Hey model railroaders, my model railroad supplier has been in contact with me regarding the new Lionel up verandah, he says that it doesn’t work properly and that my order for that is cancelled.
He tells me that several other dealers are also having problems with this loco, it’s ok to cancel my order, I wouldn’t want to be sent something that doesn’t work, so has anybody out there had any feedback about this as well.
I also believe that there are some problems with the Lionel challenger, Lionel crew stop rushing to get these things out into the market before they are fully operational, nobody likes inferior products and what makes it worse is that these items are expensive compared to the likes of Kato and Athearn!!
I hope you are wrong because mine should be in the mail to europe since last monday, and I have still another few weeks ( 2 - 6 ) to wait before it arrives,
and I can check it out.
Do you have any info on what the problem is / was?
[censored] I thought Lionel stood for good old American Craftsmanship. . . .
[xx(] at least it has the somewhat right color for a $400,= lemon [xx(]
Have you e-mailed Lionel and asked them what are the specific problems? Try it; and share their response with us. [:p][;)]
It stands to reason that Lionel is making efforts to correct reported problems. [4:-)]Manufacturers know that bad news about new products tends to travel fast! [B)]
I don’t know the specifics of the problem yet but when I do I will let you know, I ordered it from Tony’s train exchange and they ran me saying that the first one they got for me don’t work properly and they sent it back to the distributor, they got a second one and apparently it still didn’t work so they said they would cancel my order for the verandah, I mean it look a beautiful loco but if it doesn’t work what’s the point!
There’s always the possibility that the Quick Start Quide may not have
been in the box.
There’s a written procedure to follow to fire this baby up.
Wonder if it was included in Tony’s order???
Mine seems fine other than having a broken rear coupler on the engine. A Kadee #5 replaced it perfectly. Sounds are good and the power up sequence from diesel to turbine is controlled by the #7 button on your DCC controller. As mentioned above, speed is limited to 25 smph while in diesel mode. I think it’s a good locomotive. Slow speed is great but there is a rather abrupt speed jump when advancing the throttle. I haven’t tried resetting any CV’s except the ID# yet, so maybe that can be eliminated. The problem may be due to my Zepher not being on Lionel’s list of recommended DCC controllers.
thanks ! [tup]
but please keep in touch, those who have 'ïnside" information on any problems! or where to give special attention to when first firing up the engine!
I hope my veranda comes over in good shape and working order, because sending back and forth faulty locomotives from europe to the us is expensive and time consuming, and I allready spend a big part of my 2004 budget by ordering it.
Wait for the MR review. It will say great new loco and praise anything they can find positive with no mention of anything negative and you should buy five or six of them.
IMHO
I think there is not going to be a complete review, in the may issue there was a small piece where was mentionned that is is available.
some members concluded some time ago that no review at all can mean that there could be something 'fishy"about that model
It’s a shame that the reviews don’t serve the customers. Way back when Al Kalmbach ran the show items were purchased from hobby shops to insure objectivity. Times have changed and now it serves the manufaturuers who send in hand picked samples.
Just got some info from Tony’s about the problem and he says that they tested it and it went aound the track once and stopped, apparently not all the trucks are powered and that could have been the problem and for such a heavy loco you would think that all the trucks would be powered.
It’s was also mentioned that another dealer had about twenty of them and half didn’t work, not very good for such an expensive item…agree??
They just don’t want to deal with a bad product!!