I'm Considering buying a LCT engine or two with the traditional motors. How is the quality of the recent motors? Are they as good as MTH Tinplate Traditions? Im looking at the American Flyer 4696 and the Lionel 1835e.
Thanks,
Sunrise
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Craig
Sorry I never got back to you. Just plain forgot. My Flyer Piper gets better every time I run it. Seems to have needed a lot of break in time. My 1835 has been nice right out of the box, once oiled etc. I do not care for the push-pull activation on the Flyer reverse units. They like to pop out of position a lot. I never use the reverse, so someday I'll zip tie it in forward and leave it. When the layout is done, I'll try and run it more being as I will have an extra loop. On my O gauge, I haves a Blue Streak, a Flying Yankee, the Lake Shore Ltd, a green City of Denver and a Red Comet that are traditional. All have been fine except the Red Comet. Early self destruct on the commutator and they had no parts for it. Became a paper weight for a year or so until I sent it off to Dennis Waldren for repair. He rummaged through a lot of old original commutators until he found one that would work. Been fine ever since.
Steve
Sunrise,
My personal opinion based soley on personal experience is that neither the LCT or the MTH Tinplate Traditions traditional open frame motors of today are completely reliable. I have purchased several Standard gauge and O gauge tinplate engines from both MTH Tinplate Traditions as well as LCT using the theory that less could go wrong with the old style traditional motors. I was sadly disappointed because several went back for warranty repairs on more than one occasion. My biggest headache has been an MTH 381E which I am ready to blow up with a stick of dynamite. There is a belief shared by some that today's workers just do not have the knowledge or the expertise to properly construct an open frame motor. I think I would have to agree with that assessment. Conversely, there has been so much emphasis on the production of the modern motors since so much more of them are currently sold that they are much more reliably manufactured. Again, I think I would have to agree. While I'm not exactly batting .1000 with the modern technology I'm having better luck with them than the traditional motor. Good luck with whatever path you choose to follow.
