I thought I had solved the issue on my late run NKP Berkshire, but when I went today at club, she kept locking up the side rods with the 2nd from the front driver axle looking to be the culprit. So I take the cover plate off once I get home and 2 of the four main driver axles are cracked all the way accross, the 2nd from the front and the last driver pair. The 2nd axle wont even hold quarter, both sides just spin on the plastic center axle shaft. The rear pair is holding for now. [Comment removed.] The axle set up is much like a diesel, but the metal part on each wheel is splined to hold quarting once pressed into the plastic axle center. I have already emailed a terse email to Walthers requesting replacment parts on their dime. Beautifull engine, but not to impressed with the quality control. These problems should happen on expensive models, or any model for that matter. If you have any of the Walthers era 2-8-4 Berkshire type engines, I would pull the bottom cover plate and check your axles for cracking or splitting. If this happens under load at a decent speed, I fear the side rods might have issues as well. The geared axle (lead axle) on my berk is ok, its the non geared that are splitting. Once again we will see how well Walthers stands behind thier product, I refuse to pay for these parts as this is clearly a manufacutring defect right from the factory in China. Walthers can cover them this time, even if I have to talk to Mr Walthers himself. Enough is enough. Ok, done ranting.
Why are you blaming China? I have had split gears from locomotives made in Japan and Korea. It’s probably poor design that makes the holding cylinder walls too thin for the size of the axle. That coupled with poor quality control (ie maybe lower quality plastic or lack of review by the importer to see that it meets design spec) results in split axles. Could happen from any country and manufacture.
Hopefully Walthers will stand by it and provide replacements. But more importantly I wish that companies would learn from all this that proper design to start with and use of appropriate material would reduce this issue as it is happening way too often and they just don’t seem to learn. And that turns people off from their products.
Its a fairly thick wall, so its not a thickness issue. I believe it was the owner of NWSL that said it has to do with the parts, ie axle gears and axle tubes being injection molded instead of hobbed and machined. Combined with shrinkage issue with a metal shaft inside that doest shrink. And I can blame the Chinese, they are great at coping everybody, right down to the splitting axle gears. One would think we all could learn from the mistakes of previous compaines. I dont know how many Alco model brass diesels I have put new NWSL gears in to deal with split axle gears, and most of those are pushing 30+ years in age. What its called is business and the almighty doller. Do it the cheapest way possible to maximize profits. They know darn well this is going to happen, its a risk they take to make more $$ at our expense. Hopefully they will stand behind thier product and send me 2 new axles free of charge. I could fix the old ones, I would need to buy the quarting tool from NWSL (which I really should do anyway) and epoxy the wheel sets back into the axle and quarter the drivers before the epoxy sets up. Once dry it shouldnt happen again. The rear driver set is cracked but hasnt slipped out of quarter yet, I filled the axle crack with ACC, maybe it will lock it in place for now. I put the spare traction tire wheel set in the #2 axle position for a temporary fix and to make sure that the bad axle is the only problem. The local hobby shop has quit carring the Proto line as they had several diesels that needed parts, newer run diesels and not axle gear issues and were told that Walthers didnt have any parts for them. Whats the purpose of a lifetime warrenty if there are no parts? Kind of makes the warrenty not worth the paper its printed on. Walthers didnt have a good response to that. Karma has a way of coming back and biting one in the arse. Keep making an inferior product, and e
The people of China aren’t producing their own line of model trains with the intent to rip you off, they are merely making and assembling American designed products with whatever cheap materials they are provided. So the one who takes the blame here is Walthers, not China, get your presumptions straight.
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Walthers is replacing both sets of drivers free of charge, took a bit of discussion between myself, the parts dept mgr and his boss. But all is well and she will be running again in a couple weeks when the parts arrive. Mike
Good! [8D] I hope they didn’t charge you, either…unless their warranty for that model is less than what other companies offer, or has outright expired.
I have found Walthers to be good that way. I needed to swap in a set of steel tired drivers on an SW8 that had one traction pair and could not cross my insulated frogs. They talked to me about some other ideas to improve performance in that model, and also said they’d ship me a metal treaded axle right away. Good to know you will have that mighty fine steamer with a roaring fire and creaking and hissing in a couple of weeks.
-Crandell
Good, I’m sure they would have fixed your problem. If I was you though I would have tried to resolve the problem before I went on a very public forum and bad mouthed a very good company that produces very good products. That’s just me though.[:X]
I personaly wouldn’t call a constant problem of splitting axle and axle gears quality products, but thats just me. I am happy they are replacing the parts, I will spend my train money on other brands that have proved to have better quality over the years. Cheers Mike