Lionel Milwaukee Road Passenger cars Now W/Video

Very nice.

Good looking set - Thanks for the really nice video Eliot!

Let's hope everyone's issues with these cars are resolved quickly and Lionel is able to get the overseas builders 'on track' with the QC soon. It's truly a shame that an outstanding company like Lionel has to deal with these things at all. The contractors should respect an icon like Lionel and produce items befitting a 114 year old company!

"

Forrest,

I'm surprised at you. This is the famous Legay train.

A Milwaukee favorite  .  .  .  "

oh, well, i am still learning about the MILW, i guess.  thanks for straightening me out. 

PS  agree with your assessment on the S3.  my 267 is my second fav engine.

opened mine tonight. All cars were complete, all screws and details in place. No loose parts in the box. Lighting is the issue with my set. I have the same two cars with lights out as the earlier posters reported. The Baggage car and the full dome flicker and when at rest, may or may not light. The diner and one coach light properly.

There are instructions on how to replace lamps in the car and there is a connector for the light bars. Is that the problem that was referred to as "broken Wires"? . One poster noted lionel replacing broken trucks and a missing C clamp. I am thinking that might cause the flickers and intermittant lighting.  

Interesting that there is a switch to turn lights out. I guess if you are one that might do this when running , having two cars that don't light might not be a problem for a user since you would run the cars dark anyway. Mulling over what to do since not to keen on mailing them back to Lionel. Might try to open the car and check the connectors.

Great video! Anytime a Milwaukee Road passenger consist is featured is a great time! That is a perfect combo, streamlined cars and that sleek looking Northern. 

I picked up my four car set,  one  of them does not light, the other three have some flicker, not sure what that is due to.  There are no loose parts.  I will call lionel on Monday and check to see if I should send them all back or just the one car.   they are a beautiful set. 

This is my first post to this forum, so hello everybody.  I found this forum while Googling for a solution to my problem with these Milwaukee cars, which is the same as some of you are having --- I got the 2-car and 4-car set, and have so far unpacked two cars and NEITHER will light up at all.  I'm sort of glad that I'm apparently not the only one with this problem... will contact Lionel on Monday to see what to do.

Welcome to the Forum.  Lionel may ask you if there is Authorized Service Station near you and suggest taking it to them.  They asked me that when I called them about my cars.  I told them I would like to send it to them to have it repaired.  With the repairs I have had done in past including these cars, they usually have it turned around in couple of weeks.  Their services is good so I prefer to send it to them over using a local dealer. 

Ken

Took another look at these this morning. One coach car which did not light previously is now lighting properly. The only thing I did was to exercise the Lights on/off switch on the bottom of the car, switching it back and forth about ten times.

Unfortunately , the same technique did not restore the lighting in the observation. I took a look in the car today , seperated the connector and reconnected it but did not help. The light bar seems stuck in the car so any further interior work will require disassembly of the car. Think I will call Lionel with this one.

Still have Flickers in Baggage car and Full dome. The full dome is not as bad as the baggage car.Thinking this has to be related to the ground rail connection through the trucks. Pickups seem ok but will look some more.

Thanks for the video. They are truly spectacular: a great train.

I now have two cars with no lights.

Gee whiz, after all that waiting time.

Scrappy

We'll probably never get the full story, as I think the importers don't like us to know what really goes on overseas.  But it's clear Lionel has had problems getting new aluminum passenger cars made -- given the noticeable lapse in time between delivery of these cars and prior scale passenger sets (i.e., Canadian Pacific, Santa Fe, etc...).  

Now that they've found a new supplier/manufacturer, it sure seems by the comments on this thread by several posters that quality will be a huge concern with these cars.  There's a clear pattern here.  And they've got another 6+ aluminum sets due for delivery in the next several months!  Not very promising.  

David

I'm a bit worried about what I read here and elsewhere but reconciled to whatever happens.   I've got two four-car sets coming in the next six months, I you believe the shipping schedule: UP City of LA and Milwaukee Olympian, and 

Scher: probably easier to take the things apart and fix whatever is wrong than ship them back.  I've taken apart lots of MTH and Lionel cars and added LED lighting, etc., and more detailed interiors, and it seems preferable to fix it right myself rather than send it back to a manufacturer probably overwhelmed with quality problems they are trying to sort out.  This just has to be something rather simple to fix because there is nothing complicated in a passenger car.

Lee,

You're right about the fix.

Probably a loose wire/connection.

I hope that I won't find defective/corroded contacts.

Eliot

At last, I have been able to extract my coaches from the claws of the customs and postal services. 

I was a little concerned as I unpacked them today, as the outer carton contained several dents and scrapes from its journeys. But most worrying were 2 deep looking punctures. 

So with some trepidation I unpacked the master box from the outer carton. The punctures continued through the underside of the master box. Still, I carried on, and removed each coach individually, unpacked, examined and tested it as I went.

By some small miracle, the punctures managed to avoid damaging any of the coaches, and passed between two of the boxes in the package. Phew!

Every coach is perfect, and has perfect paintwork with no loose or missing parts. The observation coach is a thing of great beauty indeed. All of the lighting is working, although there are a couple of flickers. I'll check the ground connections over the next few days, as I found this to be the cause of the flickering on my full dome coach.

With my F7A-A locomotives pulling them, these 6 coaches look absolutely fantastic, and they are well worth the wait.

Nicole

I am glad you got a good set of cars without some of the problems that many of us have encountered.  Unfortunately, they were not handled with most care when shipped to you, but at least they were not damaged.   I enjoy running mine a lot with my S-3.  If you get chance, post some pictures of them with your F7A-A.

Ken

I called Lionel service on Monday,  I was a able to talk to a service tech, he said that he had not seen any of the cars to service yet, and said that I should send it in.    I may take it back to Eastside Trains for them to look at it.  Since their tech person has yet to see one, they don't know if its something that they can easily repair. I did learn that some of the flicker may be due to the pick-up having a rust prevent oil of some type on them, so clear your rollers.  My flickers have gone away on the three cars.

I am going to try moving the switch a few more times to see if that does anything.

Thanks for the update from Lionel. I will clean the rollers on the two cars that have flicker and see if that helps. Rust and corrosion may likely be a factor, especially if these cars were in the factory and subject to dampness  for a long time. After exercising the on/off switch for the lights on the bottom of one car that did not light initially, the car now lights up.Perhaps the contacts in the switch have corrosion on them and the wiping action resulting from moving the switch back and forth has cleaned the corrosion and thus the car now lights. 

I have not been able to get my observation to light even after working the switch. The drumhead on the tail lights so we know that the car is picking up. I had the car end off and remade the connection to the light bar but that had no effect. I was not able to get the light bar out of the car as the manual shows. it seems caught in the car roof so I could not examine it,I will call Lionel to see if they have some suggestions on how to do this.

When I was at the Lionel sale in Concord, there was a two pack set on the "as is" table. I was told that all the "as is" items had been run through service and were thought to be working properly. Would think that a service tech would have seen these cars.

Dave

3 of my cars were at Lionel in Ohio for repair back in October.  Maybe the tech you talked to did not work on mine. 

LIRR Steamer

My observation car had the same problem as yours.  The back light worked, but the interior lights never came on.  The wires on my car were broke and replaced by Lionel. 

Ken

Hi Ken,

 I am sure you are correct that I did not talk to the tech that serviced your cars.  I appreciate your diligence in getting you cars fixed and have Lionel work on them.  I took my Milwaukee Road Coach back to Eastside Trains in Kirkland.  Their tech, Bruk,  was able to get my car repaired in just a few minutes.  As was the case with one of your cars, the grounding wire was not making a good electrical connection with the car frame which gets current through the wheels which touch the outer rails. He basically scuffed up the area where the screw goes and added some LGB conductive grease.

Bruk also reminded me to oil the wheel axles, to help the car run smooth, which may help with the conductivity.

I have added a few pictures that I took at Eastside Trains' service desk, with the car's body off. Wow, what great detail.    

I think if the lights go off on my other cars, I will try this easy fix first.

I hope this helps.

Dave 

I received my set as a Christmas Gift.  The cars are beautiful but I had the same technical problems with the lighting that others have posted about. The issue on mine was bad connectivity in the trucks.I think the root of the problem is that the parts were painted separately and then assembled.The lower frame of the truck that the wheels are attached to does not have a solid connection to the upper part.  As a result, most of the lights either blink a lot or don't come on at all. I found the best way to resolve this is to scratch the paint off under the 8 springs in each truck on both the top and bottom. I used and Exacto knife. All my cars are working fine now - no blinks. 

However, I do have one question for those of you who have the 2 pack add-on. My dinning car has interior details with tables and figures in about have the car. The other section is "raw" - just the 4 posts for the screws on the underside.  Is this correct? 

Eliot,

The video really is very nice. Thanks for posting.

Don

My dinning car is the same way.  I questioned this too when I got mine.   I believe the section that is "raw" is meant for station sounds components.  I think Lionel used the same tooling from previous station sounds dinning cars for this car.  To me it does not look right to have an empty space.  

Ken