for 1-3 bucks each and i do the minimal work to finish it up with the wire grabs. Trucks, and window glass with a new paint job. Also body mount the coupler

My old Triang "USA railroad" stuff looks & runs better than this lot!

Lionel: Orange and blue are a registered trademark of us. Hotwheels: *Am I a joke to you*

good video sam. interesting trademark from Lionel there.

Perfectly good for conversions and weathering practise at that price.

I have the tanker and surprisingly haven’t had any real issues with the tanker (no wobbling not too free riling but clear that up with lubricants so it is much better). Though I won’t be getting anything else Lionel unless it is vintage.

do you have any models of austrian locomotives and rolling stock?

The 'Happy Hooves' wagon is going to the glue factory, full of animal hooves and other horrid bits, to be rendered down for glue. Satan's Reindeer are in there somewhere.

I believe I had that caboose when I was a child, I remember the one-piece railings and ladders on the ends.

Those couplers are actually quite decent... Lionel just decided to make rubbish coupler boxes for them, hence the sticking. With the damage on the open hopper's packaging, I'm not surprised a coupler spring is missing. Also, did you notice the droop on that same coupler? Someone must have dropped it from height LOL.

Lionel is known for there 3 rail o gauge offerings, at least here in the states. They have their toy quality but they also have their vision line and legacy series where your getting an ultra detailed cars and locos. I have seen steak locos go as high as 3000 usd

Definitely Model Power/Marx tooling. Just like those passenger cars. Also they went from China to North Carolina to Long Island and then the UK. Of course the wheels come off.

What G scale starter said, would you recommend from Bachmann?

16:46 lol. I love the sarcasm Sam.

For someone who wants to venture deeper into the model railroading world like me, it feels almost difficult to find some good yet affordable, modern rolling stock or even locomotives. G scale is crazy expensive, O scale here in America is worse, and oo/Ho scale is struggling to be affordable. We need some Hail Mary miracle for our hobby so it will be welcoming to everyone.

Awesome video today Sam have you heard who Bachmann is bringing out for the Thomas range

Amusing, lol. Can't complain for the tenners really, but why would such a renowned American brand in 3-rail O gauge even venture this super low price point for H0.. A tad baffling tbh. Why would they risk their iconic name 🙅 Quite odd actually. Cheerio.

Is there any chance you will ever review a Broadway Limited Imports model one of these days. They're quite expensive but pretty high detail models

Sometimes you just have to love German review terminology: in German that kind of wheel rotation is called 'eiern' which means rotating in an egg shaped fashion. Any idea when the review of the strange Lilliput train will be released?

I do lots of windowshopping and looked at Lionel HO for a planned layout eventually but I think after this video I'm reconsidering some things I put on a wishlist. I think I'd be better with Bachmann for rolling stock (I didn't look at any locomotives from Lionel for my motive power). Had a think about it if I do use HO Lionel rolling stock it'd probably be destroyed purposefully unless it doesn't fall apart on me in which it would be safe for a while.

Sam my man with more trains. Lionel is good but it's different. But now I have the track for my o scale train so be sure to check out that video when I make it. Keep being awesome my friend. Ur the best

Try American Flyer HO, they rock amazing

Don't be down in the dumps, my favourite RU-vidr. Perhaps a story will cheer you up. Sam's Trains was feeling a bit low. His girlfriend Chloe was a bit worried. "What's up, Sam?" asked the young lady politely. "I guess I'm just having an off day," mumbled the young man. "I know it's natural to have that sort of thing. I need a pick-me-up." Chloe thought for a moment and then surprised Sam by kissing him lovingly on the cheek. Sam turned bright pink. The unexpected kiss had made him blush. "How's that?" enquired Chloe. "Any good?" "Yes, but it's not quite enough. I need something that will make me laugh." "I'll make you laugh in a minute," another voice mockingly threatened. "Turn that frown upside down or Torquay Manor and I will do it for you." Sam felt himself grinning. He recognised this mocking threat too well. He turned round and tripped over a very indignant tank engine named Jinty, who laughed it off. Sam picked himself up and found he was face to face with a certain favourite friend of his: me, Kelly Ashford. I tried to keep a straight face. Sam and Chloe advised me not to. All three of us played trains together. A disaster unfolded. Sam was testing his Class 25 diesel, not that he'd had much trouble with the engine. The diesel was handling 7 Egg Vans and hauling them up the hill when the front NEM coupling broke off. The Egg Vans toppled over and shattered, covering us in scrambled eggs. Yummy. Oh well, no use crying over spilt diesel oil.

Yes I do have some of those in "Model Power" boxes, and most of those, if not all, have plastic wheels. So yea ancient, and simple models. I'd still say its good for beginners, (for the right price).

i have no idea if u have tried this but ive helped some bad rolling stock by putting the tips of my metal axles in lithium grease then just running them mine are all like 40 years old but should still help stiff rolling stock i also alwas ditch the couplers that come on alot of newe rolling stock with walthers hook horn couplers

Nice video Sam very good camera work as usual as always I am really enjoying your lovely videos and camera work keep your lovely camera work up I am really looking forward to seeing your next video I hope you get a nice video next time also when is your next video going to be on RU-vid best wishes Philip xx

The reason they suck at rolling is the horrible bogie design. Why does the bogies have to split apart in many pieces to hold the wheels lol.

I believe what the box meant when it said Lionel had the trademark for the colours orange and blue is that those colours can’t be used by another company that does similar business, I’m also not a lawyer so take what I’ve said with a grain of salt

Not exactly Accurascale Siphon Gs, are they? That lot, except the UP van which *was* worth a tenner, need a Happy Hoofing. BTW, the colours RED, GREEN and BLACK are registered trademarks of Valleys 56xx inc. and anything whatsoever, model trains or otherwise, in these colours owe me 5% royalties. Nice turntable.

Bank holiday and a Sam's Train Lionel review awesome👍

After 8 years of living in the Charlotte area, I never realized Lionel was headquartered in Concord.

Hi Sam, good review, If that's what you want 😂, ( I pi***d myself laughing 🤣) All the best Brian 😂

Here in Denver Colorado USA, we have a US Football team called the Broncos with the same Orange and Blue colors for there team.

Sam you should make a video of you buying water slide fox model transfer and adding the to the hornby railroad p2 and make it look more like the new p2

I usually practice weathering on these as its their only good use

Its ok they trademarked the colors blue and orange not the colours blue and orange. I think we're ok.

A basic cheap & cheerful Rolling Stock Sam!!! 😉😀🚂🚂🚂

I own rolling stock similar to this from lifelike in starter sets and they perform the same. Unfortunately American starter set rolling stock is designed to be cheap and poor performing to incentivise people to buy the more expensive better quality better performing rolling stock that are double the cost

Well, for >£10 perhaps a few washes, some dry brushing and a little weathering might be in order. Possibly a little work on the axles also?

You really need to try some of Lionel’s O gauge stuff. It’s actually really good

These are pretty much made for new people to the hobby who have no clue what they are doing and just want something cheap. Plus, these are just using old tooling that they reused and added metal wheels and knuckle couplers. It's like they remembered they have old HO tooling laying around and decided to try to make some extra money off of them.

Lionel doses deserve a proper fix. Just spray some WD 40 on the bogey and call it a day.

He should show the "made in _______". label. Quality went overseas.

I don't know who Lionel think they're fooling with their HO garbage when here in the States you can walk into any train show and buy a thirty-year-old Athearn locomotive with far superior detail and performance for about what two of those shoddy cars cost.

Interesting video. They aren't great but the price is good for those on a budget.

Interesting review Sam. If you want to do a review of really terrible rolling stock, have a look at Dapol's 6-wheel milk tankers. I bought 5 of them brand new a month ago from the latest releases at Rails. Three of them have unbelievably wobbly wheels so bad that they derail continuously and look silly wobbling down the track. None of them are free rolling. Removing the centre axle makes no difference. At 15 GPB each, I think it's woeful. Won't be getting any more Dapols that's for sure.

No wonder these supposedly modern wagons suck. They are Ancient model power toolings from the 70’s! I have some of these cars just in different livery’s. Also the trucks and coupling box design are the exact same from the 70’s too!

Those are some absolute Pizza Cutter flanges! I am surprised they made it thru the switch frogs at all. Also I have never seen nice metal Kadee #5 couplers factory installed on el cheapo truck-mounted coupler boxes. Any appreciable push/pull forces from starting, stopping, longer trains, etc. will jump those trucks right off the rails (although maybe that's why they made the wheel flanges so immensely massive as a crutch). I would take TYCO rolling stock any day over this abomination!

This is simply brilliant! On so many levels.

To me loose axles within quality control standards is horrible, but not surprising for lionel HO. the O gauge quality is fine and can last years but thats a different thing entirely. But there is a remedy for all this. on most US HO rolling stock, the trucks and couplers are a prefabricated piece. since the bodies are fine and fit for purpose, the trucks and couplers could be swapped out for aftermarket components and that fixes the performance problems pretty much. One thing I would like to see you try is Scaletrains, the marketing is all about realistic detail but I havent heard much about performance.

I don't like Lionel one bit, but I am going to have to disagree with you on this one. If these were never on sale I could understand the harshness, but I have a handful and never paid more than $10 for each. At that price, I really don't expect much more. While most other cheap rolling stock is hovering in the $25+ mark, these offer something that anyone could afford.

Louis Marx is spinning in his grave seeing the new cheapened iterations of his HO rolling stock

Lionel started off building O scale trains, and sold many after the Second World War through the 1950s before HO scale became more popular. Lionel was and is marketed towards kids, not adults in the same manner as G scale is marketed more towards kids today. Adult modelers prefer HO and N scale... You are not going to get detailed model trains from Lionel anymore than you will get detailed model trains from LGB...

Considering the tooling for this dates back to the 60s I'm not surprised. Now get MTH ho and see the difference.

I don't know if my model steam locomotive I had when I was child was Lionel or not but it was pretty awful parts fell off of it just by running on the track excessive wheel wobble and the led light died in an hour of getting it. On top of all that it would derail on the slightest curve the wheel arrangement was 4-6-0

As far as the most affordable new ho rolling stock...it is needed in the industry

That caboose is a Mehano model they even still sell it with european couplings.

I can't be the only one wanting to know more about Lionel trademarking the colours orange and blue.

What would it take to build/buy new bogies for the wagons?

Lionel does make great O Scale trains though

At least they are all consistent in their quality, bad and very bad, but at a tenner each, compared to stock costing as much as a loco now, change the wheels, free up the couplings and weather them, a very cheap train for Xmas...and forgotten by Xmas dinner time...lol

Maybe if new metal wheels with metal axels were fitted they might be just about usable

Obviously Lionel have tried to be historic in modelling the imperfections of the past. They do look like "Model Power" but with Kadee couplers.