Lionel Visionline GG-1

Send it to Lionel and tell them the problem. 

I see China has Monday morning work issues also. 

In the absence of somebody else reporting the same issue (and whether they actually found the magnet inside the body shell or loose in the box), I thought I'd mention the following. I am sure that the Vision GG1 uses the same body shell tooling as the JLC version. While as far as I can see there's not yet a Vision GG1 parts list on the Lionel support site, the JLC parts include this, which I think is the hatch in question:

I can't actually see a magnet in the above; maybe it's on the underside of the hatch. While I wouldn't second guess what Lionel has told you it looks to me that the round opening in the hatch fitting is intended to press fit on a post. Have you looked inside the body shell to see if there is a fitting of that kind? It might be on the underside of the nose of the shell. 

Thanks for your detailed reply. Initially, I thought that the countersunk opening on the roof lid was for a screw that had been overlooked during assembly. I'm waiting on a formal response from Lionel as to how this issue will be resolved but was hoping that another purchaser of this engine could explain how this roof lid is attached and held in place.

I'm not where my JLC version is or I'd have a look and tell you what I could see about the attachment. It's pretty clear that the part fits in with the hinges in the two notches in the body shell shown in your first picture and probably the part with the round hole in it pointing down (at a 90 degree angle to the closed hatch). If so look for a post inside the body shell and beneath the whole assembly. This doesn't look like a magnet fixing to me although Lionel does use magnets in some steam and diesel unit hatches - not to hold the whole assembly in place but to keep the hatch cover down.

I agree that it doesn't look like a magnet but rather a machined pan head screw should be holding this part to the cab shell.  The cab shell does appear to have a post where this part would be mounted on the underside of the cab shell. I think Lionel customer service was referring to the switch settings and smoke unit refill hatch lids when referring to the magnets used to hold them in place. That makes this situation even more disturbing to think that this unit was packaged with full knowledge of the oversight in the assembly process. Very poor quality control on such a highend Visionline marketed product and very discouraging to me as a longtime Lionel customer.

Well, the verdict is in from Lionel. Apparently, the roof hatch should be mounted from underneath the cab shell with a screw. This small mounting detail was so inconveniently overlooked by an assembler in China. Thanks to all who responded to my posting.

"Vision" impaired.