Lionel's New Berkshires Hitless 0 for 3

"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."

those "loose" things like the alternate mars front, legacy module, spare coupler, wrench, etc. are in their own pockets within the styrofoam.  not a packing problem.

Lee, I agree with your comment about any company needing to focus on customer satisfaction.

However, let's be real clear about the fact that the Lionel we see today bears no resemblance whatsoever to the company that has "stayed in business quite a long time".  Batons get passed at all levels, and companies today have become a bit of a revolving door of people and processes.

Things are what they are today.  There's no going back.  But I can't help but roll my eyes a bit.  Because when we look at the big picture (i.e., the management teams, workers and changing overseas manufacturing labor forces, etc...), any one of us probably doesn't need to look beyond his/her own hands to count the number of people at Lionel (or its sub-contractors) today who were in place 10 years ago.  (OK... perhaps I'm exaggerating a little bit, but I'm probably not that far from the truth.)  That's why I have somewhat of a personal disdain when companies "relocate" processes and employees to new geographical areas.  Those types of decisions tend to be executive  "pet projects" rather than what's good for consumers at large.  And I feel for employees who are pressured to make those type of moves for fear of not finding new employment if they don't relocate.  It's a tough situation all around.

It's way too soon to give kudos or cast dispersions about current management, but November's deliveries have been less than stellar at best.  Let's hope for a smoother -- and very busy -- December with lots of deliveries due.

David 

"but November's deliveries have been less than stellar at best."

I am not in the generalization game. I have three dogs (orders) in the hunt and two of the three came in ahead of time and in perfect condition. The third order is now due to arrive later this month.

PTC, we are all a product of our own experiences.  To deny there is a manufacturing quality issue with these Berks that needs addressing is to bury one's head in the sand.  We can play the "statistically significant" numbers game until the cows come home.

But were I a product manager at Lionel, the fact that one person here ordered THREE Berks -- all of which had pilot bearing issues... combined with the fact that I encountered TWO Berks with similar pilot bearing issues... not to mention several more folks who took the time to share similar experiences -- would all give me cause to explore why this is happening.  Add to those incidents, when I called Lionel CS they acknowledged knowing of this issue due to numerous recent calls.  That's why they asked me to double-check if my wheel-bearings in question were actually broken or "just loose", as I'm sure the situation is creating demand on the parts-supply in their customer service inventory.

Personally, this experience -- although minor in the big picture of life -- has the potential to keep me on the fence about ordering a 3rd Berk (#1227 to double-head with the black #1225 PE Berk).

It's got nothing to do with being a "glass half-empty" vs. "glass half-full" perspective either.  It's about providing constructive feedback so that trouble-free, quality products out-of-the-box are delivered when folks are paying premium dollars.

David

I wonder how many of these will be Christmas gifts that will fall apart when opened?  I am sure there are many out there that will and any first time customers or just general gift buyers will be very disappointed.

Art

It seems to boil down to:

1. Mine is fine so there's no issue.

2. Mine is not and there is.

3. Customer service had me fix the problem by sending me parts and thats whats important.

4. Lionel can do no wrong and get over it.

Seems to me a real mixed message. It will be interesting to see if this issue is repeated and what happens when #1 gets a dud.

Food for thought:

1) If you enjoy doing the fix then do it.

2) If don't enjoy doing the fix and/or do not want to (it is your right as a customer), then send it back to where you bought it for an exchange or refund.

3) Most of the OGR forum sponsors that I have dealt with, actually prefer I do not do any fixes, and instead send it right back to them.

Albeit, some dealers will then fix the issue for me, and send it back, while others do not as they want to let Lionel or MTH know about it and get the defective products exchanged.

This happened to me with the MTH LIRR MU's.

However, since this new Lionel Loco you all are having issues with is BTO, you just lost the ability for an exchange, and its either return for refund or fix yourself?

Correct?

Now for some bad news, IMHO Lionel does what it does with profit as the priority, and are not in the business of providing a public service. 

However, they are expected to provide customer service, and have the right within any agreed to sales policy to perform this service in a way they think it best.

I am sure it is subject to change based on individual experiences.

Despite that, there is an expectation of quality, and as a consumer you either accept it or not accept it, and you vote thru your dollars.

Everyone has a right to an opinion and to voice it; however, each individual will make a decision to either accept the way Lionel is or not to accept it.

And it is your individual actions and the sum total of them that effect what Lionel does.

In a worst case scenario for Lionel, the majority of customers who bought this product decide to not buy anymore "new" Lionel trains in the future.

And combined if this issue happened in the majority of orders, will hurt Lionel, but if not in the majority, but instead a very very small number of orders, then it will not.

The trend has been for the majority of Lionel customer to simply keep buying new items and roll the dice on a trend of lowering manufacturing quality.

Thus, Lionel has no fear that they will be forced to expend large amounts of money to fix quality issues...they don't have to do or spend much at all.

Do you really think Lionel will expend any large amount of money to fix quality issues at the expense of the bottom line?

Have they not historically when faced with declining revnue and sales, just filed bankruptcy, re-organized, and/or got bought by someone?

 Personally, i enjoy doing my own fixes when feasible.

As some forum members have stated, it is a very easy and quick fix.

However, the fact that people are posting their experiences is a good thing and should not be condemned, as information is the most valuable commodity and is why these forums exist in the first place.

We as consumers can only control what we can control. There can pages upon pages of comments from those who have had issues with the Berkshires, but to think that Mike Reagan or anybody else at Lionel is blind to what happened and could care less about taking corrective measures would be very naïve and incorrect. Also to make statements that Lionel does not care about it's customers would be just as naïve.

At this point, I think we all need to let Lionel fix their issues and give them a chance to make it right.

So my PE had one broken bushing, I wrote to talktous on Sunday, they shipped me a new one Monday

Heck it was easier than reading the 7 pages worth of speculation here

Should it have happened? Nope. Are parts available, Yes. Is Mike looking at the issue on the production  end, More than likely.

Will my buying habits change, nope, I have only had 2 bad out of the box engines in 10 years, I can live with it

I prefer to do my own fixes unless the issue involves parts I just can't get, either not available or can't convince them that I know what I'm doing.

i received a bad cab2 and C. Ro exchanged it for me since it involved too much complexity and I had my other cab2 already at Lionel repair.

Thanks to Charles Ro.

Well...cancelling this engine just results missing out on one of the absolute best engines Lionel has.

And I agree with Marty.

+1

I also agree.....there's too many positives about this engine to let one minor, and I emphasize the word minor negative to cancel,or to keep one from buying this engine. By canceling your order, you probably will make someone else very happy who did not get their BTO in under the wire.

-Pete

I'm pretty much departing this thread with these final thoughts.  Lots of valid points were made.  If you have an issue with the locomotive hold Lionel to the task of making it right.  I'm pretty sure they will and you'll get a really great locomotive.  It's a shame that folks have had an issue.

If you choose not to buy any more products from them to send a message that great too.  Vote with your wallet. 

One thing I can say for sure in closing.  There is no lack of passion in this hobby and whether the points made here by myself or others got you thinking and involved, right wrong or indifferent the hobby can be better with all of us in it.  And for the record I agree with a lot of what has been said on all sides of the issue.  I'm just moving on as I don't think there is much "steam" if you will excuse the pun, left.

Yeah, I agree, it has kind of run its course.My closing thoughts are this is not about Lionel or any specific company in this market, since they are work the same way, it is just that we are in a hobby/market where the cost of quality (the cost of poor quality) is low enough, in terms of hit to profits and in terms of customer good will, that there isn't much incentive to try and improve it. It isn't that (in this specific case) Lionel doesn't want the customer to be happy, their customer service people probably are not happy when customers call in with issues and unlike people at let's say the DMV, probably make the effort to help the customer gain satisfaction. Rather, it is that given the nature of what they are putting out, they (and the others) have no basis to try and eliminate these kinds of things. This has become a common model out there, while in the auto industry lean production and continuous quality improvement have been major parts of the entire industry for the last 30 years and is common in those areas where quality is a major benchmark, in commonly produced goods in other markets if it once existed, it no longer is used when they shifted to low cost labor markets, pure and simple, and in those markets it kind of is the opposite of Lionel, these are relatively low margin items where if something goes bad, it is cheap enough you basically throw it away, and people have basically accepted this in the guise of low prices trumping all. 

I don't think it would keep me from buying a high end engine, but I would be kind of disconcerted if I spent a grand or more on what is supposed to be a toy, and it required me to fix it or go through the hassle of getting it repaired, to me an expensive toy is more like a car than a 30 buck toaster from Walmart.....

It sounds like the engine that started the thread is a nice unit and I sincerely hope that those lucky enough to be able to purchase it, that they have fun this holiday season and beyond with it and may it be bringing smiles to their faces up until the last smile. 

I'm sorry if I opened a can of worms here. I received my parts Saturday to fix my engines even though I have not fixed them yet, I'm in no hurry since I do not have a layout. And yes Mike does know, and is on top of everything. 

The only reason I opened them up was that it was the Polar Express engines that I ordered early last year. I wanted to compare them and the last one I took out of the box was the gold one. I did notice a small plastic in that box, which lead to finding the problem. And I just wanted to find out if anyone else had this problem with this engine.

Most of my trains have not been out of their boxes, which I may regret later on. Just today I received 13 Polar cars 12 gold and 1 blue which was the observation. And I pretty sure 3 more gold ones will be here tomorrow. The only 2 that I removed from their boxes was the observations, all the rest are still sealed in there boxes. I'm still waiting on the blue coaches but the I needed the observation to have over 2 sets of the blue cars.

As I first stated before I'm glad to have my 2 new Polar Express engines. If you remember at the beginning of this year Lionel was only going to make 200 Gold ones. I'm glad they decided to make it a BTO engine because I thought I was going to miss out of having one, even though I ordered it long before a price tag was on it. The problem that I had with them and the C&O were very,very minor to me. How odd was it for me to get 3 at one time, that's what surprised me. Is it going to stop me from buying Lionel, nope.

Mike and CS took care of me as they have done in the past. And are still number 1 in my book for customer service. To everyone at Lionel, Thank you!

Update:

I still had not received a reply to my email to customer service, so I placed a call today rather than let it go much longer.  The person I spoke with was very helpful and polite and my bearing part is on it's way.  Thank you Lionel for the great customer service!

I wish all of you would have raised this much ruckus when Lionel first came out with those 18" passenger cars with stick on windows! Now that was something on which you should have pinned Lionel's ears back! 

Wow, I thought that horse was long since dead. 

Apples to Oranges.

Design issue (for those who don't like the windows) vs. manufacturing/assembly issue (for anyone who is unlucky enough to get one with wheels falling off).

Two different issues but connected at the hip.

Whether its a design or Q/C problem, somehow, when it comes to Lionel, folks are cavalier about the hefty premium paid to deliver a product at a level matching its high cost. 

The current ad states, are you ready for the BigBoy, maybe it should read, is Lionel?

Joe

lionel does make a good train so far I had no issues with my power pack I just love it

I've had a hard time finding a video of the new C&O Berkshire.

Are the new Berkshires running OK??  No word on them lately. Just curious, all the talk is about the new Challengers.

You can take no news as good news.

-Pete

Mine is running fine. N.Y.C. & ST.L. 

NKP...great engine.

Basically since the late 60s to just a couple years ago, I was in "N" and a little "HO". Engine, and cars were all manufactured overseas. Never, never once in the 50+ engine I purchased over the decades was a piece broken, or piece(s) missing. Every engine ran perfectly, not one, not one single engine ever needed to be returned to manufacturer or Dealer. Every sound system worked as advertised. I bought items for under 50.00 and over 500.00.

It seems from off and on reading that problems are rants of the buyers and acceptance of not receiving perfections is an everyday reality in "O" scale, and should be expected.

I do wish someone would clarify at what point, (actually cash outlay) one is qualified or its okay to complain about quality of the product???? Or what about missing or broken parts on a car or engine, and find that the manufacterer doesn't have any spare, so having to go to brass or spare part bins, is that acceptable???

I have the new C&O Berkshire and it ran flawlessly right out of the box.  My only problem was self inflicted when I overfilled the smoke reservoir.  Fortunately gunrunnerjohn is in my club and fixed it. Please note we tried to replace the Lionel motor with one fron MTH, but there was not enough interior room.  John however was able to get the Lionel one working fine.

Peter Araujo, I have a video but I have to figure out how to post it.

Good news, glad to hear it.

well I had to get my gp 38 engine fixed one of the wheels broke off and found that was a bent axle is what caused the wheel come off on it but now it has been fixed

From what I can conclude from a survey or count done here, and other threads, I think about 50% of Berkshave that problem, so about .5 cubed, on 1 in 8?

Here is a video of mine, works great, after a few adjustments on the locomotive and the layout.  So happy with it.

nice layout and sound crew that I love

Peter Araujo, I was able to post my video of the C & O Berk.  You can see it here:

https://ogrforum.com/t...03#39863555668355903

I must be very lucky. Over the past 20 years or so I have purchased approx 100 PS-1, TMCC, and PS-2 /3 locos and never had a failure out of the box. I have had a few failures after mega miles and hours but no issues on a new loco.

Well I did get a hold of customer service and they are sending my bushings and missing traction tires.

I was told no dummy couplers were issued with these locomotives.

That is odd....?! Is this true?

I got one with the NKP berk.

That would be the 765. I just reread my email and Lionel thought I had the Polar express engine... Argh, now I will have to put the request in again for a dummy coupler....