Lionel's New Berkshires Hitless 0 for 3

Any good ideas on what kind of glue to use. I was thinking something that won't mess up the paint if I want to remove it. I tried some RTV but it didn't stick well to the Delrin...maybe it's too old. I want to avoid the glues like CA and the ones with aromatic hydrocarbons which will mess with the paint. Another thought might be "Goop" which sticks to plastic well. Maybe I'll use that. I don't intend to slop it on, and was thinking I might want to remove it some day and use the actual intended bushings that the happy 95% are using on their trucks which are working very well. 

Any thoughts?

Meghan is great to work with and also Roller Derby family

I had this same issue back in 2001 when I got the first Lionmaster Challenger. I used super glue to glue it back in and it's still holding. Plus I run this engine quite a bit.

My Erie Berk came on Monday from Charles Ro and no problems. All the wheels and bushings are in place and everything works great.

cjack

  Thats an excellent question about what type of glue to use.  I have gotten so use to reaching for the duct tape or super glue for temporary repairs around the home, i did not give thought to any other type of glue.  It would be beneficial to have Lionel's recommendation.

Chris Cook

While I'm thinking about it, I'm wondering why the ground spring is on top of the axle pushing the axle out of the truck instead of under the axle pushing the wheel axle into the truck. I just tried that and it seems to work very well...adjusting the spring so that it doesn't push too much but enough. Glue-less.

Which basically doesn't mean all that  much, as other posters have said, you don't inspect in quality like that, I don't care how many inspectors you have. Quality comes out of the design and feedback process, and here is why:

1)Inspection can only show the things that are obvious, if something is hidden (like a circuit board component), they may not be able to see and test it.

2)Sometimes you end up where you have a double negative that works, at least in terms of inspection, but when using it the problem comes out

3)Inspection doesn't see the marginal stuff, the stuff that passes inspection but then fails, like bad solder joints, a bearing barely held in, a stanchion hanging on because of a piece of lint or something..you get the idea.

4)More importantly, inspection only fails because there is no feedback, if an inspector finds something faulty, they do one of two things;

a)Fix the problem, which may work fine, but there is no thought that if that is broken, or more likely, 5 things fail, other things may be broken that they cannot see (kind of like the old needle in the haystack, you look for a needle, and 5 needles drop out, likely the haystack is loaded with them).

b)If it is bad enough, scrap the unit as being a parts unit (which has its own problems, ie the parts they pull may be bad, too). 

5)I wouldn't be surprised if the train companies have some sort of policy where if more than X% of the units inspected totally fail, or have more than x defects on average, they refuse to accept the lot (what would work against this is obvious, would mean delays in shipping..but then again, given we see the delays we do now, it probably is happening)

I can guarantee you right now, with about 99% surety, that there is little to no feedback to those designing or building the units. In a quality process this is critical, because otherwise you end up repeating the same crap time and again,no matter how many inspectors you have. If you have, for example, circuit boards where the way the unit is designed the unit is subject to heat or other things that will harm it, it is likely to fail (Ford in the early days of the ECU units on car engines, they were using CMOS components [probably for low power consumption] and they had the unit mounted in the engine compartment, which is not a great idea, they soon learned their lesson on that)......

More importantly, you don't just chuck defective parts in a quality process, any defect, especially common ones, you start asking why...is it hard to build? Are the workers untrained? Is the equipment making the part bad? If it is a supplier, you ask them why?

Standard practice for many years in the auto industry with parts was as I explained above, if you had a defective part you threw it in the defective bin, if more than X% of the parts were defective, you sent them back to the supplier and refused to pay for that load (they had enough inventory where they could do that)......problem is, that would be shrugged off on both ends as being the cost of business. 

On a quality assembly line, if something doesn't fit or is obviously defective, the worker is allowed to literally stop the assembly line, and they find out why it isn't working right. 

Put it this way, on a quality focused process, there is no such thing as a rebuild area in an assembly line, in the US they used to spend 50% of their floor space and time fixing cars that came off the line, today that doesn't exist. 

Again, the model of the toy trains is much the same as existed with the auto industry here, basically, their attitude was if things break, the dealer network would take care of it. That worked because people resigned themselves to that model, the way we do with these trains, but when faced with better quality cars that they didn't need to spend their lives in the dealership with, they jumped ship..but as we have talked about ad infinitum, there is no such thing going to happen with these trains, no matter how expensive.

It sounds to me (since I haven't bought a whole heck of a lot of train stuff in recent years) like Lionel (and I would presume MTH) at least try and make their repair services responsive, but if you look at it, Mike Regan telling people they have to glue in a bearing or giving advice on fixing stuff looks kind of weird, it would be like GM telling a customer how to replace the ignition switch on their car or telling them if the door handle falls off, to use crazy clue to fix it......but with trains, being low volume, kind of fringe product, they can get away with this. 

Big Kid you are absolutely correct.  You build in the quality.  As I mentioned earlier I bought a new Thomas set with remote control.  Out of the box the engine did not run.  It made sounds but no movement.  It is assumed to be a bad remote.  Imagine a very excited 3 year old opening that set Christmas morning and then trying to explain to him why it won't run. Life is simply too short to put up with that disappointment.  I was lucky because I knew to test the set first.  Many parents would not know to do that or even understand why testing is necessary. AND  they are right.  It is brand new.  It is supposed to work.  As a wise man said you only have one chance to make a good first impression.

Al-

The sad truth is that the people who make those decisions don't care, nor do they really have to, they don't care if a kid is disappointed, and quite frankly, they don't care if the parents would see that and say "never again". As bad as quality could be in the past, toy makers knew that if something routinely had problems, there were competitors who might not be much better, but were alternatives. We talk about the future on here, about trying to make sure trains are passed on to another generation, but for all the talk coming from Lionel and MTH and the like about this, how these kind of things are an heirloom, etc, they don't really care if a bad set turns someone off from the hobby, because I can guarantee you they aren't thinking of the future. Without going off on a long talk about this, as shortsighted as companies have been, especially public companies, the way businesses operate today is basically think about today, think about the day after, and if I make my money, I don't give a darn about the future, not going to be around to see the consequences of what I am doing. There are some who will say if the 3 year old kid is disappointed that the train doesn't work on Christmas day that it is a life lesson, that life is tough, and that to me is pathetic, it is someone with vinegar in their soul, not a heart, but what it says to me is we have become a society that in many ways is heartless, doesn't care. Worse, it is defending a mentality, it is saying to a three year old that they don't matter, all that matters is defending the practices that delivered something to the kid that was a piece of crap. From anything I have read of Lionel in its heyday (well, before Roy Cohn got involved, but that is another story), they seemed to care, they wanted the kids to be happy, because they knew that was their future. Ironically, given that many of the adults currently in the hobby came of age during the 'golden age', their concern must have worked...

I have to admit I agree with those who buy these expensive toys for big kids, and get crap like they don't work, you have to glue on parts and so forth, and it bothers me when I hear people telling them they should just be happy to have this stuff, it is basically defending the shortsightedness of those producing this stuff.. the manufacturers basically are saying the same thing, that you should be grateful we even exist, so if we produce expensive stuff that is as defective as a dollar store toy, well, grin and bare it...It comes back to the overriding feeling of far too many companies, bleed what you can out of the market then if it goes poof, won't care. The irony is that many of us in the hobby got our feet wet with what the original company produced way back when, had good memories of it, but will the kids of today have happy memories, and when they get through cars, girls, college, and having a family, will they want to come back to it? 

Add my PE Berk to the list. Just unwrapped it and found both bearings broken and the wheels and axle loose.

Hopefully we can get this rectified before Christmas! 

Deming was the "father" of the quality movement, specifically for Japan after WWII. At GE, there was a push for 6 Sigma quality, which is a DPMO of 3.4. What this means is that there were 3.4 defects per million operations. (That quality level is probably just short of NASA stuff.) NOTE: You have to define what a "defect" is, what an "operation" is, etc. and do the math to "tighten up" ALL processes and suppliers that you use. This is NOT easy. GE surveyed many American businesses and determined that the average USA quality level was 2.0. The Japanese described one operation as "poke-a-yoke". (I may have misspelled this!) What it means is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to assemble the specific two parts incorrectly.

There is a lot more to this than what is in this post, but I did want to describe some of the quality program and a few of the terms.

I take it this is the front pilot truck? As I stated above, I finally just reinserted the bearings which did not have the little keeper end so they won't keep by themselves and put the copper "ground" strap back in so it pushed on the axle to keep it in rather than helping to push the axle out. Works really well. Ran it for awhile after turkey this afternoon.

I will insert the new bearings when I get them if the version they are sending is an acceptable match for the ones they don't have in stock yet...if I have got that straight.

This has been very interesting to watch this entire thing unfold. I've got to ask some of you though, if every Postwar piece produced was so flawless then why did Lionel need to have dozens of authorized service stations in EVERY state?

I'm not saying that this should be an acceptable thing, but I think age has added rose colored glasses to some folks about the failure rate of Postwar trains.

The "Good Old Days" had just as many issues. 

well I had my wires hooked up back wards on the track terminal so now the horn the works and the voice crew works so I love that cw 80 power pack

I don't know where you got that, but it isn't true, Deming never worked at Disney...and on top of that, Disney was a film studio making animated pictures, and the kind of work Disney was doing didn't lend itself to statistical quality control, which was Deming's specialty. Making animated movies is very, very different than manufacturing mass goods, back then it was done by hand on cells, which is an artistic endeavor, there were no machines involved per se, it isn't like CGI and very little was mass produced. There was the copying of prints but that wasn't exactly a difficult process.

More importantly, he never went near Disney. Deming was an engineer and had degrees in business and statistics as well (I think he had a Phd from Yale in Statistics). His biggest influence was a man named Dr. Walter Shewhart from Bell Labs, who was one of the true pioneers of statistical quality control (coming out of bell labs, not surprising). I believe Deming worked at the Hawthorne Western Electric plant, which is probably how he met Shewhart, I believe Deming worked with Shewhart to write up his ideas and make them understandable (Shewhart was kind of very academic oriented, complex theories and such, not easily understood) and Deming took his ideas and improved upon them.

During the war Demin worked for the government, for a technology committee, and they actually applied statistical quality control to war production, in large part because given the fact that much of the war material was being produced by people who never worked in factories before, "rosie the riveter" and others they could get who weren't in the military, so they had to find ways to increase production and get quality out of it.....the sad part was this was ignored after the war, US Manufacturers had no competition,they had back their labor force, and all they cared about was producing a lot of goods (it is telling that the first company to hire Demin in the US I believe was Ford motor around 1980.......tells you the mindset, the Japanese named their highest quality award after him in something like 1951. 

Deming went to Japan originally right after the war at the request of MacArthur, to do the Japanese census, that was critical in terms of getting the constitution into place and then having elections. While he was there, the Japanese manufacturing association approached him, having heard of his experience with statistical quality control, and he gave lectures and taught them of the stuff he and Shewhart had developed, and they ran with it..and the rest is history.

Deming didn't create statistical quality control per se, and US companies have been using it for a long time, some firms learned during WWII and continued to do so (3M if I remember correctly was one of the companies, and I think in the 1950's fairchild semiconductor was doing it, as well as other companies), but most of the big manufacturing companies basically pooh poohed it, said it was not needed, was too expensive, and basically were fat, dumb and happy, and with no competition (sort of like the train manufacturers these days), they didn't have much to worry about, they made money hand over fist and quality, like safety, wasn't something they thought much of. Some of what irked them was that his work depended on the workers on the line being responsible for quality, for both the measurement and also in solving the problems, and in the manufacturing world of those days workers were considered a human equivalent of the machinery they operated, how things were produced were 'management', not for the joe blows on the assembly line (needless to say, the revolution in quality that came about with things like lean production rely on the workers to be a major portion of quality control,the hierarchical crap of the past is one of the reasons that the US auto industry got itself into such a hole, along with other firms). When Deming agreed to work with Ford (then with GM and other firms), he used to charge a million dollar fee; not because he thought it was what his advice was worth, but rather, because when they had his work for free, they ignored it, he said if it didn't cost a ton of money, the morons running the companies figured it wasn't worth anything.

A good point, but I also would be careful about comparisons, there are some things you are leaving out. First of all, Lionel sold a lot more trains back then, it was a lot more of a mass market today, so just by sheer numbers of trains out there, there also would be a lot more total number of issues. If you make 10,000 of an engine let's say, there are going to be a lot more total failures then if you make 500 of them (assuming the quality rate is the same). How many engines do Lionel,MTH and so forth make each year? I would bet that combined it is a fraction of what Lionel produced in the post war period. 

The other thing to think about is unlike today, the primary market for Lionel trains back then was not adults, people like ourselves would have been the minority market back then. Those trains were built as toys, they were intended for kids, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that kids are hell on trains, so having service stations doesn't necessarily indicate that trains were DOA more or less than today,it indicates they were being played with by kids and broken by them, too. It would be like pointing out how many automobile service stations out there, and saying cars must be crap if they need too many of them, when you are talking several hundred million cars on the road being driven billions of miles each year......

Were the postwar products better quality? That is very hard to tell, because so much depends on people's memories and hearsay and such. One of the things working for those units is that most of them were pretty simple, they were built of heavy materials and they were relatively simple beasts (okay, other than the e-unit, that came out of beezlebub's own labs *lol*), the motors were a pretty rugged, simple unit, and maybe you had a mechical air whistle and a light.......so it is likely that because of that, there was a lot less to fail or screw up, compared to what you have today. Part of the problem is the units today are built of lightweight plastic or thing metal, which break, and they have circuit boards that are fragile, as are many of the components (in part, to lessen costs, and in part, because they know these are 'adult toys' so assume they will be handled a lot more gingerly)> 

Then, too, there is something to keep in mind. When the postwar units came out, the level of quality of most manufactured goods if you used the methodology used today, were considerably poorer across the board, so people's expectations were quite as kind. If they made cars today like they did back then, they would be out of business in 5 minutes, the cars by today's standards had large amounts of initial problems (I don't think anyone formally ever looked at those kind of numbers back then, but people have analyzed the warranty costs of cars back in the 'good old days', which back then I believe only covered 1 year/10,000 miles) as reported in the financial reports, and they estimate the defect rates were something like 10 times as much as today,a typical car today averages about 1 defect/unit (they usually do it by defects/1000, today it is down to around 100 defects/1000 cars), back then it was close to 10 on average....so trains would not necessarily stand out. The problem is with many high level products, the world has changed, and we expect a lot more now, and while some things are less reliable/durable (appliances come to mind), when it comes to things like electronics, or especially cars, we have come to expect things that are expensive to perform flawlessly, our tolerance is down. As complex as the modern toy trains are, when you are spending a thousand bucks or more on a toy for adults, you expect it to be better quality, given what we expect from other products. Worse, in the days of postwar trains, if something went wrong, you likely could get a replacement by going back to the store and swapping it out, but what makes it even worse is you buy something that is an expensive toy, because they produce so few of them, if it breaks or arrives DOA you have to ship it back to Lionel or MTH, or take it to a service station, see if they can fix it under warranty, or id they can't hope there is a replacement unit available, which given the build to order model, may mean at best waiting a long time for a new one to be produced or maybe getting your money back. We have very difference expectations now about the quality of products in many cases, we know that if we buy a cheap crap toaster from walmart that it likely will croak in a year or two, but we don't expect that from a thousand dollar or more engine, at that price, we expect 21st century quality, not the 1950s level of quality we seem to be getting these days. Worse, it seems to be getting worse, not better, as the companies struggle to even get their stuff produced. The only saving grace they have is that they all are in the same boat, so if you want something they produce, they basically have you by your family jewels, you don't really have alternatives, and I don't blame people for being angry, when I buy high end stuff I expect it to be good quality, not requiring me to fix it or have to deal with sending stuff back. Even the 'lesser' cost stuff is still pretty expensive (yeah, I know, Lionel was never really cheap, I am well aware of that), and in a world where you can buy a 55" LED tv for 500 bucks that likely will last for many years and has a relatively low failure rate (talking name model, not some cheap clone), it stands out. People buy a high end swiss watch and expect it to work well and last, people buy a 20 buck watch and don't have that expectation, what the train companies are doing is selling a high end product with a low cost produt quality level.It is too bad none of these companies are public, if they were, they couldn't hire the cost of quality numbers, and it would be a lot easier to see just how bad (or not) these products are. 

I can only guess since I can remember things from the mid 50's. But all things change with time.

How many families had a car back in the 20's, 30's and just go on from there. I can just see it from the development that I lived in not long ago, the area was built in the 50's and there was room for each family to have a car parked in front of their house. Now how many families have a car?

Now let's go from there, I can remember going to visit relatives and that took a long road trip which took hours. The roads back then are not like they are today offering many ways to go. Years ago there were many neighborhood stores that served us, they were in walking distance of our homes.

Long story short, we take too much for granted and most people today do not have any idea on how things were at one time in this nation of ours.

If you could look at a phone book over the years and if you could compare how many hobby stores there were back in time compared to today, there is a lot less hobby stores today. Today the closest hobby store to me is 30 miles away. Less hobby stores now means less service stations needed.

I can say that some of their post-war operating accessories did leave a lot to be desired as far as their operations went. 

As far as there failure in trains go, I can not truly answer that one. And I'm not even going to go there and try to lay blame to anyone, it's like trying to compare apples to oranges. Things can happen and with all of the parts that are in the new ones just compounds the number of things that can go bad I'm not going to try to blame anyone.

When I started this thread it was not my intentions to blame Lionel. When they all came last Wednesday it was like I hit the lottery, I have my Polar Express engines in my hands. I ordered my 2 as soon as I could because I did not want to miss out on them. And when I saw earlier in the year that they were only going to make 200 gold engines gave me a bad feeling. So when it was announced about the BTO I had no problems with BTO. I know that my engines will be fixed so I have no big problem with them. I have no layout at this time and I have that other scale Polar Express engine that has never seen track. 

I just wanted to find out if anyone else had noticed what I found. This was the same way that I had found out about Pennsy S-2 last year having water problems. I missed seeing the rust on the first one that I got. And when I went back and looked at the engine again there was the rust. 

But I can say this, that as the trains we get today become even more complex it only means more hidden problems can be found. Which maybe why some trains take longer to get to us.

I have spent most of my life in the fire service and about 20 years ago my station received a new fire engine. And this engine gave us a problem at times wanting to run. Our shop people just could tell us that could not find a problem with it. The engine was out of service more then 6 months of it's first 9 months we had it. It was not until the engine had this problem when they had it happen on them, that they finally believed us. Almost a whole year to find the problem and to say that we were comfortable in putting our lives on the line with using that engine, no. 

So all in all I'm happy Lionel and I know my parts are on the way. I have no reason to be unhappy with them because they have always taken care of me and that their service is 2nd to none. 

quote:

This has been very interesting to watch this entire thing unfold. I've got to ask some of you though, if every Postwar piece produced was so flawless then why did Lionel need to have dozens of authorized service stations in EVERY state?

I don't see the correlation. The service station network was largely a sales gimmick. It comforted people to know they could have their expensive toy repaired if need be. Businesses liked to be authorized repair centers because it brought people in the door. They would bring their train in for a tune-up or repair and end up buying something else. The money they paid for authorized repairs was a pittance (even adjusted for inflation).

Sure, Lionel must of had some defects leave the factory, and they came out with a few duds, like the scouts, but I don't think we know the extent. 

With all due respect . . . I think C W Burfle has a point, and the proper perspective on this thread, which has devolved into the usual "beat-up [fill in the manufacturer]/things were-so-much-better-when-I-was-a-kid thread."  

In the 1950s, Lionel service stations had lots of business repairing new sets.  I know.  I was there.  There were often waits of weeks just because there was so much work ahead of you, particularly if it was after Christmas.  I have no idea what the failure/problem rate was, but it was high enough that I remember our family and also friends having problems and long service waits and I recall very distinctly that one time we waited from Christmas until after my birthday (more than six weeks) to get the loco back so we could run it.   

This is not to say that modern trains are flawless, although I am pleased enough with the ones I buy from Lionel and MTH (over the last five years, about a 5% fixable problem rate, less than a 1% fatal flaw rate)  that I keep going back for more.  I wish quality were better, but knowing roughly what it would cost to make them here instead, I'm quite willing to accept this current situation rather than pay the much higher prices or even push for them to change. 

There were service centers and parts depts in years past because things you bought then were repairable. Yes, it helped sales and helped me, especially Sears parts. I had a washer & dryer for many years and fixed them.  I really don't think there were as many mfg. glitches then as today in anything including cars. The older items were simpler and more rugged and made to be repaired. I did my own car repairs in the driveway, not today. I really don't consider the Lionel Scout a "dud", my old one is sill running, the cars, and many kids have played with them. I have an early(1947) Scout in the box with little wear and it runs fine. They were built to be price competitive in the low end market. They did that. How many on this forum got a Scout as their first train ?? A set was $20 and at that price, that is all I got for Xmas that year but that was OK. If we wanted more toys we got orange crates and made them-literally an had a great time. Don't knock the old days, we had many good things and times, we won our war made possible what the country has today. Enjoy the past, the present and, hopefully, the future.

quote:

 I really don't consider the Lionel Scout a "dud", my old one is sill running, the cars, and many kids have played with them. I have an early(1947) Scout in the box with little wear and it runs fine. They were built to be price competitive in the low end market. They did that. How many on this forum got a Scout as their first train ??

The train set my folks purchased for us was a 1960's set with a Scout type mechanism, as was the first set I purchased myself. I called it a dud because they were trouble prone. Lionel did use that basic mechanism (with revisions) right up through 1969.

A lot of people won't service Scouts. I do, and once they've been gone over, they usually work fairly well.

Personally I don't equate the issue of inconsistent quality with "beating up the manufacturer." The past has no bearing on the present in terms of the simple observation that none of this is insolvable, or difficult or acceptable. Anyone who either directly or indirectly condones this poor quality contributes either a rationale for it's continuing to be a low bar of standards or any resolution is impossible. I have more confidence in the manufacturer's than that and this is not a thread of criticism in of itself but it does bring up a valid issue for ourselves as consumers. We should demand quality, otherwise, we take away an important value for every dollar we spend. This for me, is common sense. No one is saying the sky is falling or that pointing this out will blow up the hobby. We have come a long way since the "good old days" and quality should reflect this in addition to whats been added to products as improvements. Quality improvement should always be a goal. I cannot imagine otherwise.

I admit that I have only lightly skimmed over most posts here, but I am reminded of an old adage we used in the oil patch: "You don't necessarily get what you expect; you get what you INSPECT".

Rod

I totally agree with you, electroliner, your point almost exactly matches my own. It isn't that I won't buy modern stuff because it is junk or is worse than "the good old days", but that doesn't mean I cannot and will not criticize companies for producing expensive goods that have shoddy quality. For better or worse, with many products (appliances and household goods and other things) we have decided that having uber cheap prices, what one person calls 'the Walmartization of America", is worth products that are cheaply made and don't last, but when we are spending a lot of money on something we expect better quality. I did a research study as part of a grad program on quality, and one of the things I found (this was in the auto industry) is that people's perceptions of quality were tempered by how much they spent for something. For example, Mercedes Benz (this was about 20 some odd years ago) among luxury cars had a quality problem perception among people who bought them, while Hyundai, who at the time had a lot more quality issues then Mercedes, actually ranked higher in customer satisfaction with quality, and the reasons was because Hyundai at the time was considered cheap transportation, so people had a lot less expectations.  The toy train market in 3 rail O is expensive, so people's expectations are higher than a consumer good.

I don't know what the defect rate was on classic lionel back in the 50's and such (by the 60's, the company was in bad shape, and  between that era and MPC, quality flew out the window as the company tried to cut costs). I also would be careful about the backlog at service stations, again keep in mind that toy trains were a lot more common back then, Lionel would have been the equivalent of a hot think among kids today, because they mostly were for kids........

People have grown accustomed to expensive items generally having solid reliability, so having a product that is both expensive and seems to be DOA a lot frustrated. It is possible in the 'golden age' of lionel they had a lot of quality problems, but back then, defects were a lot more common across the board, that I am certain of, so in comparison it would be taken in stride. Put it this way, if a car broke down the way many did back then, if in cold weather you had to stick a plastic comb in the automatic choke to be able to cold start a car, or use starting fluid, or the myriad other things we had to do with cars back then, it wouldn't do so good, whereas back then it was simply something you bore (kind of like the people who bought the VW bug and having heat..... and expected. 

We have PM and NKP's in stock today at 15% off and with FREE shipping thru Monday!

I just received the replacement bushings and installed them. They look to be identical to the ones that came in the engine except they are not broken .

They installed perfectly and I did not use any glue since they are tight and snapped in place with out fracturing.

As I said I can use the "ground" contact strip to hold in bushings that have their keepers snapped off. If these don't snap off by themselves later, I'll leave the spring contact in the way it came and I'm done with this repair.

Thanks for the quick shipment of bushings Lionel. Great customer service. Great engine.

look I had my new bnsf maxi stack train for 4 mths I had no promblems with this thing it is a fun train to run I had a lionel train back in 1976 lionel trains were made cheap back then the locomotves have gotton better the sound effects and the cw 80 power pack I just love that it works fine

A few dealers here have mentioned they're now checking -- or did check -- the Berks before shipping.  I'd be curious what you're finding.  Anybody care to comment?  These are all BTO items, so what is your fallback "Plan B" when you find a bad product.  Are you shipping the bad one(s) back to Lionel?  Or are you ordering parts and fixing the locomotives at your store before shipping them to consumers?

Curious minds would like to know, since it seems like the BTO program is off to a less-than-stellar start.  

David

I'd like to know how many are really bad.  From the comments here is seems like a lot, yet the only two I know of personally were perfect out of the box and are chugging away perfectly ever since.   Often threads like these only get comments from a few who get the damaged goods and that tends to give the impression that there are widespread problems.  Anybody have actual statistics?

Might be interesting to start up a poll of good ones vs damaged ones.  Maybe the Moderators could set it up and we could get an idea of the percentage.  The OGR forum would be a good measure for this quality control issue.

BTW.......mine came damaged.

-Pete

My Berkshire 765 is back in service.  

The pilot truck front bearing was easy to replace.  The replacement of the broken trailing truck bearing presented a little more of a challenge. As pointed out by others, it was important in my experience to make sure the two bearings on the same axel were pushed into place evenly.  A slight cant of the wheels would cause a significant amount of resistance to seating the bearings.  I used a screw driver tip to gently push down on the top of the bearing structures to seat them.  It may be possible that pushing on the wheels to seat the bearings may be the cause of the breakage. 

  This thread has been informative, insightful and thought provoking.  Agree or disagree, I welcome the respectful opinions of others in any conversation. Meaningful conversation to me affords learning and fosters understanding. After all, the mildly frustrating Berkshire bearing issue has had the positive effect of bringing us together to resolve a common challenge.

  The Legacy 765 brings a special meaning and joy into our home.  On a Saturday a few years ago at the closing of the York Meet, my wife and I had the pleasure of speaking with real life 765 Engineer Rich Melvin.  We were impressed with what a down to earth gentleman Rich is.  When we hear Legacy 765 Engineer Melvin speak, we are reminded of our warm conversation with Rich.

  Once again, the outstanding Lionel Customer Service has come through for me, and I am sure for everyone else.  A special thanks to Phil Hull and Meghan.  

 We are upon the time of year to embrace the Magic of Christmas with Family, Friends, and Lionel Trains.

  Merry Christmas to All,

Chris

Chris and Jane Cook

Picked up my Lionel 765 from Imperial Train Company.  Victor spent Wednesday opening up each one and checking them given the reports here.  Not sure if there were any but the fact that he went through them was a great step.

Went in Friday early afternoon on my way home from another stop and the place was packed!  I happily left knowing I'd have more time later in the day to stop and chat and to let them give the attention to the shop full of folks.

Few hours later I stopped and while still busy there was some room to get in and time to visit.  As always the team at Imperial offered to open the 765 up again, test run it, and check it out as well as lube it.  100%!  What an engine!  I am not disappointed.  And spectacular service to do the initial inspection on Wednesday and then again before I walked out the door!

Some of the best and clearest sounds from a locomotive I ever heard.

Here is a short clip...

>>>I'd like to know how many are really bad.  From the comments here is seems like a lot, yet the only two I know of personally were perfect out of the box <<

I had planned to cancel my preordered PM Berk because Lionel offered no caboose for any of the Berks (call it stupid marketing) but changed my mind afterc I stopped at my LHS yesterday to pull the plug.

In one corner a stack of Berks were waiting for their owners to pick up...I picked up and shook nearly half of the pile and every box had something rattling inside.

It was everything from way too much loose coal to a wheel wrench to bearings to the legacy module.

They simply did a horrible job packing the engines for shipment.

My thought on the PE shortage...You can't be assured even the biggest won't stumble once in while.

BTW, My Berk was almost perfect out of the box

. One loose front truck bearing easily super glued rock solid back in place

Joe  

in his head/planet he probably has a "reason" to do this. Its amazing how people like this exist.

  as I think Marty suggests; .........these are someones else's treasures, I'm sure they appreciate you getting your hands on them and perhaps making matters worse.

Perhaps they didn't anticipate someone walking into their LHS and shaking everyone else's engines?  

BTO = Break To Order?

Better not be for a $1,200 Engine.

I received my #765 Berkshire on Wednesday and upon opening the box found the pilot truck bearing in two pieces under the locomotive.

I emailed Lionel immediately but so far have not received a reply, probably because of the holiday weekend.

The Berkshire is a beautiful engine, I'm looking forward to operating it in all kinds of service on my layout!

Great engine. If you read the rest of the thread, I had the two bearings fall out because they had the tiny keeper tab snapped off. I got the new ones from Lionel, and snapped them in with no issues. Eventually.

I ran the engine before I got the new bearings just by slipping the remains of the bearings into the truck and mounting the ground pickup pushing on the bottom of the axle instead of the top...holding the axle in.