Lionel in the MPC Era Decoupling cars

Under the heading, When cost cutting gets ridiculous. Lionel removed the thumbtack to save a few pennies. And the cost probably wasn’t the material cost but the labor to install the tack. Seems like Lionel made a special track section for these. If possible, I’d install a tack (is there hole present to insert the nail) or install a new truck complete with metal thumb tack

Steve

The plastic dangling thumbtack should  have an actual metal thumbtack installed.

The part is 9150-58 or 610-9150-058. They come in bare metal and black finishes.

I thought I’ve seen a thumbtack with a metal strip on it. I don’t recall if it was Lionel or some other manufacturer that had it.

Steve

Or the other possibility that Curtis might be referring to (his description is not clear) is that one truck set has an OPERATING thumbtack coupler and the other truck is a dummy truck with a NON-OPERATING molded closed coupler. Lionel MPC did this for some of the lower cost starter sets.

But to be fair, the original Lionel Corporation during the late 1950's and beyond was also doing the very same thing on lower cost rolling stock: One operating coupler truck and one dummy coupler truck. Some cars were made with non-operating dummy coupler trucks on BOTH sides. The original Lionel Corporation also made costing cutting measures on other products like the plastic bodied Scout locomotives and the single axle drive Alco FA's.

Also to catch up with the times, EVERYTHING is made with plastic now. EVERYTHING. The quality of the plastic composition can be the fly in the ointment. But the same is true with metal: There have been lots of threads here in recent years about metal with zinc rot.

As far as the word "junk" goes, that gets tossed around here on this forum with abandon and I will take issue with it. I've been buying Lionel and K-Line starter sorts of products for over 30 years and don't have nearly the problems or out-of-the-box defects that many others do who are buying high end, scale train products. Everything I've ever bought from Lionel or K-Line still works and runs to this day. And much of it is made with more plastic.

And when I do buy something that was originally manufactured with cost cuts in mind, I know I can easily fix and improve it: That's just a reality I live with for buying less costly trains. For example, Lionel during the MPC years went to a plastic snap rivet instead of the punched metal one for attaching trucks to the train car body. I don't complain: They're easy to remove and then replace with something better. Which also means I can replace the dummy truck coupler with an operating one.

BUT if you're not happy with Lionel, buy MTH products then. That's simple enough.

But then don't complain about Lionel no longer being made in the US like the older Lionel, because MTH trains were NEVER made in the US and were made overseas from the get go. I know you made no mention of that specifically, but it does seem to be a common complaint among those who like older Lionel trains. 

The plastic thumb-tack is there to function with the "manu-matic uncoupler" sold in some 1970s starter sets.  It was a molded plastic lever that fit under the track.  A button outside the rails caused a pair of arms between the rails to raise, and grab the thumbtack as the train went by.

My experience with operating couplers in 3-rail O is mixed.  Early MPC was actually pretty good, but operating characteristics got worse by the 1980s.  When other manufacturers got involved, their couplers had different geometries and aren't really inter-operable (except that you can engage them by hand if the knuckles are closed.)  MTH and Weaver often open on their own, so I give them the black hair band treatment.  Many don't uncouple reliably with the electromagnet (not enough downward travel in the arm for the pin to release the knuckle.)  Very few of them will couple hands-free without "slamming" the cars together.    Lionel made a few in the early 2000s that operated well, but you had to push the thumb-tab in toward the center of the car, and it was hard to reach.

Yes, it's frustrating.  Sometimes I think early Postwar was better in this regard!

@RideTheRails posted:

I thought I’ve seen a thumbtack with a metal strip on it. I don’t recall if it was Lionel or some other manufacturer that had it.

MPC very early production - 1970-71.

@bmoran4 posted:

The plastic dangling thumbtack should  have an actual metal thumbtack installed.

The part is 9150-58 or 610-9150-058. They come in bare metal and black finishes.

 

This would require drilling pilot holes for the thumbtack. Hmm, I am thinking for the price of the car and tack and all the work involved it would be cheaper to get better cars with the thumbtack installed. LOL But I appreciate you taking time to show me.

Curtis

@brianel_k-lineguy posted:

Or the other possibility that Curtis might be referring to (his description is not clear) is that one truck set has an OPERATING thumbtack coupler and the other truck is a dummy truck with a NON-OPERATING molded closed coupler. Lionel MPC did this for some of the lower cost starter sets.

But to be fair, the original Lionel Corporation during the late 1950's and beyond was also doing the very same thing on lower cost rolling stock: One operating coupler truck and one dummy coupler truck. Some cars were made with non-operating dummy coupler trucks on BOTH sides. The original Lionel Corporation also made costing cutting measures on other products like the plastic bodied Scout locomotives and the single axle drive Alco FA's.

Also to catch up with the times, EVERYTHING is made with plastic now. EVERYTHING. The quality of the plastic composition can be the fly in the ointment. But the same is true with metal: There have been lots of threads here in recent years about metal with zinc rot.

As far as the word "junk" goes, that gets tossed around here on this forum with abandon and I will take issue with it. I've been buying Lionel and K-Line starter sorts of products for over 30 years and don't have nearly the problems or out-of-the-box defects that many others do who are buying high end, scale train products. Everything I've ever bought from Lionel or K-Line still works and runs to this day. And much of it is made with more plastic.

And when I do buy something that was originally manufactured with cost cuts in mind, I know I can easily fix and improve it: That's just a reality I live with for buying less costly trains. For example, Lionel during the MPC years went to a plastic snap rivet instead of the punched metal one for attaching trucks to the train car body. I don't complain: They're easy to remove and then replace with something better. Which also means I can replace the dummy truck coupler with an operating one.

BUT if you're not happy with Lionel, buy MTH products then. That's simple enough.

But then don't complain about Lionel no longer being made in the US like the older Lionel, because MTH trains were NEVER made in the US and were made overseas from the get go. I know you made no mention of that specifically, but it does seem to be a common complaint among those who like older Lionel trains. 

You are correct in your opening paragraphs about couplers on one end only. As for the word JUNK, I agree with what you say but think of this perspective . You buy something either new back then or used now, and you buy it for a 5 or 6 year old because when he is playing with your trains and is fully engrossed. You buy the set. Now after 2 minutes of trains falling off the track due to the cheapness, weight, and yes I KNOW the speed (remember he was running yours so he thinks it should operate the same), he is so dissatisfied he abandons it and moves on. WHERE is the play factor? Where is the PURPOSE of trying to get enacted with the train?  I thought they were or are making these things so they could not only have fun but want to buy more? Am I missing something from either the consumer or manufacturers point of view?

You say go buy MTH. Really? That is not the point. Yes I own a ton of MTH and LIONEL! My point is it was purchased to get him and then KEEP him in the hobby. Young parents can not afford Lionel at their prices or MTH so they buy used. I bought used and never thought about this problem because when I was young and with Lionel it was not there.

I am only asking is this the norm? Is there a piece of track to buy which corrects this? I thought the uncoupler track I bought would work I did not even think to flip the cars over to see if there was metal on the bottom of the thumb tack. NOTE: The track question was answered and I thank the person who explained it very much.

BUT the BIGGEST question is HOW just how is a child to stay interested and buy more and enjoy trains like WE do if they are subject to this.

We are here as ambassadors (Barry Brokowitz always said this) to promote the hobby because WE LOVE TRAINS at least I know do. They relax me, I meet great people on forums like you and the many others who take the time to try and help. And I guess you can even say it makes me feel like I belong to a big family that has a lot of different personalities but regardless care about each other and will go down like Casey Jones trying to help or save me!

Thank you and I really mean that.

Curtis

I had a ton of Modern Lionel Cars,  Because Lionel was a new fledgling company back in 1970s, they (the designers) tried to cheapen everything, so they made the entire freight car truck out of plastic.  It is very Dangerous to put a metal thumbtack in and use them as coupler armatures.  How dangerous is that?  Well, what if Daddy is playing with his Modern Lionel Trains and his 2 or 3 year old son picks up one of his cars and decides to stick it in his mouth and chew on it.  Everything goes into the mouth of a very young child.  One of the answers to this problem is to take out the thumbtack, roughen the stem with a file and use a dab of super glue gel on this shaft and put it back into the coupler.  The glue will instantly set up and makes the thumb tack very difficult to pull out of the armature socket.   Also, when the thumb tack is held in that way, the electro-magnet of the Uncoupler will not be able to pull the thumb tack out which happened many times with this  arrangement. 

Also, Lionel used plastic wheels on many of the introductory set cars because when your youngster derails a car, plastic does not short out on the track.  When I saw that, I thought Lionel was going to use American Flyer Trucks on there cars. 

And then we have the coupler knuckle that Lionel altered to have a piece of memory plastic as the spring.  There first memory plastic was very poor and eventually if you let the coupler set in a closed position for storage, the plastic spring would break and the coupler would not pop open on an electro-magnet coupler track.  A simple fix to this problem...Gently remove the knuckle rivet.  They usually have some play in them.  Take a pliers and gently squeeze the bottom of the rivet (do it until the rivet looks round).  Pull the rivet out and the knuckle will fall out too.  Clip off the obnoxious plastic spring on the knuckle. Take a flat file and gently file down the top part of the knuckle shaft.  You are making a little space to allow a replacement metal spring to be inserted into the coupler.  Buy yourself about 10 of those springs from a parts dealer.  (Warning:  these springs are very delicate and do not drop them on the floor or you will be upset trying to find them).  It is best to take apart a post-war coupler and check out how Lionel put those springs in.   I have converted many of my plastic spring coupler trucks by using these springs and they work perfectly.  Remember! You are putting a metal spring into a plastic truck and if you have a derailment, there is no way the electricity can get to that spring.  Have you ever bought a post-war Lionel car with an all metal truck?  And the spring does not work!  That's because if your train had a derailment, especially with a car or two, most people are lazy and do not shut off the power but try to shake the train and get the engine to pull train to you.  Shut the power off and walk to the train and rerail it.  That little spring dissolves from an electric short circuit in about 4 seconds.  That's what is nice about the new "fast" acting short circuit detector in Modern Day Electric Train Transformers.  MTH Z-4000 Transformer shuts off the power immediately when a short circuit is detected.  

It took Lionel many years before they figured out how to use metal springs in there knuckle couplers.

One thing great about MTH, he cashed in on the mistakes that Lionel made, and all of his trucks on his cars have metal springs in the knuckles.

Another problem came with the fast-angle metal shaft of the car truck (especially the earliest Aluminum Passenger Cars).  When the first AL Passenger Cars came out, there was no bearings of any kind  in the truck side frames.  That pointed shaft works as a pencil being sharpened in a pencil sharpener.   I had a friend who had the very first Aluminum UP Passenger Cars.  One day, he picked up one of his cars and the wheel sets fell out.  The truck side frames were die-cast metal and the pointed tip of the axle ground it away.  Answer to this problem was that Lionel started putting into each side frame of there passenger trucks, a hard plastic bushing.  That was OK, but a plastic bushing insulates the outside wheels from the metal truck and Lionel had an outside wheel problem.  This caused the lights in the car to flicker or turn off.  Answer to this problem was to use bronze bushings in the Passenger Trucks which are used today.  We learn by our mistakes. 

If you noticed, the fast-angle wheel is disappearing on the car trucks (but not the needle point axles).  It has been proven that the fast-angle wheel does not do anything for ride qualities of a freight car, in fact, fast- angle wheels cause engine pilot trucks to skate back and forth -- example is the early GG1 front pilot truck.  Lionel changed those to the original post-war trucks with flat wheels rolling around the axle.   

One other thing......the first metal in the 1970s freight car truck was a square piece of steel that usually had rust on it.  The next thumbtack design, was a round flat piece of steel that was held in very well.  And then came the thumbtack--not a good idea.  I am not sure what they are using in today's introductory cars?

Hope this is helpful--sincerely yours--the railbear601

Just a side note on "plastics" or polymer type materials: Like everything else in life, there are varying grades of these products. The famously durable German made LGB trains were made with a VERY high grade BASF polymer known as Luran S, while their track ties used another tough polymer called Vestilene. Definitely not your granddad's "plastics" and nothing like the lesser quality materials used by both Lionel and MTH. In all fairness, LGB were designed to be used as outdoor trains, which had to stand up to punishing UV radiation and extreme temperature variations as well as rain and snow. Even their paints were Mercedes quality!

@brianel_k-lineguy posted:

Or the other possibility that Curtis might be referring to (his description is not clear) is that one truck set has an OPERATING thumbtack coupler and the other truck is a dummy truck with a NON-OPERATING molded closed coupler. Lionel MPC did this for some of the lower cost starter sets.

But to be fair, the original Lionel Corporation during the late 1950's and beyond was also doing the very same thing on lower cost rolling stock: One operating coupler truck and one dummy coupler truck. Some cars were made with non-operating dummy coupler trucks on BOTH sides. The original Lionel Corporation also made costing cutting measures on other products like the plastic bodied Scout locomotives and the single axle drive Alco FA's.

Also to catch up with the times, EVERYTHING is made with plastic now. EVERYTHING. The quality of the plastic composition can be the fly in the ointment. But the same is true with metal: There have been lots of threads here in recent years about metal with zinc rot.

As far as the word "junk" goes, that gets tossed around here on this forum with abandon and I will take issue with it. I've been buying Lionel and K-Line starter sorts of products for over 30 years and don't have nearly the problems or out-of-the-box defects that many others do who are buying high end, scale train products. Everything I've ever bought from Lionel or K-Line still works and runs to this day. And much of it is made with more plastic.

And when I do buy something that was originally manufactured with cost cuts in mind, I know I can easily fix and improve it: That's just a reality I live with for buying less costly trains. For example, Lionel during the MPC years went to a plastic snap rivet instead of the punched metal one for attaching trucks to the train car body. I don't complain: They're easy to remove and then replace with something better. Which also means I can replace the dummy truck coupler with an operating one.

BUT if you're not happy with Lionel, buy MTH products then. That's simple enough.

But then don't complain about Lionel no longer being made in the US like the older Lionel, because MTH trains were NEVER made in the US and were made overseas from the get go. I know you made no mention of that specifically, but it does seem to be a common complaint among those who like older Lionel trains. 

Yes, starter sets have always had the occasional problem here and there, but considering the large production runs (usually) they have been bullet-proof overall.

Obviously, today’s more expensive trains have many more features than the basic ones do, and so naturally there is simply more to go wrong. As model trains become more and more feature-rich, and those almost always of the hi-tech type, one can expect to see more problems arise with operation. 

Just taking some of the highly-detailed items out of their boxes can be a vexing challenge. I can’t be the only one who has broken off some fragile under-frame part that I didn’t even know was there when I opened a brand new Lionel box for the first time.

I, too, have starter sets from many decades ago that run like champs all these years later. An occasional spot of oil or grease where appropriate is usually all that’s needed to keep them running well.