Lionel MPC Santa Fe SD18

Lionel Santa Fe SD18.

These locomotives, 6-8872 powered and 6-8873 non-powered, were made by Lionel in 1978. No Railsounds, Legacy, or Odyssey. Not even a horn. Not many features compared to the trains made today.

It was Christmas Eve 1978 when I received these locomotives. Along with the 14 9700 series boxcars and caboose seen in this video. Needless to say I was a very happy kid that night.

Getting these cars led me to collect most of the 9700 series of boxcars that Lionel made. Some cars were easier to find then the others and it was fun trying to find each one.

The caboose in this video, 6-9274, was made by Lionel to go with these locomotives. Many collectors complained that it did not match the locomotives, so Lionel stopped production of it and made a blue and yellow caboose in it's place. It's reported that only 3,000 9274 cabooses were made and at one time this was one of the rarest and most sought after cabooses made during the MPC era.

The track is K-Line tubular with O-96 curves and the train is being controlled with a Lionel ZW transformer.

[modeltrains]

The track looks great. I've added some K-line 042 to a Lionel 054 curve, the number of ties per section matches nicely!

[leverettrailfan]

Not bad for MPC Lionel! Wish I had something that awesome growing up. I wish all MPC lived up to postwar quality. Some of the MPC stuff is quite wonderful, but I've on the whole had bad experiences with the MPC offerings that weren't on the high end of the spectrum. In general, the closer the item is to postwar quality, the more I like it. It's no surprise that I'm very passionately playing with almost entirely postwar equipment. The early 9200 cars seem especially neat to me- I wonder what if would be like if the MPC cars had bar-ended trucks like most of the classic postwar cars did.

[belowful]

cool stuff :) I have these in Ontario northland and Milwaukie road

[rj]

Thanks Tim. It was fun getting these out and running them. It sure did bring back some wonderful memories.

[rj]

Thanks Joe. This is one of my favorite color schemes as well. These do look good considering their age and how much they were used over the years. I tried my best to run the wheels off of these when I was a kid.

[rj]

Yes it did. It was a fun day running these older trains.

[bobmartin]

lip Case Version. 68+67 Mins. of The Exciting Holiday Train Action Both Real, & Toy.

[gordonsnell]

Pretty cool 😎😎 Just curious, do you like the Warbonnet paint schemes as well, or just that type??

[bobmartin]

TROTTA Thomas, & Thrills by Dr. William Furnish

[bobmartin]

4 Brand new Songs by James Coffey Fun! By Phill Ambrose Excitement by Angela

[bobmartin]

You Know By James Coffey From The New/Improved PEN-TR-EX Christmas Trains VHS

[bobmartin]

But Those Lionel MPC Santa Fe SD18s Do have Santa Claus Is Coming to town.

[bobmartin]

Tape Volume 1 All Digitally Enhanced, & Re-mastered + exciting New scenes.