I agree! I've collected Lionel for many years from different eras, but the postwar trains are my favorite because they are plentiful, affordable, durable, and easily repairable. And there's no mistaking the "feel" of quality as you handle them.
Post-war had plastic sealed Scout motors, MPC had the cheap starter sets, modern era has quality control issues. But each has advantages as well, great comparison video. Recently I have gotten into pre-war and I'm loving it.
You left out the prewar era. I have enjoyed all Lionel from prewar to modern. However if I had to pick my favorite era it would be prewar. For me the high water years for Lionel are from 1937 to 1941. Incredible build quality.
I decided not to include the prewar era because I don't own any prewar stuff and wanted to make this based on my experience. But there is lots of awesome prewar lionel that I look forward to collecting in the future
I myself have Prewar Lionel, some Postwar Lionel, some MPC era Lionel, Modern era Lionel in conventional, TMCC, Lionchief and Legacy control, and even OO Gauge and HO Gauge Lionel products and I love them all :D Although since im not too sure if the modern era ended some years ago or not.
Got to agree. My collection has a little of every era up to the early 00s but my mainstay is the postwar era. I will say I do like the early LTI era as well for the simplicity before things started getting into Lionchief….. I prefer conventional control
I like the modern era of lionel. Postwar is okay i have few of there models The modern era is in my opinion very realistic and I'm amazed by all the sounds and features of the models.
Have a bit of every era in the fleet from prewar to present day, it's all fun to run. Price is decidedly an issue with modern Lionel, even the traditional O rolling stock is hovering around the $100 mark for toolings they've had for years. Another one for me is the heavy leaning on all the licensed tie-in stuff. All the sets are basically the same engines and cars that have been made for a while now, just with pop-culture paint and decal jobs.
Very informative.My collection is post -war:2 GG1's Congressional and B'way limited sets, turbine and switcher steam engines.Thank God for ebay, I'm working on my Super Chief set. Suggestion, slow down, you can catch the next train.
I hear nostalgic, nothing to worry about, quality, solid, heavy, no circuit boards, easy to work on to get running, and trouble free, most popular, with post war Lionel. No argument here. Also post war is lower cost and plentiful at train shows. No doubt about it as he says here scale and modern detail cost expensive big money. Not a good sales pitch talking about sending a new engine back to Lionel for repair. Why not just replace it as Loews or Home Depot or any other manufacturer would do.
with what we got today with model trains i bet the people from the 40s would be amazed if they saw the steam and diesel model locomotives we have today and other stuff cause the imporvemnts in tech from wireless viewing ect
I think people from 40’s period would wonder what today’s train interest are thinking. Nothing toy about offerings that interest kids today. Remember in 40’s children were the target market. No such thing as train collector in 40’s.
I'm a big fan of Lionel's starter sets, especially the ones made from the early 2000s to the late 2010s, I've got several Lionel starter sets in my collection.
@davidstrainsandlego I recently had the NYC 0-8-0 yard goat a few weeks ago that came with the set however the cars I gave to my cousins son with a dummy GP9 for him to much play. As for the loco and tender recently I traded it along with 3 milwaukee passinger cars from Railking for a almost complete lionel 2207w Santa fe set that I found at my local train store in San Diego. It was a A-B-A set with operation log and ore car, with original 3 dome tanker and operating box car without the operation and the caboose.
The biggest problem with modern era Lionel is the lack of quality control. The next problem is parts availability. Do you seriously believe that you'll be able to find a part for a modern era locomotive 30 or 40 years from now? You can find virtually any part for any postwar Lionel or American Flyer either at a show or online. Next to impossible with modern era where every locomotive has unique parts- nothing shared.
Yeah, that's something that does concern me, as I mentioned, postwar engines are easy to fox, modern stuff requires lots of knowledge, plus those computer boards and high tech component have the potential to go bad over time.
