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HiRail Times
Monday, 18-Mar-2024 23:02:30 EDT

BACK FROM E PLANET !

We may be a little behind but we know a lemon when we see one...

By Clyde Coil, CCA

DANG! I heard the VISION LINE from LIONEL was going to be great! Yer reporter was anxious to get to the new Cattle car before the big visit yesterday afternoon. Excitedly we opened the box to see this wonder! Imagining what could be done with the classic QSI "Mooing Cattle Car" concept from the 90's, we had put a train together with several of those old QSI boxcars, all ready for the new VISION LINE Cattle Car from LIONEL!! Yer not going to believe what happened next!

We opened the box carefully, ready to test this wonder on the CCA test layout.

Dangeroo Boys! This is the ugliest thing we have ever seen. The coupler shaft had to be a scale 14 feet long! The DANG THING WAS RIDICULOUS!!! Who came up with that? What the Heck? I'm ready to return to E Planet! We looked at the thing and could not believe the VISION we were beholding!!! How could a great company like LIONEL build something this dumb? We were totally DUMBFOUNDED! Who designed this thing HOSS?!!!

coupler comparisong photo

We decided to put yer VISION LINE cattle car in the train and try it out. I elected to wear Black Out Blinders (BOB) during the test so I could not use the Cab2 correctly to learn about all of the zippy features. At least I wasn't looking at yer dang 14 foot coupler shaft! DANG HOSS! I think CCA's Legacy Cab2 needs an update though because here at yer CCA headquarters we could not even get some of yer new LIONEL features to work. And I'm talkin' bout the guys who didn't wear BOB.

Disappointing as heck.

Remember the guy with the orange suit and fedora that visited CCA way back? Well he was due to show up later that afternoon. I removed my BOB for that. Yer not goin' to believe what we saw at CCA! Stay tuned.


CLANGIN' FOOL!

What the heck? I was dumbfounded when I heard how I could control the "clanging" of the ringing bell on my Legacy Steamers. I always thought: "You push the Bell control up and the bell rings." That's always worked for me Hoss. But I was told by a very educated operator that I could ring the bell HARD as heck or very SOFT with variation in between!! DANG! Now I'm a Clangin' fool! Yer right. I'm addicted to the dang bell! That's all I do now.

Lionel Bell You can be like me. Addicted to the bell. Just remember that the bell rings when you release, not when you push the control on the Cab.

To learn how this works, look at the window below ENG or TR when you push the control very slowly up. First you see a little bell on the left. PUT ON YER GLASSES. It's in the little box where the number was!.... Then you see a rising graph that shows different levels the higher you push yer control. When you release at the different levels you really hear a big difference! Dang! Now I've always been told I have great hearing for a 60 year old ex destroyer captain, but you should be able to hear this. DANG it's fun in yer spare time. Yer gonna like it I hope. If not, disregard this message.

Clyde Coil
CCA