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South Jersey S Scale Modelers

 

These are all American Flyer by Lionel first released in 2013 with the Norfolk Southern “Heritage Units”. For a few years Lionel greatly expanded what was available for American Flyer with a number of all new locos, not just the endless repaints of the original 1950s A C Gilbert line. While they were “toy trains” they were reasonably well detailed and much more modernized with lights and control electronics never offered before in American Flyer. Also for the first time ever for these locos were DCC compatible and made scale wheels that were available separately. The previously made U33c also had scale wheels available but was not DCC compatible.  

 

The text included with each loco is mostly was I wrote at that time when it was added to my website.

 

Norfolk Southern Conrail Heritage Unit

Added 6-17-21

Conrail ES44_1 small Conrail ES44_2 small

Conrail ES44_3 small Conrail ES44_4 small

 

 

 

Norfolk Southern PRR Heritage Unit

Added 9-16-15

I chased the real Norfolk Southern PRR 8102 Heritage unit for years and could not catch it, so I decided to get one of my own. This was the first of the American Flyer “modern” locos I got. I finally saw the real unit on 8-8-15 and this came about a week later. It was a bit of whimsy purchase, well not within my usual modeling era and PRSL scheme at that time. This model is brand new American Flyer made by Lionel. It is DCC ready with sound and a ton of lights. I changed to scale wheels and Kadee couplers. That is it. No other details were added. It runs a bit fast but is very nice.

 

8-8-15 Deepwater NJ

PRR_ES44ace small

 

PRR_ES44ace_1 small PRR_ES44ace_2 small

 

PRR_ES44ace_3 small  PRR_ES44ace_4 small

 

 

Norfolk Southern Norfolk & Western ES44AC Heritage Unit

 

The Norfolk Southern ES44AC 8103 is the Norfolk & Western Heritage unit. There are LOTS of internet photos of it, plus some of my own.

S_Scale_Norfolk_Southern_ES44AC_8103_1 small

 

From 2014 to 2019 a significant number of Norfolk Southern Heritage locos came in on unit crude oil trains going to a refinery 3 miles away from my house. I had an encounter with 8103 myself. These are in North Woodbury NJ on 1-19-18.

S_Scale_Norfolk_Southern_ES44AC_8103_2 small  S_Scale_Norfolk_Southern_ES44AC_8103_3 small

 

S_Scale_Norfolk_Southern_ES44AC_8103_4 small S_Scale_Norfolk_Southern_ES44AC_8103_5 small

 

This is the American Flyer by Lionel General Electric ES44AC first released in 2013, and my first project page on one. Besides changing to scale wheels and Kadee couplers my previously purchased ES44AC and SD70ACE locos they were left stock. Maybe I should have taken “before” right out of the box photos with the American Flyer compatible wheels and couplers but I was not expecting this to turn into a 2+ day project. Lionel designed the electronics to automatically recognize the power source as AC, DC or DCC. The DCC aspect has had very mixed results. Lionel could not be bothered to follow the NMRA universally accepted DCC standards and did their own thing. Of course they know better than everyone else.

 

I got this on 8-29-23. It was new in a sealed box. I did the basic DCC programming with my NCE PowerCab which seemed to program correctly. The horn, bell and headlight all responded to the loco number but it did not move, even after a few times of programming. This annoyed me to no end that a brand new loco did not run. Ever since day one I have completely hated the Lionel electronics for these locos. I had pretty much the same issues of programming and not running with my first ES44AC then that I have now. I had to send it back to Lionel to get it running. For me there are NO redeeming qualities to the Lionel crap electronics system. It is dated – no Keep Alive option, the horn and bell buttons do not function on the horn and bell handle buttons like other decoders, and the slow speed is not that good. The headlights shut off after about 15 seconds after it is stopped. It is the same prime mover sounds for the ES44AC and SD70ACE, there is no variety possible, and the biggest issue for me – it is difficult to program DCC. I should not be truly afraid to program MY loco for fear of sending it off into some DCC death zone. I knew what should be done. I gutted the electronics from my American Flyer Conrail U33C because that was not DCC compatible at all.

 

Gutting The Fish

 

I normally take more formal project photos than this very quick n dirty snapshot with my phone at my messy train desk. As mentioned I had no intention of turning this into a project. I sat and stared at this hot mess for a while before I dove in head first. THIS is why Lionel could not make a conventional drive of a motor in the center of the frame with driveshafts out to the trucks because they needed a huge space for the huge electronics system. I was able to remove it all almost intact with only cutting the 4 wires from the trucks hoping there is some value for someone else to buy.

 

At the lower right you can just see the 0-80 holes I drilled from the bottom up to lock the pilots from pivoting. It is really easy.

S_Scale_Norfolk_Southern_ES44AC_8103_6 small S_Scale_Norfolk_Southern_ES44AC_8103_7 small

 

These are 2 brackets I made for mounting the speaker in the roof right under where the smoke unit was. They are 2-56 standoffs soldered to flat bar and glued to the loco roof.

S_Scale_Norfolk_Southern_ES44AC_8103_8 small

 

 

Headlights

I frequently make things in my projects just to challenge myself for fun. This angle to hold the rear headlight LEDs in place is 1 of those times. The small circuit board is for the ditch lights. The ditch lights and the number boards are not currently hooked up but I will get to them at some point. My attempt to recycle the front headlight LED board (not shown) did not go well which is why I used my 3MM LEDs on the front and back.

S_Scale_Norfolk_Southern_ES44AC_8103_9 small S_Scale_Norfolk_Southern_ES44AC_8103_10 small S_Scale_Norfolk_Southern_ES44AC_8103_11 small

 

DCC

There is LOTS of room for a decoder now. There is room for more weight here or in the fuel tank since I removed the original speaker. I did my typical everything in the roof with a Miniatronics 4 pin plug between the shell and drive. Yes I am using a TCS WOW4 with a Soundtraxx Current Keeper.

S_Scale_Norfolk_Southern_ES44AC_8103_12 small S_Scale_Norfolk_Southern_ES44AC_8103_13 small

 

Now that the apprehension of taking one apart for the first time is over I will go back to my other locos and convert them to a WOW as well. They will be able to run with each other and my locos that are not American Flyer much better.

 

 

Completed 9-4-23

 

S_Scale_Norfolk_Southern_ES44AC_8103_14 small S_Scale_Norfolk_Southern_ES44AC_8103_15 small S_Scale_Norfolk_Southern_ES44AC_8103_16 small

 

No one should have to go to this extent to get a brand new loco to run. I get that fine scale S is not the main market for Lionel, but they tried, and for not much more effort could have done a MUCH better job.

 

 

Updated 7-7-24

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