Lionel's New Berkshires Hitless 0 for 3

BTO- Broken to order--what the heck--plastic bushings

on a thousand dollar engine. That is the real question someone should be asking...

This was never a problem when all Lionel engines had to move themselves out of the factory on their own power, that instantly would reveal these problems, to bad modern ways of assembly now let that happen. I hope it is an east fix.

It looks like kadar industries strikes again, in 2010 (or there abouts) they bought the plants MTH and Lionel were using to make trains and shut them down. Unfortunately they own Bachmann and Williams, so I hope every one hear understand why I do not promote their products and just ignore them. They do not play fair, and I don't care what country they are in that is underhanded. So, I vote with my money. Lionel may be owned by a bank, but even bankers buy Lionel. I hold nothing against any one who buys Bachmann or Willaims products, I understand. My favorite HO engines were all made by them, but i learned, and i know most out there don't know about Kadar industries behavior.

Quality control is hard to keep up when you find yourself having to retrain your workforce from scratch in a new plant.

I agree.

As well as introducing its own brands to North America, Kader under the Bachmann brand built itself up as the largest volume seller of model railways by purchasing other failing companies, using the Bachmann name to front a series of purchases in the rest of the world to combat the then poor perceptions of Hong Kong based production quality. In 1989 a European division was set up initially reusing the moulds previously used for the Palitoy 'Mainline' UK model railway products to create theBachmann Branchline models. 1992 it bought Liliput of Austria and in 2000 it bought Graham Farish. In 2007 it acquired the assets of Williams models and launched "Williams by Bachmann".

Kader's business model for each take over, from its original purchase of Bachmann to the present day, is to buy a perceived quality brand in the target market or country. The company then closes local in-country production facilities, and then improves quality by re-engineering the models in Hong Kong, and reduces cost by producing the models in mainland China.

Presently Bachmann offers trains in H0 scale, N scale, On30, and G scale around the world, in addition to buildings and accessories:

• North America - Bachmann Industries, Williams by Bachmann
• United Kingdom - Bachmann Branchline offer 00 gauge models, while Graham Farish produce British scale (1:148) N gauge models under the Graham Farish name
• Europe - Liliput and Palitoy
• China - from 2000, Bachmann also started producing Chinese outline models under the Bachmann China name, opening the world's first Bachmann speciality retail shop in Shanghai in 2005

In November 2008, Kader also took over Sanda Kan, its nearest competitor for precision model railway items in the Hong-Kong based ODM contract manufacturing business.^[1][2] Sanda Kan's biggest client had been Bachmann's dominant rival in the UK market Hornby Railways, which had concentrated production there since 1997-2001.^[3] The company also manufactured for Lionel, Atlas, Life-Like, Brawa, Märklin, and of the order of 50 other model train companies.^[4][5] However it had been experiencing severe production and debt problems after a takeover by J.P. Morgan private equity. The merger was hailed by one producer as "a marriage made in heaven",^[4] although it is not yet clear what long-term effects the concentration of the ownership of production will have. Kader announced that Sanda Kan would continue as a distinct entity, and that Sanda Kan's original owner W.S. Ting had agreed to come back to lead the company. Hornby's managing director pronounced the acquisition "a welcome outcome [that] removes the uncertainty over the future of Sanda Kan".^[6] Most Hornby production has so far remained with Sanda Kan, although the company has also been talking with three alternative suppliers.^[7][8]

Kader's History of Child Labor and Abuse[edit]

On May 10, 1993, there was a major fire at the Kader Toy Factory, a joint venture, almost 80% owned by Kader,^[9] in Thailand. 188 people were killed, and over 500 were seriously injured. Most of the victims were young female workers from rural families. More people were killed in this industrial accident than in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire; making it the worse industrial disaster in history.^[10] Despite being the worse industrial disaster in history,^[11] it received little corporate-owned-media attention outside Thailand. Possibly due to it being a child labor camp^[12] or possibly due Kader's connections to major corporates such Disney, Hasbro and Mattel (see paragraph above).

The owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory were not held accountable. The fire, along with a couple of other fires that caused a horrible loss of life, resulted in some of the fire codes in place across the USA today.

As I said in an earlier comment, I took a brand new Williams by Bachmann EP5 out of the box and the front truck dropped to the ground. The same thing happened with a G gauge Bachmann rail truck, which, on another forum, a discussion of the gearing problems with this unit was discussed. So now what?  Talk about negative reinforcement. Take this whole thing apart and re-engineer it, modify it? It just sits on a shelf, and I have no motivation to pull the thing apart. I might as well have taken the cash and thrown it out the window. This is supposed to be a stress free and relaxing hobby?

Poor quality control, cheap materials, and even I would say poor engineering...No more..whats that definition of insanity? Doing the same fail over and over again, expecting different results?  Our level of expectations has dropped to a new low. It almost qualifies as a scam...I may as well have been robbed.I think the appropriate term is brand new junk.

I am done with buying the newer stuff. Enough is enough. Thats my rant of the week.

The odd thing is, I always felt all my Williams by Bachmann stuff was high quality and superior to everything else!

Zero issues.

A topic for another day, but Bachmann has never even been on the periphery of my radar screen and never will be.  I walked right by their booth at York, only to later read here about their new "remote control system".  Yawn... No thank you.

I don't hesitate for a second that all the machinations of the overseas toy train manufacturing trade would make for jaw-dropping reading.  Although on second thought, most of us would probably rather not want to know all the gory details.  We might never buy anything.  

David

The whole thing over and over again is random like playing with a roulette wheel in Las Vegas. You would think after making enough of this stuff they could get their act together. The whole issue with a lot of this is they can get away with murder and the hobby is so ingrained in some, they will accept what is essentially brand new junk. I should know, I was one of them. The guys that win this lottery say whats the problem? and the guys who lose out are not happy campers. Not exactly a confidence booster.  Its worse in G gauge in terms of Bachmann quality and especially engineering. The G gauge forums are full of these issues. The bottom line is from my perspective is that it isnt just Lionel or MTH that has a problem hiding in plain sight, it's Bachmann as well.

I disassembled the EP5 and got it put together correctly...after a few choice words were uttered. That was the last straw after the Lionel 0-8-0 crapped out with sparking side rods. Again..brand new junk.

I bought my first WBB engine this year  A 681 Turbine. First 10 minutes on the track the rear truck assembly screw came out and when i picked up the engine the entire assembly came apart

That is what happened to my Lionel PWC TMC Texas Special F3.

Well, for what it's worth...based on my MTH LIRR MU experience with 3 bad in a row, I refuse to buy anymore MTH MU sets.

My LIRR PS3 RS1 was awesome, and I just ordered an MTH PS3 UP set.

But...no more MU's from MTH.

I still buy Lionel, as even though the oversized traction tires on my $475 Legacy WP F3 got chewed up by the rubbing brake shoe's and I had to grind the shoes down...annoying and frustrating, but still a ton better than DOA and/or half broken MTH MU's.

I still buy only "new" Williams by Bachmann though, as I have never have paid more than $199 for a passenger set, $250 for a full train set (TX SP AA and 3 cars), or $199 for a Scale GG-1.

My attitude was that as long as they ran, and the worst was putting something back together, i was ok with it, as what do I expect for such a low price.

Despite that, I still feel what I pay for WBB stuff is a better deal than anything I but from MTH and Lionel.

I guess because of the low price my expectations are low for WBB, but they always exceed them.

>>>I think the appropriate term is brand new junk.

I am done with buying the newer stuff. Enough is enough. Thats my rant of the week.<<

I believe and I could be wrong, Lionel high end steam is manufactured by Korea Brass in China who is not associated with Kador.

What you're looking for is "American made quality".

This vintage 1990 Hudson, the best ever from America resides in static display at a small park in Lionelville. 

Joe

In all fairness, I go thru that mind set about once a week!

Especially, when I see what I paid for my vintage Lionel trains....

They are all still running after 50-60 years and only require minor maintenance or repair.

Heck, I could rebuild them in a worst case scenario, very easily.

Impossible to keep them down!

But when ANY modern engine goes bad....odds are you cannot fix it.

Either pay big bucks for repairs or worst to replace.

quote:

I walked right by their booth at York, only to later read here about their new "remote control system".  Yawn... No thank you.

LOL, I walk by Bachmann, Lionel, MTH, and every other manufacturer of newly made stuff. 

Never said they weren't nice cars, just saying that while those cars have their charms, price wise relative to the salaries of the time those cars were about as expensive as what we have today, and the cars today give you a lot more value for the money, they last longer, generally perform better and are a better value......I have worked on those cars, driven them, and I can appreciate them for a lot of reasons, but they are an example that things in the past are not always 'better', when measured objectively. 

It would surprise me if any of the manufacturers had better quality, and from what people are writing it sounds like a crapshoot across the board. If Williams is 'better', I suspect it may be because Williams products tend to be simpler than what Lionel and MTH put out, especially the expensive scale models and such, so there is less to go wrong (fine detail parts, complicated command control circuits, etc).  It would surprise me because in manufacturing, quality stems from how you produce something, the processes you use, and with the train manufacturers it is basically the same process so the results are going to be the same. The big three auto manufacturers back in the 'good old days' quality was pretty much indistinguishable from each other when measured statistically, because they made their cars pretty much the same way (interestingly, and not surprisingly, like with toy trains these days, that didn't reflect in people's beliefs, there were those who believed GM was 'better' quality than Ford back then, etc, and there are those who will tell  you MTH is the cat's meow and Lionel is 
"Pheh", those who will say "I bought 10 Lionel engines, and they were all perfect" and the person who says "All mine were crap"). Quality stems from process, and given that the model for all of them is the same (if not the same factories, same methods, workers, etc), they will likely show the same level of quality. All of them I guarantee you do inspection coming off the line, and inspection when it gets to them in this country, and probably a lot fails before it gets to us (the consumer), but the problem is when you have so many issues, a lot of them are marginal that they get through inspection, but then fail soon after.

And while I won't defend offshore manufacturing per se, for a lot of reasons, it would be just as easy to turn out crap like that here, if the process is faulty, the product will be, too. Roger Smith spent 10's of billions on robotic technology in the 80's at GM, claiming it would make the cars better not being assembled by 'idiot workers', and it failed because the car designs themselves were crap, as were the processes that built the cars, automate a crap process, you still have crap. 

I just contacted Lionel's CS and they are already sending me 6 new front bearings for my 3 engines. They don't do have the information for the rear truck bearing yet but they sending it out as soon as get the information on that part.

I asked for 6 bearings to replace even the ones still on the trucks since I told them that I can not trust the ones are still in there. So they are sending me the 6 bearings.

Way to go Lionel, thank you for your quick response.

The problem is a very basic one. Lionel is no longer a manufacturer but an importer and marketer that wants to buy cheap by bidding the work out to a Chinese job shop. They have little to no control over the manufacturing and quality process. When I purchased two of the USA made Lionel scale 5240 Hudsons in 1991, they were perfect cosmetically and ran right out of the box..... and cost significantly less than todays product

The design of the scale Berkshire is stunning and I wish that I had one, but for a 100% questionable quality Chinese product selling for over $1000 I'll pass. I'll wait for Williams to produce their version, still Chinese and conventional, but most likely at about 1/3 the price. If we must buy Chinese then sell it appropriately --cheap.

I bought two Lionel 700E's, one for each of my boys, new in the 1990's. This was when they were first introduced. We voted to run one and keep the other for display. The one we selected to run ran faster backwards than it did forward. I sent it back to Lionel and they replaced the motor. Same problem. So I took a portable tach and flipped each engine upside down and measured both. The one that we never ran had a wheel rpm that was almost twice what the repaired engine had. I sold them both, taking a real financial hit. I realized that I would never be pleased with either one, the variation was so great. I haven't bought a Lionel engine since.

It seems to me that the majority of these posts are straying off topic. Posts re China, Bachman, the US and China labor rate, a fire in Thailand, etc, while "interesting", may or MAY NOT be the cause of what is basically a poor design and poor assembly by Lionel or its contracted engineering design and manufacturing team.

And the fact remains that you cannot "inspect in" quality. All that a post build 100% inspection does is (hopefully) weed out the problems. The cost of ALL of those problems is borne by those who purchase, in this case, ANY Lionel products. The only way to get a quality product is to start with a quality design, make it "assembly error proof", and use the best materials. Until that happens, we will continue to get the type of quality we now receive......

hello guys and gals......

I bought the lionel starter set S.P. FT diesel( out of the set break up), this engine was junk out of the box new and from china!!!!!!!! The problem is a mechanical binding in the front motor truck gearing and heavy cracked chip on the rear motor truck assemblies geared wheel flange.  I send it back to exchange for a LTI (1993 era) #18117 S.F. F-3 also new in the box and this ABA set has never been on the track but tested and this engine had 2 upper bend motor armatures. I have no idea how this set escaped the Q.A. inspection.   This engine is made in the U.S.A !!!!  It cost me 50 dollars to replace both armatures and it really runs very well now.  I am glad I had the skills to do such work and do it right the first time.  I wont be buying any new engines from anyone in future as I cannot afford to do this that is paying for shipping back and forth, buying the needed parts to fix the darned thing all this is too much of a hassle and expensive for me to deal with.  I am done buying new or NOS engines.

the woman who loves the S.F.5011,2678,2003,200

Tiffany

I have the early 90s 700E.  It has run for hundreds of hours without an issue and is smooth and consistent in forward and reverse. I am sorry you had issues with yours but I would take the quality of that locomotive versus what we get today any day of the week and twice on Saturday. 

I think your larger point about the process of designing in quality is well taken otherwise.

Actually the truck comes off by pulling it to the side and just removing the small screw holding the link that the post and spring and clip is attached to. And remove the wire from the post which allows you also to remove the truck. You don't have to remove the clip and look for it across the room.

Didn't Lionel push the collectablity value as one of the assets of build to order?

Well, so much for that new engine sitting in the box..gaining value....

Amazing you fork out that kind of jack for not one but THREE extremely expensive engines, and some Chinese worker who gets paid pennies per hour forgets a critical component on all three.  Totally uncalled for.

after reading all the posts I have a new bnsf maxi stack lionel it has the cw 80 power pack I had one little issue with mine I had the track terminal wires hooked up wrong I but I fixed it so why is one dc motor on the front of the truck is on the right and back one is on the left can u explain why that is??? i just love my cw 80 transformer it has the sounds of the dispatcher and engineer speaking its really cool so i hope u can ask it is gp 38 bnsf i just love bnsf GO BNSF

Lionel has contracted with Chinese manufacturers for a bottom line price which may not include much in the way of quality control,remember they are part of a holding company and they need to show a profit at the expense of the loyal customer who comes back for more ie you and I.

Wow wow here, lets put it this back on track. Looking at the  issue this post started at Lionel is responding as best they can. How many companies can you call up and get management (at least run into them on this forum), or run into them at train shows? Not many, right now they are doing the best they can to solve these issues. And even if they no longer have a plant in the US they are jumping to fix the problem as are the shop owners, as fast as they can to fix things.

When I bought my first Lionel train set this year oh, was I worried it would have problems. Turns out mostly an out dated manual on how to load the smoke unit, I found my answer on Lionel's YouTube channel thankfully. Given some of the things I have fixed, wow Lionel has solid design to start with, miss installed parts will always have issues. Running any thing out of specification with out great care is risky. So let us be thankful Lionel is jumping to fix this in spite of the difficulties they face.

Now to wonder a bit into the history of Lionel. Lionel has faced far worse, thankfully with out major injury. When Joshua Lionel Cowen, the big guy, was seven he built his first model train. Only for its boiler to explode. Metallurgical issues have come and gone and Lionel is still here. So has MPC, and more eras and yet it is still here, and thanks to it loyal customers and fans it still jumps at issues, like this one, just like all companies should.

I hope this continues. Since all the problems I have ever run in to on my research of Lionel so far have always been fixed once realized and with in the realms of fixable. Bad product is still out there as are rose tinted lenses. Lionel missed a valuable Christmas over a batch of defective transformers, during the MCP era. That takes dedication to do something so risky,  in a market they operate in. And running to fix this is a good follow up.

The boiler exploded on the live steamer he built?

quote:

When Joshua Lionel Cowen, the big guy, was seven he built his first model train. Only for its boiler to explode.

I have a feeling that was a tall tale, or if there was an incident, it was exaggerated

It's probably a tall tale, but its a fun tall tale.  Given that what really made him successful was his business acumen, maybe at age seven he was already buying and selling locos and stuff!

This is an interesting thread even if it has wandered a bit.  Of course, my Berk was perfect, so I don't have nearly as much skin in this game as those who had problems.  My sympathies for those who did, but the fix seems not too bad.

What Cowen did or did not do a hundred years ago is irrelevant. The most irritating concept that all of this is acceptable assumes that quality and poor engineering cannot be corrected. Sorry, I don't buy that line of reasoning and the last thing on my mind when dealing with brand new junk is to become an apologist for bad practices that can be corrected. The fact that there is no recognition of these issues from the manufacturers will keep me out of a buyers market. 

Heres where I think the problem is. In manufacturing regardless of what is being made, quality and what is called CQI (Continuous Quality Improvement ) is practiced. Entire departments devoted to quality are in place. The problem here is that these are not manufacturers..they are marketers...middlemen. There is no in house manufacturing.

You have contracted manufacturing offshore and unless you demand to get the quality you contracted them to produce, we ( the customer ) is just as likely to get a dog as we are to receive a good product. Have they ever heard of the common position in manufacturing called a Quality Engineer?

If you look at offshore businesses contracted or owned by U.S companies, they relocate an employee where the rubber hits the road, in the country where X is produced, they don't wait for a shipping container to arrive, or have quality issues resolved by the customers. This is not rocket science.

This can be corrected. In that sense I am a optimist. The fact that they cannot recognize the problem  speaks volumes.

Old Josh's bearings didn't fall out of his locos. This bearing/QC thing is a result of the global market we live in and will continue so, sadly, learn to live and deal with it. Look at the auto air bag issue. Good luck !!

I agree Lee that the fix seems straight forward.  I have already prepped the trailing truck to replace the broken bushing.

My current thoughts.  

  I believe Phil Hull has taken over Mike Reagan's former position.  I was impressed to receive a response within six hours from Mr. Hull in regards to my inquiry to Lionel Customer Service.  Not often does one receive a response from someone in the top levels of any business.

  The next day, I received a communication from Meghan of Lionel Customer Service informing me that my replacement parts are in the system for shipment. A suggestion to glue the bushing in place was offered. In my experience , Meghan's  timely communication  represents another example of top of line customer service

 Although mildly frustrating to have a new out of the box broken toy, this issue has afforded the OGR Community the opportunity to commiserate with each other, and then work out a fair and reasonable solution to the problem via Lionel Customer Service. I have always believed that if a day goes by without learning something new, then it was a wasted day in life. This is my first bushing replacement, therefore I have acquired new knowledge and improved my skills.

  Whereas i have a broken bushing, I tested Mike Reagan's position that these parts are tougher than you think.  They can be cut with diagonal pliers, but it certainly  is not like cutting through butter.  As Mike posted, they are not as fragile as one might have presumed. 

  I am looking forward to reading the near future post that all is well with these fine looking and sounding engine.

A question to my fellow boomers:  Is the 765 Legacy engineer Rich Melvin live or is it Memorex?  May the Force be with you.

Chris Cook

Got my Email from Meghan, also.  Appreciate Lionel stepping up with the fix for this problem.

-Pete

Glad that Lionel dealt with your issue quickly. It was very nice to meet you, Chris, and your wife at Charles Ro a couple of weeks ago.

My son works for a company that does import business. His job is more or less quality control. He may get several large (relative term) boxes that he has to go through quickly to verify construction standards, painting standards, etc.  Basically, my son says yay or nay if an item gets shipped. And he has said nay a few times. My point being and I'm not condonning this manufacturing method, but most of the foreign manufacturers run tight margins and live pretty close to the edge of bankruptcy.  All the employees know is that they are building widgets and don't always have a clue as to what they are building/assemble.  Consequently what you and I would know that a hand rail shouldn't be in a certain place, they are clueless. The manufacturer just wants to get paid. So they assemble fast and not always accurately.  If two bearings are supposed to go on an axle and inserted into a slot, they do that with little regard for proper fit or alignment.  Like I said earlier, I don't condone this approach, just telling you how it is.  Personally, I stick with postwar. Smoke units can be repaired, I occasionally replace the e-unit with an electronic one. The buzzing of an e-unit does get annoying after a while.

Sounds like you suspect that assembly is on a piece work basis. I wonder if this is so. That would explain some of the issues. If you make more money by the quantity of widgets you produce versus the quality, its easy to figure out the slap them together, get them out mindset.

quote:

The buzzing of an e-unit does get annoying after a while.

I just switch them off, I usually don't need to back up.

Thanks Brian:  Getting together with you, Marty, Dotty and Chris and our wives whom are all supportive of our hobby - or as Jane would say -  Boys and their Toys with a smile - made the trip to the open house the highlight of the Day

 As I reach into my senior  years,  I consider myself very fortunate to be able to enjoy this hobby and all it has to offer. Although these model trains bring us together, the  friendship and camaraderie of fellow model train enthusiast far outweighs the monetary value of any material want.

Getting close to the time to batten down the hatches for the pending NorEaster.

Be safe

Chris Cook 

If you want good quality you put your own inspector on site and rotate them  every year or so to prevent them from getting too friendly.  You have a contract which has penalties for poor quality.  You do everything you can to provide disincentives to poor workmanship.  Or you get really smart and find someplace beside China to have your product made.  It is good that Lionel responds quickly to problems but over the long run it is unacceptable to allow poor quality products to be built.

Lionel has a team over there right now and there are 32 inspection points on the Big Boy