Hello everyone, MichaelB450 here. In this video I will be doing a review on
the Lionel Amtrak Amfleet Controlled End Car. I've been wanting to do review on
this car for a while but I never really felt like doing one. But now since I
have a new camera that records in full HD, I decided to try out making reviews
again. During this review I'll be showing the details, features, and then show the
lighting functions. I will also show the lighting is controlled on this model
later, when I have the model upside down. So let's get right into the video!
Before I start the review, I want to give a brief history on this car. Keep in mind I won't
go over everything, so if you want to read more about the Amfleet cab... cab
cars. I will put a link in the description to a Wikipedia article on
the subject. Now let's get right into the history of the cab car.
This Amfleet cab car started out life as a Metroliner controlled car, made by the Budd company.
They were powered by overhead catenary power and were operated between New York,
Philadelphia, and Washington from 1966 to 1988. They were originally ordered by the
Pennsylvania Railroad in 1966. But because of technical difficulties while
testing; Penn Central, Pennsylvania Railroad successor, acquired the cars in
1969 and put them into revenue service the same year. But they were proven very
unreliable, even with rebuilds they continued to be problematic.
In 1971 Amtrak acquired the Metroliner cars, when the company was
created to take control over all passenger rail service the year prior.
And they quickly discovered how unreliable the Metroliner cars were, but
the railroad could continue using them until 1988. Before the Metroliner cars
are completely phased out they were pulled by the then-new Amtrak AEM-7
because it was proven much more economical to run them that way. In the
end, most of the Metroliner cars were scrapped. But 29 of the 31
cab equipped Metroliner cars got a new lease on life. As cab cars for the San Diegan,
the Atlantic City Express, and other Amtrak services. The Metroliner
cab cars, as rail fans call them, still exist today and are primarily used on
the Keystone service. But sometimes do appear on other Amtrak services, but
that is very very rare to see. Now let's get into Lionel's rendition of the Metroliner Cab Car.
Lionel catalog this item in their "Signature Edition 2010 Volume One"
catalog and I believe they were delivered the same year. The car is 19
inches in length, 20 if you count the couplers. The minimum curve for this car
is O-36. It has fully automatic controls for the headlight and marker
lights, of course I will show you how those work later in the video.
There are also strobe lights on the roof, the interior of the car is lighted, and
there's also a full interior. Overall the model is very well done so let's go in for a closer look.
I will start out at the front of the car
and work my way back. The front pilot is fairly well done, with molded in electrical
wires here and here. Molded in electrical sockets right here and right here.
There's also a molded in coupler lift bar assembly right here.
The pilot is made out of plastic, but it's not too big of a deal. It would have been
nice it was made out of metal but again not too big of a deal. And of course
there's also the typical O gauge coupler in the middle of the pilot.
On the front end of the car there's a plastic diaphragm, it doesn't move it's
more decorative but it does have some nice details on it up here. In the middle
of the diaphragm there is a door with a clear plastic insert, and of course a
silver border around the window as well. All of the windows by the way
do you have a slight blue tint to them. Near the sides of the diaphragm
there are the ditch lights. These ditch lights do not operate out of the box
they'll just have clear plastic inserts in them. However it is not very difficult
for you add in your own ditch lights with three millimeter LED lights. Up here
we have the number board, and on this side we have the cab part of the cab car.
With a clear plastic insert and there's also a windshield wiper molded in. Inside
there's an engineer figure inside the cab, and on this side over here there's
another window but you can't see that. I'll show that a little bit later.
Of course there's a little painted on electrical box above this ditch light.
And before it forgets there are hand rails right here and right here on
the sides of the cab car. And finally you see this really really nice yellow and
black striping on the front of the cab car, which makes this thing look really
cool when it comes from down the rails. I want to mention real quick that the
ditch light positions for the road number of this cab car is not completely
correct the real 9646 has the ditch lights mounted
much further down about here and here. Not too big of a deal, but 9645 and
9647 do you have the ditch lights exactly like this.
So it appears Lionel was trying to make a cost-effective model by finding
common grounds between road numbers. So the ditch light position might be wrong
for this road number, but other Road numbers it can be correct. Anyway, moving
on to the sides of the model.
Before I start showing the sides of the car off
I want to show the details below the waist. The trucks on this model are fairly
bland there's not much in terms of separately applied details. However, this
equalizer assembly right here is separately applied. It's the only
separately applied details on these trucks. There is cast in brake
hardware right here, which you can't really see. There's also a cast in
spring right here and a couple other miscellaneous cast in details. I want to
mention real quick, that these trucks are not accurate to the real-life Metroliner
cab cars. The real-life Metroliner cab cars ran on Superliner II
trucks, and they still do. This is a leftover for when these cars were
powered. But for me this is not a big problem since the car still looks really
nice during operation. But I feel I should mention this because I know will
not hear the end of this in the comment section of the video.
Moving back a bit, there's a lot of separately applied plastic parts on the underside of the
model that make it look very very realistic to the prototype. I don't know
what each part on the other side is for, but they do look really really nice and
of course. I'll move it over real quick. The rear truck is exactly the same as the front truck
except without the presence of the plastic pilot.
On the left side of the car, there's quite a few
nice details as well. Starting near the front there is a metal grab rail
right here between the cab parts of the car and this door. The door is molded in
it does not open, but it is nicely recessed into the body. There is a clear
plastic insert here for the window. There's another heavily tinted plastic
insert up here, it does glow a little bit when the interior lights are maxed out.
There's a gutter up here, which is nice. And there's molded in vents right here
on one end of the gutter. I would like to mention that the Phase V
paint scheme looks absolutely awesome on this car. You can see it starting right
here and continuing on along the car right here.
Moving back a bit, there's
a painted on number right here on the side of this window. Do keep in mind
that all the windows on the side of the car are flush mounted to the body
and have separately painted black borders around it (them).
Which also makes the car look very realistic. The inside of the car
is lighted, it does have seats, and an interior as well. There are no passengers
included in the interior, but that's par for the course with most model passenger
cars in this hobby. And finally there is a nice there's the nice molded in
ribbing all along the side of the car.
Moving back some more, you can see more
of the Phase V paint scheme going along the side of the car. As well as the
ribbing here, and really all over the place. In the middle of the car you can
see there's the road number of the car which in this case is 9646.
At the very end of the car, there's the road number right here next to this
last window. As well as the paint scheme going along. And then there's also the
Amtrak Phase V logo right here. Next to the Amtrak Phase V logo you can see
"Coachclass" is written right here. Below it, there is a handicap symbol. And then
above it, there is a "welcome" script. It's kind of hard to read but it is there. And
then finally at the very end of the cab car; there is also the molded in door
again, exactly the same as the one up front. Another grab rail right here. As you
can see another heavily tinted window up here. You can see another gutter
right here, and more molded in vents up here.
The right side of the car, in terms of body details, is exactly the same as the left side,
but the underside details have a slightly different layout to them.
On the back of the car; there's quite a
few molded in details. Like the utility boxes here, here, here, and here. As well as
some structural supports, I don't know exactly what these are but I think
they're structural pieces. The diaphragm is hard plastic, but it does look pretty
nice. In the middle of diaphragm, there is a molded in door. The door has a clear
plastic insert, right here for the window. And there's also some grab rails here,
here, and here. There's also tinted marker lights, next
to the diaphragm. They do glow a little tiny bit when the interior lights are
maxed out, but otherwise they're dark the rest of the time. And down here
you'll also find these's separately applied grab rails down here. Oh and of
course, there's the traditional O gauge coupler down here as well, attached to the truck.
Moving back to the front, and looking at
the roof of the model. There's a metal horn piece right here, which is an
accurate K5LA horn. Over here you have these strobe lights which will flash
from side to side when they are turned on, these outer ones. The red one doesn't
do anything, it's just a dummy light. And underneath the strobe lights there's
also, a second set of cutters right here and here which is pretty nice. The roof
of the model has ribbing from end to end, as you can see it's all along here it looks
very very nice. Let me take you to the very back of the car. There's a
second set of gutters right up here, but there are no strobe lights on
this end and there's no horn as well.
Here's the other side of the model,
there's not much in terms of separately applied details, like piping. Or cast in
details like piping and so forth. So it's fairly plain under here. But you're not
really going to notice anything under here most of the time while you're running the model.
Over here you will find the switches that toggle the lighting
functions on and off. This switch turns the headlight and marker light functions
on and off. And this switch turns the strobe lights on and off
So you might be wondering how the cab car is able to change directions of the
lights automatically well I'm about to show you.
But before I show you exactly
how this works, I first want to explain how a cab car would work in the past
with O scale models. Before this cab car came out; the only way to control the
lighting on O scale cab cars, is with switches on the underside of the car.
It was a very simple method, but not very intuitive. Because it would require
the user to pull train close to them and manually switch the lights. But sometimes
the switches were also in a very awkward place. So it would require the user to
take the car off the tracks in order to find the switches that they needed to
change for the front lighting. This car works on a very similar method, but all
it requires the user to do. Is to change the direction of the train and move it
in the desired direction. And all of that functionality is located in the front
trucks. So first I'll have to take a panel off the underside of the trucks
in order to show you exactly how that works. So give me a second.
Alright so here's, the front truck. Before I can show you exactly how this whole entire system
works I have to take the bottom panel off. And that'll take a few seconds, give
me one second. Alright so here's the front truck with the panel taken off. And
as you can see, the whole time mechanism for the headlight and marker light
mechanism is all mechanical. There's this white
plastic worm gear, attached to the front axle. Which spins with the front axles (wheels).
And causes this black gear to move from side to side, and of course also spin. And
that's what makes the whole time mechanism work. If I kind of press it to
one side, you can kind of see it's already pushing on one of the micro
switches. But if I move it to the other side, if I even can. You can see it's
pressing on the other micro switch. It's kind of hard to show exactly how this
mechanism works, so I'll put the cover back on in a second. To show you the
mechanism fully in action, because this mechanism does require you
to have the cover on in order to work properly. So let me put the cover on and
I'll show you in more in action. All right I've got the cover back on the
front truck now, and I'm gonna show you that how the mechanism works. Pay
attention to this little silver axle right here in the middle, that's the
black gear I was talking about. So if I move to keep the wheels clockwise, you can see
now the axle is to the left of the cap car that would turn on the marker lights.
If I move the wheels counter clockwise, as you can see it's now going to the
right side of the cab car. And I'm kind of messing this up. And that would
activate the headlights. It's a very simple mechanism, it's very cool... Let me
return this back to center real quick... It's a very cool mechanism very
well done. I have to applaud Lionel for going out, and making this mechanism work.
But I do have to mention real quick, that the lights do have a tendency of
coming from the factory wired in backwards. So you have kinda have to
check that, and the way you fix that is you reverse the green and the yellow
wires. And you remove all eight screws that hold the metal frame onto the
model. But if you want to know more details about how to rewire the lights
to make them work properly Lionel has put a uh... Basically a tutorial how you
rewire the lights and make them work properly, if your lights are indeed wired
up backwards. So I'll put a link to that in the description, in case you're
looking for that. But yeah... There is a very slight problem with this mechanism
by the way, and I'll show that to you a little bit later... In a few minutes, as
soon as I show the lighting functions of the car.
Okay now we've come to the fun part of the video. I'm gonna show you the car in action, but for this
part of the video. I'll just simply be moving the car to demonstrate the
lighting functions. I've got the car on the track, so now
all I have to do is apply power to the tracks to get it working. So as you can
see the strobe lights are on. And they always are on but that's besides the point...
If I move the car towards the camera now,
you can see now the headlight and ditch lights are on. Now I have to remind you
again that the ditch lights do not come with the cab car from the factory, you
have to add your own. This is sort of just a way to show you what the ditch
lights can look like. When you're add your own in, with three millimeter LED lights.
If I move the cab car away from the camera, you see the
head lights go out. And now the marker lights are on.
Now remember when I mentioned that the strobe lights have a little bit of a
problem spot? Well this is it, when you're running the car in trading mode the
strobe lights do not automatically turn off. This is not accurate they're
supposed to be linked to the bell in the real life cab car. I mean I could just
simply switch them on and off like that. But I've actually done that so many
times, when running the car in trailing mode and leading mode... Switching the
strobe lights on and off. That I've actually worn down the switch before in
the past. I mean I can run it like this all the time, in
forward and backwards position. But really it doesn't look as cool without
the strobe lights. If I flip this... Again, you can see without the strobe lights.
But if I flip them on again, it looks pretty cool with the strobe lights. I do
have to admit, it does add a nice cool look to the car. Now, the way you
can actually fix this. Is you add in a solid state relay, between the mechanism
for the strobe lights and the headlights and use kind of the headlight function
as a trigger. I will do that in the future sometime, but I really feel that
this should have just been included with the cab car from the beginning. Since you
are paying quite a bit for the cab car and well you should have issued...it's
kind of expected that this function should already be in the cab car. But I'm
blabbering on a little bit, so let's get to the conclusion part of the video now.
So to sum up this car, it's a really nice car to own and adds another dimension to
operating your Amtrak trains. But it's not a 100% perfect solution, so I hope
Lionel will address the operating problems if and when they will re-catalog this
item in the future. Addressing the problems I mentioned would make the car
so much more fun to operate, and even adding in Legacy into this cab car would
make it even more fun. But I still think the car is awesome and these
problems will not prevent me from buying the model again in the future. If you'd
like to buy this model, it retails right at $90. But since the model has been out
of production for over eight years now, it's gonna be very hard to find one for
around retail price. Most of these models are selling well over that price, on
sites like eBay. There were two models that sold back in November 2018, on eBay
that went for around $300. So, yeah... Good luck trying to find one for a reasonable
price. I would suggest waiting to see if Lionel will produce this model at some
point in the future, but it's been over eight years since this car first
came out and it doesn't look like Lionel's planning to re-catalog this
item. So, anyway. That's it for this review I'll finish it off with two running
videos of this car in trading mode and leading mode. Of course running with two
other Amtrak passenger cars and my F59PHI.
If you guys enjoy the running videos and you enjoyed this review as well, be sure
to give the video a like and consider subscribing. If you'd like to see more
videos from me in the future. I'm MichaelB450, I hope to see you
guys in the next one. Bye!
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