Would love advice & pointers on he Williams line & its compatabilty with Lionel

[Robertj668]

Hello
I have been in Model Railroading on and off again for almost 34 years. I have had HO and N and have worked with Marklin as well. I love the Bachmann Forum for my HO and love the great answers I get form some great people so that why I am starting here first. I did download the current catalog for Williams from the website and have visited the Lionel site too.

The current layout we have has been slow with its progress for many reasons.  Well my 7yr old son and I decided let's do a fun Railroad with interactive things for us to do. What he was thinking was what he saw in his train videos like a coal loader and Log loader that Lionel has.

Below is my question which sounds simple but may not have a simple answer. I know there are many variables on this and am looking for guidance.  Yes I have a trip to my local Hobby shops coming soon. I have to break it to him that we are changing from HO to O. And only one really deals in Lionel and I think neither deal with Williams. I need to call and check on that.

What is compatible between Williams is O Gage and Lionel O Gage. Os is it like Marklin HO and Regular HO. Marklin was HO but for the most part they were not compatible with anything HO like Bachmann, Athern etc.

When I think Lionel I think Post war 1940's.

Additional
What my thoughts are do Lionel and Williams cars have the same couplers?
Are the Williams DCC? I am going to look that one up in a minute.

What about track? This one I am guessing is like my HO. Where my Bachmann EZ Track is not easily compatible with another Quick connect track with road bed. 

What I think my goal is this. To run most everything from William's products and add the Lionel cars that would be used for example the Log loader and unloader. But then I think that I might need a piece of Lionel track to control it.

Thanks for the help in advance. I am off from work today so I wanted to post this question as I do my research.

Have a great Day

Robert

[the nitro man]

as far as i know, all 3-rail trains will interchange (Lionel, mth, Williams, k line, etc.). they all have the same coupler type that will work together, any brand of track will work as long as the radius is big enough for the engine & cars. some will need wider radius track. some Lionel mpc era stuff is dc current, but most (99.9%) are ac. other than that any transformer will be fine as long as it has enough watts to operate the train correctly.

[Joe Satnik]

Dear Robert,

Welcome. 

A few that I can think of:

Wimpy Lionel Bell buttons that blow out on the first derailment short across the tracks. 

Williams/WBB DC motors too efficient/fast for high-starting-voltage Lionel ZW (and other) transformers.   

Williams/WBB center roller pickup interference with sliding shoe contact rails and uncouple electromagnet on unload/uncouple tracks (Lionel UCS, etc.)

Reading  back a few weeks of WBB (and some General) threads should give you a pretty good idea.

You could also use the Bachmann board search function for key words such as "bell button".

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik

[phillyreading]

Robert,

Most Williams will hook-up to; Lionel, MTH, or even Atlas O, right from the factory. If you try to mix the really older Lionel trains, before 1942, you can not do this without major changes to the couplers. Also two rail trains won't mix with three rail couplers, be sure it is three rail!
Most current production transformers will work with Williams by Bachmann, the only transformer that I have ever heard of having problems with Williams is Lionel' CW-80; a.k.a. can't work 80.
Track is another subject, as most tubular style track, the older Lionel O gauge style, will hook-up with each other. There are even two companies that just make track alone, Gargraves Track and Ross Custum switches.
Lionel's Fastrac and MTH's Realtrax are totally differant and hook-up just with their own brand of track.

Lee F.

[phillyreading]

About command control, DCC don't work with Williams as they don't have any command system installed from the factory.
Command control in O gauge is Lionel's TMCC or Legacy system and MTH's DCS.  Neither is compatible with DCC!!

Lee F.

[DominicMazoch]

W/WBB will work with TMCC in CONVENTIONAL mode, that is a Cab 1 talking to a PowerMaster, or a Legacy Cab2 talking to a PowerMater via the Bridge.

[Robertj668]

Thank you everyone. I have always enjoyed chatting on this forum and getting and from time to time giving advice. But going to a new Gauge has change everything.
Nitroman  -  It is nice to know I'll have options when it come to track. I just need to learn how to speak "O" Gauge.
Joe – That was some great information on cross manufacture obstacles/difficulties.  I will go back and search the forum now since I know what I am looking for.
Lee – The mixing of the Car with Lionel will be with what I believe to be "Post War" or 3 rail track. I actually have about 7 freight cars from my Dads layout that he got in 1946? However when they moved from NY to MD the Engine and the Tender went missing. 
Dominic & Lee – I need to educate myself on the Command control for the engines.
Everyone
HO was easy for me. There was basically DC & DCC.  Well folks really helped me out in what I need to learn about which now gives me a direction to start. I completely forgot about MTH and Atlas too.
I just don't want to buy anything till I know what I am looking for.
I look forward to anymore advice you may want to share.
Robert

[phillyreading]

Robert,

The post war trains or cars should have no problem with Williams couplers, as they both use knuckle couplers, sometimes the heigth will be off on the post war couplers.
A lot of post war cars need a special track (uncoupling track) to uncouple with if they have the electro-magnet style coupler, there will be a piece of plastic sticking down with a rivot head inside it to get power from a fourth or fifth rail.

If you get into two rail or scale O gauge, the trains run on DC, but don't use an H.O. power pack as it will get hot too quick and burn out over time.

Lee F.

[r0gruth]

No one has mentioned the difference in the reversing units.

WBB locos will start in forward after about a ten second power off.

Post war Lionel and any with the old style E-unit reverser will go to neutral and then to the opposite direction of travel before the stop.

This can be a problem in certain circumstances.

[phillyreading]

Roger,

I have to agree about the reversing units, and mention that some newer reversing units(MTH) start in nuetral then go to forward after track power is cut-off for more than five minutes. That is one of the reasons I am upset with some of the newer reversing units and have removed the newer units from at least two F-7 powered A units. There is NO way to lock the new reverse units that use electronic circuit boards into nuetral, as soon as power is re-introduced the reverse unit goes to forward, for a display rack with lights turned on.

Lee F.

[Cobrabob8]

Robert, I have Lionel Trains as old as from 1949 to the present. I also have some Atlas Idustrial rail, K-line, MTH and Williams freight cars. My locomotives are about 85% Lionel, maybe 10% (and growing) Williams and 5% MTH and K-Line combined. They all mix and run well together. Of the last five locomotives I have purchased four have been Williams or Williams By Bachmann. You just can't beat a dual-motored Williams diesel for pulling power and reliability. One of the best things I did was purchase an MTH Z-4000 transformer to run my trains. Plenty of power. I plan on purhasing a second one later this year as my layout has three seperate lines on it. My layout is built with the FasTrack System from Lionel which has performed flawlessly in the 2 years since I built my new layout. I HIGHLY RECCOMEND THAT YOU BUY WILLIAMS/WBB, you absolutely can't go wrong or beat the value!!
Cobrabob.
P.S. , in my Bio-picture you will see my Williams/WBB Pennsy Alcos in front of me which I love and are ALWAYS on my layout!!!

[Robertj668]

I just got home from work and read over the new responses real quick. And I wanted to drop a note to say thanks and I will do a good re read later.

I do have a quick question to Cobrabob. On my HO I run everything on DCC. Is there something similar in "O" gage that will allow me to operate that way?

Catch everyone later. Thanks again!

Robert

[phillyreading]

In O gage, we have a few itmes that may help you run things in sort of remote control way.
First there is a TPC 300 or TPC 400 that allows you to run trains by controlling track voltage to the engines.
Second there is command control, and there are three versions of command control; two by Lionel, TMCC and Legacy. TMCC works with several brands, except MTH, and Legacy is Lionel's newer version of command control, works with TMCC asa well, however TMCC won't run Legacy equipped engines. The third version of command control is by MTH and is called DCS, works with MTH engines only.
I don't know what DCC is capable of doing in H.O. but I have heard that it is more of a universal control system, meaning that if any one engine has DCC
it can be controlled by any DCC base.

Lee F.

[Robertj668]

Lee
That was some great information. It seams that everything is pretty much pro priority (sp) within each maker. In HO DCC is not like that. If you have a DCC engine it will run with any other DCC engine on pretty much any DCC system. It has spoiled me. I still very much want to try "O" gage but I see there are some limitations on what I want it to do.
Robert

[phillyreading]

Robert,

Another thing with command control in O gage, is that you can add a Legacy or TMCC base to the MTH DCS system and get both systems to work with one remote control, however it gets expensive to have more than one command control system. Others can comment on how the two systems work together as I have just the one system, DCS by MTH. DCS sells for around $300.00 for the control system, don't know what Legacy or TMCC sells for. If you want to control switches by remote there is an add-on box for each type of command control, DCS uses the AIU, TMCC uses an SC.
To make things even more complicated, Lionel's CW-80 don't work with MTH's PS-2 engines because of it's(the CW-80's) chopped sign wave output.

Lee F.