I just picked up my blue coal 2 bay hopper cars last nite (p/n:2026700). I am having the same issues with the couplers. I have to force them into my engine to couple them and have to do the same thing to uncouple them, which is a big disappointment when you are paying for the more expensive products. It almost seems like the coupler is too small.
For me the coupler issues are problem. I don't do a lot of coupling/uncoupling so that aspect is not as important to me. However, derailments due to a lack of articulation is a problem for me. I noticed the "Wine" milk car appears to have the same couplers but it's rated for 036. The CV and BM cars are rated for 031 ?
@MartyE posted:So what's the opinion of the cars rolling easily? Seems we all strive for cars that roll freely but are these too free rolling?
I like it, won't be an issue when I convert to kadee for switching operations. I know there's others who wont like it for other reasons.
Well I am batting 500 with these cars. Like I posted upthread, one car is fine through O36 ess curves and switches. However, I also ordered a B&M car that seems to be slightly out of gauge. It picks switches that no other car has ever picked. It seems like the axles are a little loose and one axle is definitely wider by a bit which I think is causing the derailment issue. Going to send this one back for a replacement that is in gauge.
@superwarp1 posted:I like it, won't be an issue when I convert to kadee for switching operations. I know there's others who wont like it for other reasons.
I'm not sure that rolling too much is as big of an issue as not rolling well enough. I can see the argument for both. If I had my preference though I'd like an easy roll to pull more.
@irish rifle posted:You are good through the 2015 catalogs. Lionel started to change the trucks and couplers in 2016 and then made additional changes to them in 2020. Some of the freight cars from the 2016 Signature Edition, like the PS-4 flatcars with the 40' trailers, still had the old trucks and couplers, but some of the other freight cars did not. The new trucks and couplers were on all of the Lionel freight cars by 2017.
The milk cars cataloged in 2015 are an anomaly, in that they were not actually built in 2015, but were made very recently, using the same tooling as those cataloged in the 2020 Big Book. For all intents and purposes, they should be viewed as though they were listed in the 2020 Big Book.
I recently bought a few of the 50' flatcars with the 20' trailers from the 2020 Big Book. I have not yet put them on the track, and hope that they do not have the same issues as the milk cars, particularly the couplers mounted solidly to the trucks, as they present a high risk of derailments. These are the first Lionel freight cars I have purchased from catalogs after the 2016 Signature Edition.
Pat
While this is a little off topic, I wanted to provide an update regarding the Lionel 50' flatcars with 20' trailers listed in the 2020 Big Book. Good news here. The couplers are in fact articulated. They move freely, independent of the trucks. So it sounds like the couplers may vary, depending upon the type of freight car at issue.
Pat
I just received my CNW Friendship car, Lionel 2026742. It's marked "Made in Vietnam". The paint and detail is one of the best I have seen in recent years, and one that I expected from Lionel. But the COUPLERS ARE AN ISSUE!
Next to impossible to proper connect to my other cars, be it Lionel, Atlas, KLine, MTH, etc. Even if you hand connect the cars, the coupler is so tight, there is absolute no play, up and down, side to side.
I think I can fix the coupler with my Dremel and/or a file, but is that what we should expect from Lionel, or any other suppler? I think not. They need to change the coupler supplier, make good to those that have purchased these duds by getting us new trucks or couplers.
The detail on this car, as well as my older scale cars, is fantastic. But when there is a defect, and let me assure you that this is a defect in the design, it needs to be addressed and corrected.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm a die hard Lionel fan. Lionel makes up 95% of my engines (30), 70% passenger cars and about 50% freight.
I was looking forward to buying the other Friendship cars but at this point, I wont. Another question, is this same coupler used on all the other freight cars that Lionel is releasing this year? I hope not.
Ray
I think cars need to be sent back to Lionel, refunds requested, they'll get the message if they end up with their inventory being returned. If I want to expect to work on a new car before I can use it, I wouldn't be spending $75 - $100 for a car.
@Tman129 posted:I think cars need to be sent back to Lionel, refunds requested, they'll get the message if they end up with their inventory being returned. If I want to expect to work on a new car before I can use it, I wouldn't be spending $75 - $100 for a car.
That's what I am doing. Car won't clear any switches because the wheels are out of gauge so its going back.
Late last night I was watching Mr. Muffins two live videos from the weekend. While he was running the milk cars, it is not exactly clear what was going on. He blamed himself at the end of the first one because he was running the trains by himself. At the end of the second video, there was a bit of a derailment. What appears to have happened is the train of milk cars stopped just past a switch. The next train wound up smacking into the caboose which was right on the switch.
It took a bit for Steve to get over there as it was on the backside on one of the upper levels. He rerailed the engine that hit the caboose, but ended the video shortly after so the cause only Steve knows.
I would imagine that the milk car train tripped the breaker on the section it was on, and that the switch was were there was another section and tripped that one with the crash.
Throughout both videos there appeared to be a few of these instances that played out. His military train had issues in the first and continued to have them. In the second the milk car train and those on it suffered a few over the 30 minutes of it.
It would be good to hear what Steve saw happen so he can further illustrate the issue of the trucks and couplers.
Sadly, the brake details are 100% wrong too. They should be above the center sill, not below. The original release cars were like this too, until they were corrected in later runs.
Don't open the door on your cars. The paint flakes of hinges.
Thanks for the review. I have the rutland car but haven't opened it yet. I'll have to take a look tonight😔
Yes, that paint flaked off my hinges as well. What a disappointment. I have been waiting since 2016 for my Supplee Car. I have opened the doors on my old Milk cars several times and never had that issue before. The green paint is way too light and bright as well. It looks like Kermit the frog on wheels.
@Tom 4 posted:It looks like Kermit the frog on wheels.
Its not easy being green.
Doors won't latch on the rutland car. When i tried to push the tab in to latch them, the paint flaked off the latch handle! Lionel never gets it right
Late last night I found on YouTube someone posting about the milk cars. They loved the design of the car, but as has been said, couplers stink. He struggled getting them connected(took about 4-6 tries) by manually slapping them together, not a pretty sight. Trying to disconnect was horrible both ways, trying to get the tab to release as well as pulling the car up off the engine. Granted he was just trying to lift it gently, but there looked to be no real play this it fighting to separate from the engines coupler.
The other part of the video was the derailment. He had the new car connected with an old car, both popped off the tracks on O72 curves. Old car pushed out to the outer rails, new car pushed inside.
The latch I was sure if he was having issues keeping it closed or if he was letting it sit open. He said problems open, but it was open, so not sure which he really meant. I guess these cars will be siding sitters unless we do something to them.
Well I decided to fix my Rutland car rather than return it. First, I machined out the coupler pocket and now it fits properly. The problem is the angled metal of the knuckle in the coupler pocket. Opening up that space by getting rid of that solved the fitment issue with other cars. Second issue, the trucks are delrin/plastic with metal side frames and one was warped causing the wheels not to ride properly on the track. After flattening out the trucks, it rides much better. Also, the wheels on one truck were pressed on the axles off center causing the truck to ride turned at a slight angle to the car. With that all fixed, i turned lastly to reinstalling the trucks. Come to find out, the threads inside the screw holes for mounting the trucks disintegrated upon removing the screws and needed a bit of something inserted into them to give the screw something to bite into...... OH and i had to carefully open up the small pocket on the doors for the door handle to latch into as well since those wouldn't close either. And yes, the paint is flaking on the door hinges and I didn't even open the doors. What a disaster of a new product. Buyer beware
Brian, can you describe how you flattened out the trucks?
@Doug Kinsman posted:Brian, can you describe how you flattened out the trucks?
Delrin is fairly flexible. All I did was warm it up some with hot air and then flex it back to flat and a little beyond. Delrin has a memory and as it cools will hold the shape you want. It doesn't need a lot of heat.
Gary, the recently-released Friendship PS-1 boxcars have the same trucks. I have all six of them. Based on your review, I got them out and ran them as a group on a loop of my layout that is O72. One or two of the cars routinely derail. I’m guessing if I sprinkle in some cars with articulating couplers they will work, but the idea of the Friendship train is to run them as a group. No bueno.
@Brian DeFazio posted:Well I decided to fix my Rutland car rather than return it. First, I machined out the coupler pocket and now it fits properly. The problem is the angled metal of the knuckle in the coupler pocket. Opening up that space by getting rid of that solved the fitment issue with other cars. Second issue, the trucks are delrin/plastic with metal side frames and one was warped causing the wheels not to ride properly on the track. After flattening out the trucks, it rides much better. Also, the wheels on one truck were pressed on the axles off center causing the truck to ride turned at a slight angle to the car. With that all fixed, i turned lastly to reinstalling the trucks. Come to find out, the threads inside the screw holes for mounting the trucks disintegrated upon removing the screws and needed a bit of something inserted into them to give the screw something to bite into...... OH and i had to carefully open up the small pocket on the doors for the door handle to latch into as well since those wouldn't close either. And yes, the paint is flaking on the door hinges and I didn't even open the doors. What a disaster of a new product. Buyer beware
If grandpa and grandma buy two of these for little Tommy, little Tommy better know how do make the cars useable? That sure encourages some one to get into the hobby. John
But isn’t little Tommy in the new station sounds diners? He should know better. All kidding aside, we’re ordering steak and getting government cheese. At steak prices nonetheless!
Brian & others,
Have second thoughts about buying any more of these cars?
I was ready to order the rest of the Friendship cars, but now I wont unless and until Lionel steps up to the plate and fixes this "defect" caused by unsuccessful engineering design, and lack of quality control.
RAY
@Ray of sunshine posted:Brian & others,
Have second thoughts about buying any more of these cars?
I was ready to order the rest of the Friendship cars, but now I wont unless and until Lionel steps up to the plate and fixes this "defect" caused by unsuccessful engineering design, and lack of quality control.
RAY
Let us know how you make out with that.
I just received a Lionel Shell single dome tanker car, and it’s got the one piece non swivel couplers. I am not a happy camper on this coupler design change.
Bob,
As others have said, take/send it back for a refund and let the dealer return it to Lionel. Or you could call Lionel direct on Monday and complain and tell them you want your money back.
RAY
@Ray of sunshine posted:Bob,
As others have said, take/send it back for a refund and let the dealer return it to Lionel. Or you could call Lionel direct on Monday and complain and tell them you want your money back.
RAY
Well here is a funny story related to returning a milk car. Get a call from Trainworld late yesterday and they tell me that Lionel produces all the same wheels as it pertains to my milk car return. I then informed the gentleman that the wheels are out of gauge and not parallel on the truck. I get an aggressive response repeating that the wheels are fine and that all Lionel wheels are the same. My RMA request was to replace the defective car with a new one and the Trainworld employee stated that he was going to send the same one back to me because there was nothing wrong with it. Mind you this car derailed over every switch on my layout and a couple of curves that I have NEVER had a derailment on. Also, my calipers said the wheels were not in gauge by a solid 3mm. I took him up on the offer to refund my credit card and I will never hassle Trainworld again. I guarantee they will resell that car to someone else because they don't think anything is wrong with it.
As a summary of the posts I have read on this new coupler/truck design I came up with the following:
1. These new couplers do not mate with existing Lionel (or other manufacturer's) couplers. Lionel came out with the knuckle coupler in 1946. So, these new couplers will not mate with the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of couplers made since 1946. That's 75 years of couplers!
2. These newly designed couplers will not function with OTHER newly designed Lionel couplers!
3. The new couplers, when part of a running train, cause derailments.
4. These new trucks have non-functioning springs. They are just cosmetic. The previous springs actually worked.
5. The previous reefer trucks had printing on the side frames. These new trucks do not.
6. The previous trucks were all metal. The new trucks contain some plastic parts.
A. The reefer bodies riding on these new trucks and couplers have flaking paint, especially when trying to open the doors.
B. Some buyers have had to resort to filing and drilling the newly designed couplers to make them work properly.
C. I wonder who thought these new trucks and couplers were a good idea and actually signed off on them?
D. Returning these to the dealer (and eventually back to Lionel) seems like the best way to let Lionel know of the problems with these trucks and that they are not really compatible with existing equipment.
John
I’ll going to attempt to convert mine to Kadee tonight. Might do another video or pics at the least
A few comments and pics. I picked up two of the new milk cars today. The NYC and the B&O.
I wanted the NYC to go with my existing NYC cars from the previous issue. When I got the new one on the layout is
when the problem became apparent. As you can see by the photos, the new car will not correctly couple to the previous issue NYC cars.
I was not able to make them fully link even by lifting the new car and lowering it down into the older coupler and also trying the opposite way.
There is enough resistance that it causes the front wheels to lift slightly off the rails.
I did some experimenting by removing one set of trucks from the new car and one set of trucks from the old car. The trucks are interchangeable. If you happen to have extra sets of trucks or come across previous issue milk cars with good trucks you can swap them onto the newer car without issues.
Also, be warned, the newer cars have the truck screws into the body of the car way too tight. So tight I came close to rounding the heads out on the screws that attach the truck to the body. And yes, I used the correct size screw driver. The old cars only took a fraction of the muscle and their truck mount screws came right out.
Do I agree with this...NO!
Somewhere, somehow, something got messed up and the end result is the new doesn't work with the old.
Beyond frustrated....
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These couplers must have been designed by someone that never owned a Lionel car before they worked for Lionel. The way the couplers droop down, looks like they need a little blue pill to get them back up again.
Looks like the new and old colors on the cars don't match either.
I have 3 of the newly released 8k tank cars with the new trucks. It felt weird to buy them before reading any customer comments or reviews on them, not to mention any actual product photos and sure enough my instincts were right. The paint and details on the Deep Rock car are pretty sloppy and I considered sending that one back for that reason alone before I knew of the trucks and couplers. None have been run so I may still do that. I wonder if they have the same type of screws holding them on as the milk cars?
However it all turns out, a lesson was learned.
I thought I got lucky when only one car arrived with my Rutland hoppers. Couldn’t remembered what I ordered. To my dismay. 3 more arrived last night. I run Kadee’s so for me the couplers not an issue and I’ve never opened the doors. But I will have to remove the trucks. I removed one for a photo and can concur with Dave. They don’t come off without a fight. Screw used is not designed for plastic. Not sure if they added a Loctite of some sort. Just make sure you use a good screwdriver. Still I feel the pain for the ones that ordered these lemons in what used to be one of Lionel’s nicest cars. Even the 2 railers were converting them. They were that nicely detailed.
I picked up some older cars on the bay rather cheap just for the trucks for some projects just recently. A couple of brass Bordens cars. I wanted 3 rail trucks on them. I heavily modified the stock trucks to lower them. The project came out well. I feel now like I destroyed some piece of art. I basically just used the side frames and might have just as easily used the newer ones as the trucks are no longer sprung.
It may be a while before I unbox my cars. They will need mounts made up for Kadee’s. I have converted my Rutland hoppers to Kadee’s already. The only good thing I can say about them is they roll good. Added on parts either broke, missing, not glued on straight. Really poor workmanship.
Atlas, I know your not listening. I asked years ago to look into offering your 50 ft. Express reefers as milk cars. Just remove the ice hatches. They would be prototypical in a variety of schemes. I was told it would be a big project to make the tanks inside. At least they were familiar with Lionel’s car. How many of you look at the Tanks or open the fragile doors ? Atlas still makes a quality car. They just have no passion for O scale in getting product to market. Jim Weaver would have listened. Joe Hayter knew his stuff. I’m afraid most of the guys left involved in the manufacturing end other than Scott Mann just don’t get it. Lionel may at some point be the only game left in town. I’ll have money to spend. But I really don’t need anymore.
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Mario’s shims work perfectly on the milk cars.
I was just watching another video on YouTube about the new milk cars. The poster contacted his dealer, his dealer contacted either Ryan or Dave and they are I guess planning what they're going to do. Hmm????
@Dave NYC Hudson PRR K4 posted:I was just watching another video on YouTube about the new milk cars. The poster contacted his dealer, his dealer contacted either Ryan or Dave and they are I guess planning what they're going to do. Hmm????
I saw that too - it was a good video demonstration of the problem, even showing one of the Metca PRR milk cars.
Here is the video. Not my video, hopefully I embedded it right from my phone.
With more complaints lodged, it looks like I have to add #7 and # 8 to my original post:
As a summary of the posts I have read on this new coupler/truck design I came up with the following:
1. These new couplers do not mate with existing Lionel (or other manufacturer's) couplers. Lionel came out with the knuckle coupler in 1946. So, these new couplers will not mate with the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of couplers made since 1946. That's 75 years of couplers!
2. These newly designed couplers will not function with OTHER newly designed Lionel couplers!
3. The new couplers, when part of a running train, cause derailments.
4. These new trucks have non-functioning springs. They are just cosmetic. The previous springs actually worked.
5. The previous reefer trucks had printing on the side frames. These new trucks do not.
6. The previous trucks were all metal. The new trucks contain some plastic parts.
7. The brake detail underneath is not between the frame and the center sill.
8. There were no Kadee pads as had been advertised.
A. The reefer bodies riding on these new trucks and couplers have flaking paint, especially when trying to open the doors.
B. Some buyers have had to resort to filing and drilling the newly designed couplers to make them work properly.
C. I wonder who thought these new trucks and couplers were a good idea and actually signed off on them?
D. Returning these to the dealer (and eventually back to Lionel) seems like the best way to let Lionel know of the problems with these trucks and that they are not really compatible with existing equipment.
John
