I bought one of the Lionel Mikados January of 2015. When I first got it, it smoked beautifully, but about 6 months later it stopped smoking. I had a lot of other things to do so I didn't worry about it. Around December or so I was working with the trains and running the Mikado, which I got use to without smoke, but I began thinking this shouldn't be, so I played around with it hoping that it would miraculously start spewing smoke again. About late January I checked with my local hobby shop which does not have a repair guy anymore, but he would be willing to send it off to some other guy out of state who does repairs. I got to thinking I should contact Lionel. The loco was out of warranty by now, of course, but I checked in with them on the issue anyways. Over about a half a dozen emails they walked me through different things I should try, which I did to no avail. Finally they said I could send it for service, but if they found that it was caused by something I did, I would have to pay for service. Well I packed it up on Monday and they got it today, early morning and sent me an email saying it had arrived. About 45min. later they sent another email saying it was all fixed and on the way back. I checked with them and they said it was a charred batten. They replaced it and it should be ok. Well. That seemed like pretty fast service to me. I'm not use to that from companies. I should get it back early next week and I'll let you know if it works again. Just thought I'd let everyone know about my positive experience with Lionel.
Al B.
