How Common is Zinc Pest in Trains

I recently bought a FT b unit off ebay that had the zinc pest. One of the trucks side frames was broken and I could crumble the others in my hand. This pc was made in 2011.

I am surprised and a wee bit worried about what might fail. My only experience other than with prewar was with a Post War 682. I offered to clean it up for a friend. It was his Dads' and he wanted to surprise him. Needless to say the minute I stated to take off the chassis it just crumbled! I was able to get an original replacement from Olsens.

This is the first I've ever heard of a postwar die cast metal steam engine body having zinc rot. As far as I know, the postwar items that are prone to zinc rot are primarily transformer control shafts.

Even with Prewar Lionel, there are specific die cast metal items that are known to suffer zinc rot.
I never heard of problems with engines like the 224, 225, 226, and the other locos that share those basic castings.
On the other hand, lamp posts, signal bases, Commodore Vanderbilt cabs, and older wheels are prone to problems.
There can be 700E / 763 issues, but I am not really up on them.

Some of my postwar trains date back to 1945. No problems there. Only victim thus far is an MTH covered hopper. The car is fine but the couplers are crumbling away.  All of the rest of my modern trains are otherwise fine. Guess I've been lucky.

Because I service/repair I may see more than most.  KLine diesel wheels frequently show up falling apart.  Modern Electrocouplers also.  Two Postwar Turbine frames bowed/cracked.  Diecast Lionel whistles bowed.  And of course PreWar drive wheels, Chicago Flyer pony wheels and die cast accessories, to name a few.

I have a few prewar American Flyer 3 rail locomotives that have bad pilot wheels... but they are easy to find replacements.

Common? maybe not, but I have seen a few Atlas cars that the knuckle couplers that have disintegrated. 

Zinc Pest is more common than it should be, and can be seen across the board in all scales in the model train world. My own first piece to succumb to Zinc Pest was back when I was a kid in the fifties, when my relatively new HO scale Hobbyline FM switcher's trucks and frame crumbled and fell apart. In the subsequent years, I have seen many Varney, Revell, Lindbergh, Tyco, Penn Line, Rivarossi, Aristo, Marklin, and other imports fall apart from the problem. Mantua, Athearn, and Bowser have had it too, though they seem to be slightly less common. Even some of the high priced brass imports have had the problem with some of their cast components, usually trucks and frames. I have had N scale trains from AHM, Rivarossi, and Atlas (China) suffer the problem, some as recently as the last year or two, when a brand new, never run DCC-ready N scale SD35 frame warped and expanded enough to destroy every component of it's plastic shell except the headlight lenses. Since then, I have seen a similar problem in another loco in my collection, as well as in one still in the box on a dealer's shelf. The many problems in O scale have been well documented on this group.

One would think that considering how long this has been going on, both the cause and a cure should have been figured out (and implemented) by now...

Bill in FtL

One would think that considering how log this has been going on, both the cause and a cure should have been figured out by now...

The causes of zinc rot seem to be well known.
The folks supplying the raw materials and the folks doing the casting need to have good quality control and care about what they are doing.

SJC posted:

Will zinc pest take years to "form"? 

I think it depends on the amount of impurity in the molten metal when it was cast.  I have a Lionel 261E (1935 vintage) that kind of wobbled down the track and was very noisy (gear noise).  I took it to Henning’s.  They fixed the wobble, but Harry said the gear noise was due to zincpest.  The gear is integral to the wheel in this unit.  Harry said they could make a new gear and install a new wheel, but I opted to keep it as is (noise and all) and see if it will last another 80 years before it fails.

Lehigh74 posted:

SJC posted:

Will zinc pest take years to "form"? 

I think it depends on the amount of impurity in the molten metal when it was cast.  I have a Lionel 261E (1935 vintage) that kind of wobbled down the track and was very noisy (gear noise).  I took it to Henning’s.  They fixed the wobble, but Harry said the gear noise was due to zincpest.  The gear is integral to the wheel in this unit.  Harry said they could make a new gear and install a new wheel, but I opted to keep it as is (noise and all) and see if it will last another 80 years before it fails.

Interesting reading here. Thanks all for the replies. 

Also interesting to read this post about the 80 year old gear. I was under the impression that zinc pest will form rather quickly, given the chance. I sold a great majority of my stuff a few years ago (and have since replaced). All O gauge items that I've had for the past 13 years I've been back in O Gauge show no signs of issues. All have been in the same house/basement. That AHM HO loco in my original post has been here the same as the O Gauge stuff but was in other house prior. That HO loco and the Williams trolley are my only two "candidates" - hope it stays that way! 

 

One would think that considering how long this has been going on, both the cause and a cure should have been figured out (and implemented) by now...

But when your supplier(s) are half-a-world away, not under your control, don't even speak the same common language, don't operate under the same regulations/standards as the last supplier of that material/part, here today/gone tomorrow, subject to frequent changes of labor/skills/training, etc., etc., blah, blah...........of what value are old.......REALLY old.....lessons learned but not passed on to new sources???   

Rhetorical, I know.

Hey, think of it as a touch of Pre-war 'authenticity'!!  I mean, it's like living the dream to have your brand new re-creation of, say, a Lionel 1835W tender emerge from its fancy new simulated 1930's packaging bearing all the hallmarks of.....(drum roll, please!)....Zinc Pest!!!...

Lionel's scourge of the age...the iconic toy maker's metallurgical enigma/nightmare of the 1930's.  And, according to Dad, it only took as long as one year for this contortion to matriculate.....and be subsequently made good with a full replacement by JLC's American All-Star Team.

Nice, eh?

Authenticity......it comes in a variety of forms nowadays.  Some good.  Some not so good.

“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”.....George Santayana 

KD

From my own collection, I recently lost the power truck casting of a postwar 2321 FM trainmaster to zinc pest. The casting kept expanding until the distance between drive axles increased to such an extent that the gears didn't engage.Then the whole thing crumbled. It scared me to see one of my postwar locos fall apart like that, because I have to wonder what's next.  As a repair tech for my LHS, I see zinc pest often. In particular, I have seen a number of Lionel modern era scout type locos with drive wheels that disintegrated.

I had some HO Varney box cars that I truly valued.  The floors expanded and caused some damage to the steel sides.  I had Bob Stevenson, of Stevenson Preservation Models, cast some in lifetime brass.  They are ever so slightly undersize, but they work!

I have a 1939 Lionel 763 with absolutely no sign of corrosion.

SIC, 

Our trains can suffer zinc pest but it's the exception. I had one pair of trucks on a tank car crumble. 

I replaced them and used the crumbled ones as part of a junk metal gondola load. 

That's my only experience with zinc pest  in the hobby of over 50 years. 

Steve

I've had four or five Atlas O Steam Era 40' Boxcars with crumbling bolsters. The trucks fell right off.........

I opened an MTH R12 subway set that I had bought new a few years back  * trucks fell apart and all were because of zinc pest

I have read references to pickling die cast zinc based alloys before painting.  Is this a real thing?

I have read references to pickling die cast zinc based alloys before painting.  Is this a real thing?

When I was painting a brief dip in household vinegar, followed by a very careful rinsing was done before painting. It was important not to touch any surface with bare skin, which would leave skin oil, and to make certain the piece was completely dry before painting.
As far as I can tell, doing this has not negatively affected the integrity of the castings.

One time I left a shell soaking in vinegar for a very extended period (weeks). Eventually, the casting did start to decay.

I think the instructions to do a vinegar pickle before painting came from Scalecoat, which was the first paint I used. Back then the paint was solvent based. It's been a long time since I did any painting, I don't even know what is available today.

PAUL ROMANO posted:

I've had four or five Atlas O Steam Era 40' Boxcars with crumbling bolsters. The trucks fell right off.........

5 out of 5 for me.  I wanted more of these cars, but there will not be a number 6 in my house.

I never heard of it until recently, my Atlas covered gondola's trucks disintegrated while running one evening about a month ago. I checked other Atlas rolling stock and some, but not all, have fracture lines in the diecast trucks.

Multiple inquiries to Atlas and still no response. I had been under the impression their products were of quality.

First l saw this was as a kid when l ordered a Mantua HO loco from that once big NY mail order train house.  Boiler was warped, bent up in the middle.  My last order from them.  Otherwise l had thought it was a problem generally of 3 rail pre-war Flyer, and not an epidemic in the industry.  Consider the source?

So, where as I once was worried about the longevity of the electronics ( and the ability to repair or replace them ), now it is mute. I play til they fall apart. I have got to run out to the train room and inspect the engines and cars. Wow, if this hadn't come up what reason would I have used to go to the train room?

Ernie

Paul Kallus posted:

I never heard of it until recently, my Atlas covered gondola's trucks disintegrated while running one evening about a month ago. I checked other Atlas rolling stock and some, but not all, have fracture lines in the diecast trucks.

Multiple inquiries to Atlas and still no response. I had been under the impression their products were of quality.

I am literally afraid to look at my other Atlas O  Steam Era stuff. It may all be junk............

So far only one item has demonstrated this.  Prior to this thread I had no idea what it was.  An MTH spine car set has had both couplers just fall apart.  One day they were working, the next time this set went on the tracks the coupler disintegrated.  Disappointing to be sure.

As far as trains go I have only seen it on some old Hornby OO, knock on wood!

In my experience - factual, but not the same as a general scientific survey of it - it is not common as a percentage of production. I've had little, but some. I do have many pieces of rolling stock that I have never had out of the box, and statistically there has to be some there, but so far, so good, generally. 

====

("Zinc Pest" - sounds like an evil villain's annoying sidekick in a Batman movie.)

My K-Line 6 wheel trucks are falling apart. McCoy, who started in business making replacement parts for prewar Lionel zinc-pest cars is now suffering from the pest on their new parts

Back to the original question, about how common the problem is, just think of all the castings you have that have exhibited no problems.

It's pretty uncommon, but it does tend to run in specific product production -- i.e., trucks sideframes for a particular model produced in the mid 1990s, the body of a particular model made in one year, the frame of a particular locomotive made another year, etc.

Zinc alloy castings as a whole are long lasting, especially if painted and stored in ideal environmental conditions (controlled humidity and moderate temperatures). So don't fixate on the problem, which usually becomes evident within a 20-year time span.

On the other hand, it does help when hobbyists share information on when the problem does arise -- especially when a manufacturer refuses to acknowledge the problem.

I have had one truck on a K-Line K-6491 TTOS (25th anniversary, chrome-plated) boxcar disintegrate in the box. Found and installed a replacement.

Also, a K-8513 Heavy Hauler tractor-trailer (Conrail) whose trailer frame has warped and is now longer than the (plastic) sides. I first noticed when I went to close the trailer doors and found the floor was sticking out past the rear of the trailer. I have yet to inspect any of the trailers on my three TTAX spine car sets.

---PCJ

Didn't the original Lionel Hudson from the late 1930's have Zinc rot, or at least some of them?  I've seen zinc rot in the AtlasO scale couplers they were giving out with 3rail cars many moons ago.  What worries me are my Kline Berkshires which are irreplaceable.  Only time will tell.

It is not that common.  I have not had the problem with any of my O scale trains and I have scale models that date to the 30's that have cast parts.  I found it to be more common in early HO of the 30's, 40's and 50's.  Pennline, Varney, English, Mantua, models in my HO collection have suffered from it.  However, I have found this to be a more common occurrence in more humid climates.  Since I've been in Arizona very few of the trains I have found locally seem to exhibit this issue.  Like a lot of things in life, we hear more about the problems than the successes.

The classic zinc pest problem was probably Dorfan and the late 1920s and early 1930s.  It is very hard to find a Dorfan locomotive that has not suffered from the pest.  As I reported earlier Hornby had problems with its expensive Princess Elizabeth.  It's all a problem of quality control.  Just a very small impurity and the game is over.

lewrail

Wow that zink pest I have seen it all my life. Aways in the standard gauge wheels and other cast parts. Now in the last few years I have seen it more in our postwar trains. Especially in motor trucks like the trainmasters and the GG-1s. It's not a good thing.  We see this with items that come in for repair that are postwar then it make you wonder. What will be. Will this be the next parts we will have to be making in the future like we do with prewar parts. Time will tell.

Will this be the next parts we will have to be making in the future like we do with prewar parts.

Hennings and other folks that manufacture replacement parts are the lifeblood of the hobby.  Even those who are into recent / current product must realize that today's manufacturers & importers are unable to provide parts of any length of time, if at all. It will be up to the replacement parts manufacturers to supply them too.