Yes the old postwar locomotives are more reliable and simpler than the new imports. But they are not as smooth running and well detailed.
Postwar tooling was semi-hand made from pencil drawings so the mechanical tolerances were sloppy compared to today. Today’s tooling is made from digital cutters from electronic drawings alowing for much tighter mechanical tolerances and finer detail.
Where postwar rules is magnetraction. With all this new technology, they give us rubber band wheels for traction on these new $1,000 steam engines! JUNK!!!
Yes the old postwar locomotives are more reliable and simpler than the new imports. But they are not as smooth running and well detailed.
Postwar tooling was hand made from pencil drawings so the mechanical tolerances were sloppy compared to today. Today’s tooling is made from digital cutters from electronic drawings alowing for much tighter mechanical tolerances and finer detail.
Where postwar rules is magnetraction. With all this new technology, they give us rubber band wheels for traction on these new $1,000 steam engines! JUNK!!!
As I noted in another thread on another forum: Just consider the stuff you buy today as disposable, just as you would a TV set, radio, microwave, computer, or other appliance in your household. Nobody fixes that stuff these days; they just head to WalMart or BestBuy and purchase something else.
The toy trains made today are no different. Most of them will perform fine right out of the box, and some won’t. Those can either be sent for repair or returned for a refund.
A few years from now, the number of those that don’t work right or fail to work at all will undoubtedly increase. At that point, you’ll have little choice but repair it yourself (assuming you have the know-how and can find parts); park it on a siding or in a display case; or just junk it and get something new–just as you would do with your five-year-old computer.
What I take from all of this is the post war stuff, (which is what I really love anyway) is more stable, more reliable and just plain good ole’ faishioned America. I think I’ll stick with it. Jake
I disagree with Allan. Trains are not computers and are not purchased for the same reasons.Rather they are models bought as show pieces and collectables with $15 worth of electrical parts. They have a whole different history and tradition.The electronics are not reliable because of poor design and lack of quality control. Unfortunatly the customer has not held the manufacturers feet to the fire in this area.
As far as reliability it is normal with modern electronics. I have not experienced any problems with TVs,radios,microwave ovens or even computers in cars. I simply take them ou of the box and use them and they function for years giving trouble free service.
I cant say the same for train products. They are designed poorly and there are problems right out of he box. Compare for example the Lionel lighthouse with th Mr Christmas lighthouse. The Lionel has a noisy mechanism,poor sound quality and plagued with problems. The Mr Christmas works flawlessly,quiet with better sounds and works year after year. It also costs half the price.
The technology is not the problem it is simply poor implimintation of it that is the problem.Years from now if there is an interest, modern reliable replacement electronics will be available for modern engines at reasonable cost so there will be no reason to throw away anyting that is sound mechanically. In fact even now most anything can be converted to Railsounds.
Hi to all
I think the real paradigm is MADE IN USA…good MADEIN CHINA …no good.
I agree I am anti-china stuff (if i can) Today every thing is china, and the real sentiment is why the pride of USA toy trains is made in china!!!
I love the post-war stuff or made in usa product, btw I start retooling all my f3 for best running and I decrease the “old diesel motor noise” a lot.
Andre.
My old-line Lionel repairman used to say that my Lionel F-3 AA Southern Diesels of the early '60s were like working on Sears lawnmowers, “you don’t fix them, you work on 'em”. But I still have the F-3s and they still run and still sound about as loud as the old International Corn Harvester we had at the farm. My Lionel Mikado would drop its rods occasionally but otherwise I had pretty good luck with postwar. I had a lot of “adjustment” problems with power pickup rollers/shoes and repeated coupler failure [and still do with the modern equipment].
The new Lionel stuff----I had "surge " problems with TMCC Mikados and Mountains, which Lionel fixed with new boards, and I had out-of-phase problems with early 180 watt PowerHouses [which I rewired internally myself].
The best quality Lionel product [or any O-gauge product] I have owned, with proven longterm trouble-free reliability, are three postwar 275 ZWs. I now have them on the test track and in standby status and I am just now getting around to installing new cords, some new binding posts and power pickup rollers and horn/whistle diodes on all three.
Good for another few decades of service [with appropriate fuse/breaker protection].
Lionel quality? I have to put my 2 cents worth in.
My TMCC control system: in command mode, move the throttle and engine would go to full speed, ignoring any more commands. I only ran it in conventional. Hit the red triangle button (power shutoff) and most times it would go to full throttle. Occasionally trains would start up by themselves, at full throttle, with remote control just sitting there, me not touching it. System replaced, in entirety, by Lionel (I did not use the replacement system, traded it for an old Lionel train set at my dealer).
My 1993 vintage CSX “dash-8” engine and my more recent CSX “dash-9” engine have the same problem. In conventional mode they used to start in forward, the way they are supposed to. But, for some reason, they both changed their startup mode. The dash-9 now starts in neutral. And, get this, the next direction is also a nuetral, before you work the throttle a third time and it moves in forward. The horn works intermittantly, mostly not. The older dash-8 likes to start up in nuetral, then go in reverse. Sometimes, after nuetral it will go in forward.
I have a Conrail SD-70. It was a complete mess, brand new. Did nothing right (conventional mode, the only way I can run trains). The dealer put a new circuit board in it. It still did not run right. It would ignore the throttle, then take off fast. Mostly, the sound did not come up (would make wierd “burp” noises or “click” noises). The horn would sound when it wanted to, not when you hit the button. And the couplers would open randomly. It never made a lap on my layout. Dealer did not want to replace board again, said I must have wrecked it. I tore out the guts, made the engine into a dummy.
My NYC industrial engine with the snow blower: It did nothing. I took the body off, found the circuit board loose in the engine, not
I run only Lionel TMCC engines. Only one has headed back to Lionel for repair and it was under warranty and now it works perfect. My HOT BOX REEFER CAR’s sound died and was sent back under warranty and I received a new car. Both returns were done within two weeks.
As many of you know, I also have a Garden RR. I purchased a used LGB mogul and sent it to San Diego for refurbishing, and it runs perfect. I have now gone through two Bachman engines and three Bachman trolleys. Bachman can not even come close to the quality in LGB. The Bachmans do not have any electronics. They are plain Janes.
I don’t have any of the modern Lionel engines, not one. I have postwar and Williams and getting more Williams. Very reliable and lifetime warranty. Comes with metal gears too. Just take them out of the box and run them. My postwar does just about the same… Williams is the best buy on the market if you can live wihout the frustrations of the high techie stuff.
I have a bunch (dozens) of Lionel, Atlas, K-Line and even one 3rd Rail TMCC/Railsounds locos. I don’t run them very often but I’ve had essentially no out of the box failures and no subsequent problems to speak of. Oh wait, one TMCC loco had to return to Lionel for a new Railsounds board under warranty. So a failure rate of under 5%. I had a Powermaster die and Lionel replaced it at no cost. So no complaints whatever. I also have a few Williams and MTH PS1 locos and have had no problems with them either.
Postwar Lionel was state of the art proto in the day- things have changed. Not fair to compare apples with oranges, but I think there is an obvious demand for high techs and gingerbread. With the high tech stuff, be it Lionel or the others, somebody for sure is making a lot of money because the $250 boards probably cost $25 or less to produce, and everybodies stuff probably comes from the same factory in China, just different corners of the building. My wife bought me a 99 cent key chain. Push the button on the loco and it plays a 30 second loop of about every byte from MTH’s PSA including Clickity-Clack, again 99 cents and this thing is a little over an inch long. If my old Ford falcon ran ratty I adjusted the points, today forget it, it’s computer related and out of my league. I can field strip a PW down to the last bushing, but on my new stuff, after warranty, may as well take it out back and shoot it, or buy a Williams converter board for $29, bypass the bullshirt and make it a conventional. I’ve had TMCC and MTH arrive DOA and feel bad for those of you that have been turned off by a bad experience. To me, it can be a real rush to hear the roar of acceleration on the new engines. Scary thing is all it takes is the spike from a derailment to fry a board. Wonder if the Williams converter boards are cheaper by the dozen!
From what I have seen of the NEW Lionel it is basically LIONEL TURDS!!! The Lionel 6-23011 switches were experiamentale at best! The low end locomotives lack any pulling power, bought a GP7 that would only pull three quad hoppers, come on Lionel used to be good quality, not any quality today by Lionel! Reminds me of Ford Motors, at one time Ford was the best American car on the road but that was like 1950, now Ford is nothing but break-down babies from day one!
What is it that you don’t seem to understand?? I have gone by the instruction manual provided by Lionel for each of those items. Even used a volt meter to make sure that I did not provide more than 14 volts to the Lionel switch # 6-23011, seemed like the more I used the switch the more problems that kept happening! And that is one of the reasons I say LIONEL TURDS!!!
Also Lionel never acknowledged a problem with this series of switches but they are not made any more, so what does that tell you? It should indicate the switches in question were factory defects!! Williams Trains said that this switch was the most problem-matic switch they have ever seen!
As for the locomotive a GP-7 I was using a ZW to power it, NO TMCC issue as the locomotive was low price.
If this is not enuff for you to chew on what about the CW80 transformers? From reading other posts here I would throw this transformer in the trash and replace with a Z1000 by MTH.
I try not to be biased but as I see it Lionel has brought on the problems by not giving good customer service along with defective equipment that they(Lionel) will not repair ro acknowledge a problem.
I’ve had a few Lionel products fail over the years. They’ve always replaced them or refunded my money, even years after purchase in the case of an MW transformer. Perhaps it was because I made every effort to be extraordinarily civil and polite in my requests, but everyone’s mileage differs. My dealer has also been very good about returns or exchanges, but you may not have a splendid dealer to deal with. I’ve had good results with Island Trains in this regard for some mail orders, but once again, being civil and polite, and sometimes, going up the chain of responsibility is needed whether dealing with Lionel or the dealer.
Some products just don’t live up to customer’s expectations, and some are poorly designed to begin with, whether they be Williams, Lionel or MTH, etc. I’ve bought literally 100’s of Lionel items over the last 15 or so years, and fewer than 1% of them have been unsatisfactory.
I’d say you are making rather strong statements based upon a few products you are very unhappy with and, of course, based upon your personal perceptions. I’d also say that your claim that Williams and MTH are superior in quality to Lionel is not borne out by either my experience or the collective experience one reads about in various forums. But hey, it’s your money, and as I said, everyone’s mileage differs.
I own only Lionel so I can’t compare with other brands. I also only own newer products, 2004 and up, so I can’t compare with PW stuff. But I can say that I have spent several thousands of dollars on the Lionel products that I do have. All of the items worked right out of the box with out any problem, and also still work. I even have a CW 80 that works just fine, although it is only used for accessories now. I run TMCC only at the present time. I am really hooked on cruise control so I am staying away from conventional stuff. As far as I am concerned the quality is just great on the items that I have bought.