Unboxing, Examining, and Running a Lionel Scout set (1948-1952). A $20 eBay find! - Part 1

Hello again, this is Mike with Toy Train Tips and Tricks and today we are in the workshop with another of our mail-to-rail series. This just arrived from eBay and I'm anxious to open it up. I was the only bidder on this and what it looks like, although the photography wasn't the greatest and neither was the description, but it looks like it's a 1949 Scout set. But we'll open it up and take a look. The description said that it was, quote, a little dirty and dusty but runs, but we'll find out. In any case, it was only $20, so even if it doesn't run and if it is in bad shape, there's at least $20 worth of parts in here. At least there should be, if this is indeed what it looks like. So let's open it up and see what we have and see if this is indeed what it looked like in the pictures. A 1949 Scout set and I can see right away that it is not a 1949 set or if it is a... it might be an accumulation of different Scout cars to make a set. The reason I know this isn't 1949 is this particular Baby Ruth car, although these were made... The Baby Ruth car was made throughout the Scout series from 1948 to 1952. The 1948-1949 versions, the Baby Ruth was outlined. This is solid, so this means this is at least a 1950 car. So that already throws a little twist in what we were expecting to find. And let's see here. Next, we have our typical Scout caboose. These ran through the whole 1948 through 1952 series. No real changes. That coupler's kind of dinged up a little bit, but that could have been from any of the years of production. So let's see what we have. Ah, and here we have the Lionel Scout Tender. Sheet metal tender with the Lionel Scout trucks. Again, this ran throughout the entire 1948 to 1952 period. So this doesn't help us out. This is pretty dinged up, but again these sets were probably very well played with. So that's not unexpected. Let's see what we have here. Ah, we have... We have our Lionel gondola. Again, Scout car. There we go. The truck was on a little crooked. It's black, so that puts it anywhere from 1949 through 1952. Not 1948, but we already know from this if it's a complete set it's at least 1950. Here we have three red canisters. These did not come with any of the Scout sets, but it's a nice addition. Still with the original graphics on there. You don't see that too often, so that's cool. I'll have to look up what those are. Oh, sorry. Four. Four of the canisters were gone. Obviously didn't come with this gondola. Four of them wouldn't fit in there. Okay, and here we have the Lionel Lyons Scout tank car, and this looks to be in decent shape. Only the wheel is a little crooked there. That needs to be popped back into place, but everything seems to be there. And now the moment of truth. We have the number 1110 Scout locomotive. Now the 1110 was originally from 1949. It was replaced in 1950 by the 1120, which had magnetraction, but when the Korean War broke out and the materials for magnetraction became hard to come by, the 1110 came back in 1951 and the limited 1952 production. So I will have to take a look at this, and my guess is the cars are simply a collection, a hodgepodge, and this wasn't an original set together. The reason I think that is, if we have a 1949 locomotive, then the box car is wrong. And if we have a 1951 or 1952 version, then the tank car is wrong. These only ran 1948 through 1950. But if we're looking at the hodgepodge, these are all of the different varieties of cars that were in the Scout line. This is it. Box car, gondola, tank car, caboose. And the only variations were the first run of the gondola were blue, the rest were black, and the box car, the early ones, have the outline lettering instead of the solid. So in any case, we have a complete Scout set, although hodgepodge, not any particular year here. And so the next step will be to see. The description said it runs. Let's find out whether it runs or not. Okay, before I power this puppy up, let's talk a little bit about what is a Scout set and what is not a Scout set. Specifically the Lionel Scout sets were developed first in 1948 to be as inexpensive as possible. The bottom, bottom, bottom end of the 027 line to directly compete with competition from Marks to try to get things as cheap as possible. But at the same time, still keep some of the attributes that Lionel is known for, including automatic couplers. So the designers at Lionel had a task in front of them to develop a dependable yet cheap train set based off of Lionel products. So this particular set, if this were the 1949 set, the number 11171949 set, it would have retailed in 1949 for $18.95. Today, that seems crazy that you can buy a train set for under $20. Well, I just bought this set for under 20, well, for $20 on eBay, which first of all dispels the myth that all Lionels are valuable. These were made by the tens of thousands and there's not a lot of collector interest because they're so basic. But anyway, getting back to the point of making them as inexpensive as possible, they did a couple of things. First, they developed a couple of new molds, the double door box car and the tank car. Both of these, for the Scout line, were made as easy as possible. You have a one piece shell, the doors are molded in, so you pop the top onto the frame and you're done. Same thing with the tank car, the larger double dome tank car and the semi-scale single dome tank car were both larger, more detailed, and more difficult to put together, more labor cost. The Gondola and the Caboose were versions of things that were already in the Lionels' system. They already had the molds for these, although this had originally been a die-cast car. They turned it into a plastic car for the Scout series and the SP style Caboose had already been around. So they cheapened things that way by making them easier to put together. Secondly, they came up with the new Scout type coupler. The Scout coupler, which looks like this, was made to be far less expensive than either the coil coupler that had been used from 1945 to 48 or the brand new magnetic coupler that was being used on some 027 sets starting in 1948 or throughout the line starting in 1949. So you had a cheaper coupler, it was automatic, and there was a device called a manumatic uncoupler so you could uncouple these by the press of a button, but without modification they are not directly compatible with Lionel's couplers. This was one of the bad things about the Scout line. The other problem with the Scout line was in order to cut expenses is in the locomotive they designed a brand new motor. The Scout motor is a is a plastic encased motor and instead of the normal direction switch the three position e unit that switched the direction electronically there is this lever attached to a series of springs and gears and pawls that actually physically changes the orientation of the motor inside the shell to change the direction of the movement of the motor field. It was less expensive because it wasn't electronic but there are lots and lots and lots of moving parts in there and that made these motors very difficult to work on if there were any problems and also if there were any problems with the tension in the spring the reverse mechanism could also be very finicky. So technically the Lionel Scout line only includes plastic motored locomotives with Scout couplers made between 1948 and 1952. Some hobbyists however refer to any of the cars made with the Scout type side frames like these even after the Scout line but with regular knuckle couplers. Some call these semi-Scout some just call them Scout. Some refer to any of the cars that originally came from this line as Scout cars even if they were made in the 1950s 60s 70s all the way up into the early 2000s. As far as locomotives some in addition to these Scout locomotives count anything with the plastic motor which they did keep for a while on other Lowendo 27s they count anything with a plastic motor as a Scout locomotive. Others consider anything with this any of the 242s that look like this as a Scout locomotive regardless of what kind of motor it has in it. Some of them are much nicer and again some were made all the way up into the into the 2000s. And adding more confusion to this Lionel themselves a few years ago made a brand new set with a locomotive that kind of looked like this but with a red stripe and they called the set guess what the Scout. So there's lots of confusion about what Scout actually means so for our purposes the Scout sets only specifically refer to the Scout line 1948 to 52 plastic motored steamers with the Scout coupler. All right now that we've got that out of the way let's see if it runs. All right for this part I'm switching cameras here there we go switching cameras and let's power her up and see what happens now that's a good sign oh wow she flies one moment all right let's try this again and see if we can't get it to start a little slower than that uh-oh uh-oh maybe not maybe not let me grab my controller whoa we were just about to fly off wow she is fast and noisy as you can tell but there we go wow I don't know if I can run it slow enough to keep it on the rails here hang on a moment okay after a couple of tries I've worked some of the cobwebs out of it she will run a little bit slower probably do better the more she runs and now I can at least keep it on the track and there we go now the original Scout steam locomotive the 1001 not only had a plastic motor but a plastic shell as well the one made in 1948 and Lionel quickly found out that it was so light between the motor and the plastic shell that it could barely pull the cars that were in the set so for 1949 they upgraded to the 1110 which has a plastic motor but a die cast shell so the additional weight gives it a little more pulling power in 1950 they upgraded it still more by giving it magnet traction as they did all locomotives in 1950 but for 51 and 52 material shortages from the Korean war made them bring back the 1110 without the magnet traction now this should have a headlight obviously it's not working I don't know if it's burned out or whether there's a wire broken we'll have to take a look at that which means opening it up and seeing what's in there and right now I've got it in locked in the forward position that's why the little switch on top is set to up if it were down it would be rotating between forward and backward every time there was a power interruption which right now with this locomotive is pretty frequent okay we're going pretty good let's add the rest of the train to it and see what happens next