Anyone hear from Frank Timco?

I just had my Lionel Reading T-1 2100 upgraded by Frank. Sent it January 2nd. Bob

He has done a lot of work for me in the past. He is also doing a PS2 upgrade on an engine right now. He truly does excellent work! Whenever I have work for him, I always ask about his backlog and he always seems like he has a big backlog. I think you can credit that to the excellent work he does. Is he hard to get a hold of? Yes! But, I guess I do not mind waiting for quality work!

Frank has had mine since last August, can we say 10 months. He never answers email or his phone.  All I want is a update, communication really helps. 

 

Never again will I ever use Frank Timko.

While I have seen him in shows, I have never used him, but planned to...When this question came up a month or more ago, I called him and he picked up the phone right

away.  So I stated on here that I got an immedidate answer.  I think since then I saw

him in a show somewhere. 

This is a real danger when your only evidence of someone being reputable is what is said on the internet.  Because my trains all have great sentimental value, I would never ship them to someone I had never met, simply based upon what had been said about them on an internet forum.  

 

Good luck getting the situation resolved satisfactorily.

As I mentioned in my original post he does do great work although the first time he sent me the first engine it didn't work and I had to send it back to him to fix it. I actually talked to him this morning and he said he would try to wrap it up by next week. "We'll see"

Chris, 

 

mine was being wrapped in December, still waiting

I don't believe we should use this forum to broadcast negitive thoughts about anyone.

However if I had a bad business experience with a repair I believe I should present the facts to the forum members to inform them so they are aware. It is understood that my experience may be just one isolated case and should not be used to form a poor opionion of the person.

i sent a Lionel 2100 T-1 for upgrade to Frank first week of January 2013.

the upgrade was new motor, sound system, and smoke unit.

I received the engine first week of April, the chuffing sound and fan on the smoke unit did not work. Returned it to Frank, received it back first of June. Test run, I was extremly happy. Every thing was working properly, unfortunately my happiness lasted only a half hour. The smoke unit fan stopped working, i did all the normal things to try to get it going. Then the smoke unit stopped working. So I now have a engine that I invested over $1000. Between buying it and having it upgraded that does not work. I will not send it back to Frank again, now I'll try to find a local repair place where I can deliver it. 

I am totally frustrated, I always liked the Reading T-1 engines, I finally have one and I would love to see it chugging along with smoke pouring out the stack!

I know this would this would happen. After complaining about the time it takes for frank to get anything done and his lack of communication my engine showed up at my door today. I had the motor changed, ps2 installed with their smoke unit and marker lights front and back. He did a fantastic job, it runs and looks great. it is one of my favorite engines, the C&O scale Hudson, the yellow belly that Lionel made back in 1995. A great looking engine that really needed a upgrade. 

 

My only beef with MR Timko is his lack of communication. He does great work but ten months! 

A 10 month backlog seems excessive and should be communicated to potential customers.

Glad you got it back and are happy with it.  I'm planning on getting some work done by Frank Timko, so I'll make sure I adjust my expectations as to the time required.

Now that's the right attitude to take.

I understand not wanting to turn work away but if he's that backlogged maybe he should get caught up on what he has on the bench before taking on new work.

I put two of Timko's DC motors in my MPC C/NW 8056. I put an ERR Cruise commander board with sound and a TAS smoke Unit. Everything worked well, so i wanted to do the same and run a 3 engine lash up with two C/NW Gp 20s. I called Frank Timko and he said that I would need to send the GP 20 to him because installing the mount for a DC motor would not be the same as the FM. I had two GP 20s converted to DC by Frank. I sent one engine to him and it took a long tome to get it back- months. It was an MPC 8776. When I got the GP back it worked well. I lashed it to the FM and the ran together just great. Speeds, sound, and smoke worked on them both. I then sent the 2nd GP 20. It took 5 months to get the 2nd one back. All three run great, sound great and he has the TAS smoke units working well. I've pulled 62 cars up 4% grades no problem. I figure that it's my hobby, not my livelyhood. I know it's a long time to wait, but my personal view is that if Frank is willing to take your engine, he 's worth waitimg for. You just have to modify your expectations.

Sorry guy's but I don't buy into the modify my expectations " If your paying for a service you should expect it to be done correctly and in a timely fashion.

I agree,6-10 months is ridiculous, I could understand if there was some sort of family emergency but according to this thread this seems pretty standard for him.

I believe, Mr. Timko should either call or e-mail his customers atleast once a month updating them on the staus of their repairs. A simple phone call or e-mail would go along ways in improving his customer service.

Mr. Timko must provide a very desireable service to have a six month or more backlog. Hopefully he is letting customers know about the wait time when they look to purchase his services. Then folks who are unwilling to enter the queue can look elsewhere.

I have run across other "in demand" service professionals with long wait times.

What isn't standard is, there are only a handful of repairmen like him capable of doing any or all of the frustrating type of work we want done to our locos. Frank's knowledge and skill had to be learned over the many years and the types of work we expected of him. And don't forget, he's only human too. So, when Frank decides to pull the plug and retire, who among us are ready to step into his shoes?

 

I do a lot of my own work (fearlessly and foolishly) and have been quite successful, but not on the scale of what he does. It's a sad fact that there's no readily available person to take over his type and style of work. This seems to be the becoming thing in the job industry. And we'll all suffer. Bill