Unanticipated Delivery Delay for Lionel C&O F-19 Locos

Yep it's going to be an expensive next few months.  Halloween wood sided cars, Halloween F19, PE Observation Car, WTIU, Engine of the Year Hiawatha. I'm just glad I learned along time ago when an item isn't delivered on schedule that money goes in the drawer until it comes in.  

Whatever needed to be "corrected" had to have been done VERY quickly.  For Lionel to be expecting them on 11/22 -- just one month from now -- and the typical "time on the water" being 7 to 8 weeks... that means the F-19's have already been on the water 3-4 weeks already.  And it only seems like yesterday that they were shipped back.  To be honest, I wasn't expecting to see these until January 2025 at the earliest -- especially given everything else that's supposedly gonna ship from Lionel NC before year's end. 

My gut tells me some of this stuff will trickle into our hands in January... given the normal "last couple of Lionel shipments to dealers" at the end of December.  Still gonna be a whopper of a 4th quarter though. 

Thanks for reminding me, Marty, about those Halloween woodside passenger cars.  OUCH!!!  Thankfully I passed on this year's "locomotive of the year". 

Being in the Manufacturing industry for many moons... I am almost sure they had a replacement smoke box with the correctly painted flying air pumps painted and waiting to go. If they had to masks these and paint that would have been quite the endeavor. Regardless I am going to eagle eye these very closely when they come in!