Unboxing, Examining and Running A Lionel Scout Set (1948-1952) Part 2

All right, let's give her a try. Okay, a little tricky on the throttle with the added weight. There, we're getting the hang of it. A little more in that corner. There we go. Okay, so if this were a complete 1949 set, and by the way, 1949 was the last time that a Scout set came with all three of the freight cars plus the caboose, the 11-17 set of 1949. It retailed at that time for $18.95. Now, to show you how this was so much cheaper, the next cheapest 027 set that year, which also featured a 242, but with headlighting and smoke, and only two cars in a caboose, retailed for $29.95, an $11 difference, which in 1949 dollars, that's a difference of about $125 in today's money. So that's a significant difference between the Scout set and even the low-end cheap 027 line. So that helped the Scout line, helped compete against Marx, but ultimately the unreliability of the plastic motor combined with the couplers that didn't directly mate with the new lino knuckle coupler is what doomed the Scout line to failure. So in future years, lino will have to find other ways to cut the costs and to compete with Marx. Boom! Okay, so what keeps happening is, again, that pole coming down from the coupler on the tender is out of alignment, needs to be twisted a little bit, and it keeps catching on the guardrails of different turnouts and causing problems. So that's going to have to go back to the workshop. So yeah, I'm going to take this all back and lubricate everything, clean it up a bit, and see what I can do with it. But definitely worth the $20, and if nothing else for the historical aspect of having the Scout, I need to figure out what's going on with the light bulb, and it probably needs a good cleaning. I'm reluctant to take everything apart because rumor is, the word on the street is, taking these things apart and getting them back together is not a fun activity because of the way the motor is put together. But I'm going to clean it up and lube it up as best I can without taking it apart and see what I can do. If I have to take it apart, I have to take it apart, but that'll be my last resort. But anyway, here we go. This is the Scout Set, well, plus an additional boxcar here. So an almost 1949 No. 1117 Scout Set. It just has the wrong boxcar, but I happen to have the right boxcar from a previous purchase. And so we've got the 1949 No. 1117 Set, originally retailing in 1949 for $18.95, purchased on eBay in 2020 for $20. So again, not every Lionel old Lionel train is worth a fortune. Some of them because, one, there were so many of these made, and two, collectors really aren't interested in them because they are, you know, they're bare bones, bottom of the line, and they have the unusual couplers. So that makes them a little finicky to deal with. There are things you can do to mate the Scout couplers with traditional couplers, some slight modifications you can make, and we may talk about that in some other videos. But there we are, the Lionel Scout Set. $20, not bad. I think with a little cleaning and lubing, we'll be able to get that under control. Until then, if you like it, remember to like, subscribe, share, tell your friends, tell your buddies. Happy railroading, and join us for our next video. Thank you, and have a great day. Okay, here is a correction to our Scout locomotive dating. What I noticed, and it's hard to tell with the glare of the camera, but right here above the headlight is, you can just make out the outline where there was once a hole here in the boiler that has been filled in and painted over. What that means is that this is a 1951-52 version of the of the 1110, not a 1949 version. One of the things that Lionel did, because the Scout Sets were floundering so much, Lionel tried to cheapen things in another way, and they wanted a smoking steam locomotive, but without the expense of putting in a smoke, a traditional smoke unit with the bellows. They didn't want to go through that expense, they came up with a 6110, which was used on one 027 set, and instead of having a bellows system with a smoke unit, they actually, there was a hole right here above the headlight, and as the locomotive went forward, air would draft into the shell this way and pull the smoke out through the smokestack, and then of course when the locomotive would go backwards, air would draft in this way and smoke would come out the front of the boiler. Well, that didn't go over quite so well as they had hoped, and so in 1951-52, the the 1110, which was identical shell other than the hole, Lionel filled in that hole, well in 1951, they used leftover 6110 shells that were filled in, and for for the end of 51 and the 52 run, you can just make out where they patched the hole in the die to to remake these. So this is a late 1951 or 1952 production, which then makes the the boxcar, the gondola, and the caboose correct for 1951-52, it's just with an additional tank car, which were not made after 1950. So what we have here is not a 1949 set with the wrong boxcar, but we have a 51-52 set with an additional tank car. So that's just interesting things that you find out, the differences in the locomotives. The other thing that that means is the 1951-52 version of the 6110 had a slightly upgraded version of the plastic motor, so this ought to be a little easier to repair and run a little better than if I had had a 1949 version. So bonus! So once again, thanks for watching, like it, and share it, and subscribe, and tell your friends, tell your neighbors, and watch our next videos. Thanks and happy railroading!