Infuriating Lionel Army Hospital Train Set | Unboxing & Review

This was my first experience of Lionel... and I probably wouldn't care to repeat it!

Thanks for watching!

0:00 Intro
4:04 Unboxing
11:03 Prototype Info
12:10 Loco Detail
16:17 Coach Detail
17:33 Mechanism
20:02 Worst Track Ever
21:03 Performance
25:55 Haulage
31:42 Ratings
35:04 Conclusion

[FTBFHRITP]

“If I was an injured soldier and saw this thing coming to rescue me I’d turn around and continue to die” 😂 I couldn’t stop laughing

[mariebcfhs]

the wounded soldiers on this train must have a hell of a PTSD episode when their locomotive starts barking out machine gun sounds

[trans-galactic-express]

A note about the chuffing sound, I have a lionel steam loco that also has a chuffing unit in the tender, I think that it's really intended for the larger O scale wheels, which have a lower angular speed than those HO wheels of a significantly smaller diameter. Something tells me they took that same mechanism and simply applied it to this set.

[DaimosZ]

Being a lifelong Lionel O Gauge fan, I still don't get why the company bothers dabbling in the HO market. This is the third time the company has attempted getting into that market after two failed attempts in the 1950's and 1970's and I doubt this new range will last much longer either. The HO market is just really saturated and Lionel's biggest draw has almost always been their 3 rail O Gauge line and it's pretty apparent whenever they branch out to other popular gauges that the company can't figure out how to appeal to those more hobbyist base markets.

[UKfromadrone]

Sam you gotta make a "ready to go train set" vs "same price self-assembled train set" to see which one is the better value!

[gamerfan]

I did some digging and the locomotive number 4100 was never a Berkshire. It was a 2-8-2. However the Santa Fe did own Berkshire’s, but they look very different. For example it have a weird feed water heater on the front.

[TheWheatleyCore]

Lionel’s O Scale offerings are far superior then anything they have done in HO scale. Their Vision Line range has some of the best sounds I have heard in a model train.

[strike]

most lionel trainsets are intended for beginners, and in oscale are price appropriately as such, their separate products are high quality but insanely expensive. Their ho scale range however, has NEVER been known for quality. In this case, despite the technology involved, it doesn't mean much if it's not compatible with other brands.

[charliehallman]

Sam, some info on the Lionel HO range,

Almost all the tooling for the proucts in their range is well over 30 YEARS OLD AT BEST! Lionel bought the tooling for most of it's range from a defunct company called Model Power, who, even in their heydey, were seen as one of the cheaper brands.

The earliest reference I have to the coaches in your set, the Model Power Harriman Coach series, is a Walthers Catalog of 1987! The tooling for their freight cars (up until those in their Spring 2023 catalog) originally were sold by two different companies, Marx and HobbyLine, and the Lionel 2-bay open hopper, a 1957 MARX TOOLING, represents the OLDEST TOOLING STILL IN CONTIUOUS USE IN U.S. HO!

The tooling for the Chassis from the locomotive might be from another defunct company, Life Like, but the boiler and tender shells appear to be new toolings, done in style compairable to their O-Gauge toy trains.

[Alpha-oo]

Wow, this train set at RRP costs more than the price to drive a steam locomotive at the Dean Forest Railway, which according to their website is £299

[Dronesword]

29:12 looks like is it chugging fairly close but I did see a slight de-sync. Berk’s chuff 4 times per driver revolution and have relatively small drivers since they were used on fast freights in the US, so it looks fairly close in the video.

[Lightingwolf]

Hey Sam been watching you for two years and I would like to say thank you for getting me and my dad into hornby trains me and my dad didn’t even know that hornby trains even existed until we saw one of your videos two years ago and as soon as we saw one of your hornby train videos we where hooked to hornby trains and I would like to say thank you for getting us into British train hobby

[samwong]

I honestly didn't know Lionel made HO scale products. They're famous for their O scale products which has pretty good detail but a hefty price.

[NWRJ_WStudios]

Funny story Sam, the coaches were actually made my Model Power back in the 1980, I still have some from a model power Southern express trainset.

Cheers Jasper & Willow

[RCT]

As an owner of 3 Lionel Train Sets… this is by far the worst representation of what Lionel can make. I had no idea their HO models were so lackluster and pathetic. Not to mention it was at the same price as one of their O gauge sets. I would like to assure you their O gauge sets are exponentially better as they tend to be metal cast locomotives to the point I think the drive tires are overkill on the O gauge sets.

[chukzombi]

the price was way too high. but it looks cool going down your track. you can disconnect the sensor and still have the other sounds and maybe the rapid fire chuffing will go away. its got problems, but its also not garbage.

[davidmolin]

From my time with Lionel I’ve found their postwar stuff to be much better when it comes to quality compared to their modern stuff, it’s also cheaper as well

[timbervalleyproductions]

What an awful set! As you once said, "I've seen bowel movements that constituted better value for money!", And that's certainly true!

[saintdane]

Lionel is a fascinating company to me, because I never associate them with modernity. To me they're the American equivalent of hornby, a company that is still around and has more value in being a name-brand then as a model company. Even checking the front page it's mostly brand colabs holiday stuff

[verna]

Great review. The diecast 0 scale lionel steam are a sight to behold, but this set looks slightly less than stellar.