One last consideration - if you can get it for a good price ~$200 or less per the above posts, and it is still working, and you perform preventative maintenance with the fans, maybe you can get some use out of it and if it fails, so what?, nice ornament.
Discovered this thread as I do research on the Z-4000, watching what they are selling for, and pondering a purchase. The serial number info was helpful. I find it interesting that some of the more knowledgeable OGR heavyweights made the same observation I had made about electronics in MTH and Lionel locos today with repair and parts availability determining loco longevity. In the loco case, I sorta got dragged over the coals by others saying 3D printing, circuit redesign and parts substitution as needed for loco controls would be in the works, like it would be as simple as changing a light bulb. If keeping the modern loco running that is full of electronics with basically a computer inside will be a no-brainer, then so should the Z-4000. Still not sure if I want to find out though. Lets see if 85 years from now, one of your great grandkids will have a loco still running, and which one it is, the electronic based one or the one with an E unit. Of course it won't matter to most alive today, but neither did it matter knowing one way or another back in 1937 to the kid playing with Lionel if in 2022 his train set would be in somebody elses hands and still making mileage.
@CALNNC posted:Lets see if 85 years from now, one of your great grandkids will have a loco still running, and which one it is, the electronic based one or the one with an E unit.
You're entitled to believe what you want, but why is this an "either one or the other" situation?
The answer may not be obvious to you. It will be both.
You and others act like pre- and post-war stuff never broke down, and modern stuff always does. If this were the case whey did Lionel have a service network over all of its years, and not just the later ones? I suppose that it existed in the early days but no one actually ever needed it.
I'm sorry that electronics had to come along, starting 50 years ago, and ruin everyone's hobby. But to many of us they have extended the joy of those early days into our modern world, with the promise of continued delightful surprises of the kind that have always kept the hobby alive and moving forward.
I'll stick with the positive. It will be both.
Mike
