Maybe they really should bring production back to the U.S.

"

It seems odd to me that 100% of the trains you bought are defective."

 

True.  If bought at the same local dealer, perhaps an entire shipment from the distributor or manufacturer was subjected to unusual physical "stress."  I suspect this happens more than we realize, and accounts for the reports of multiple defects in a short period of time in purchases.

 

I'm guessing that except for certain packages, Fedex, UPS and USPS staff treat every package as if it contained pajamas and slipper from LL Bean or Lands End .

In the 1950's, each Lionel engine was tested before it left the factory.  I have seen the film on Youtube, but I don't have the link available.  I'm sure someone can provide it.

 

I am sure that there were a number of defective locomotives discovered in that testing.  The difference between then and now is that now little or no testing is done in the factory and quality control is left up to the consumer.

 

I believe the percentage of defects is higher than 5%; but even if we suppose a figure of 5%, these defective 5% have no business being shrink-wrapped and shipped to customers.

 

I really like Williams products; but, to be honest, I have encountered new items with bad horns, bad whistles, bad reverse boards, loose or missing screws, zero lubrication, bent die-cast parts, speakers out of their baffles, pinched wires, short circuits, and fallen window inserts.

 

Just a guess, but the OP's trouble with the ten-wheeler may be due to a loose screw on the motor mount or zero gear lubricant.  Loose or missing screws on motor mounts are getting quite common on Williams products.  I actually had a semi-scale GG1 with a missing screw on the motor itself (motor to plate).

 

Manufacturers need to review the old Lionel film and rethink how to test these things either onsite or in the USA.  It would save money and grief for both manufacturers and consumers in the long run.

 

If proper quality control testing were done, manufacturers could use that as a marketing advantage which would encourage consumers to pay more for their products, because of their proven reliability.

 

By way of comparison, consumers were willing to pay more for Bryston amplifiers which carried a twenty-year transferable warranty.  In that case, both Bryston and consumers believed in the products' reliability.

 

And how much trouble would it be to test each Williams for F-N-R and sound, at the very minimum?

"these defective 5% have no business being shrink-wrapped and shipped to customers."

 

But what if 4 out of 5 of these are defects due to rough handling during shipping, user error, etc.?  Those are not fixable by any kind of pre-shipment quality control.  Perhaps better packaging is really the answer.  Just a hypothesis.

Most of the Williams problems I find can only be explained by assembly-line errors.  One horn board had a bad capacitor (lots of these in electronics bins) that didn't charge properly.  A test at the factory would have revealed the problem.  As far as shipping goes, Williams are quite well-packed.

 

Incidentally, have train manufacturers shared with us the rigorous quality control inspections their products undergo?

Lionel, should of never left.

It's interesting that you've had so many defects with Williams, since others say these are bullet-proof, idiot-proof and reliable as the sun rising in the east .  It shows that individual experiences are highly variable.  Some have 7 out of 7 defects and I have hundreds of purchases with 3 or 4 defects.  That's why I'm reluctant to believe that lax or absent quality control explains the overall experience.  It's always disappointing to receive a less than perfect product.  But one has to expect some of that in life.  How much is an individual judgement.

In all fairness, Mike Wolf opened the door to overseas o guage manufacturing( somehow this one escapes everyone). Lionel had no choice in order to remain competative.

 

As of late, Lionel has made a few small attempts in doing a bit of manufacturing here.

 

 

A recent interview with Mike Wolf he stated:  "Chinese factory workers are an exceptional workforce, willing to perform tedious and repetative tasks while maintaning high standards of quality". " Virtually all the talk about a signifigant return to U.S. toy train production is hype".

 

"Even though chinese production costs have increased, Wolf sees little likely hood that signifigant train production will return to the United States. Manufacturing costs remain low in comparison to the U.S. Additionally container transportation costs continue relatively low."

 

Gotta love the double-standard on this forum.

 

If Lionel had stubbornly kept production in the USA, they would've gone broke (again) several years ago.

 

Even if they were the only game in town, the expense of manufacturing in the US would have caused Lionel to price themselves right out of the market.

 

At least with the current business model, SOME money stays in the USA, and SOME jobs stayed in the USA.

 

Some is better than none. Lionel would have gone belly up, and some Chinese company would have purchased the tooling and intellectual property for pennies on the dollar. We'd have cheap toy trains, but NOBODY in the USA would be making any money from it!

quote:

But what if 4 out of 5 of these are defects due to rough handling during shipping, user error, etc.?  Those are not fixable by any kind of pre-shipment quality control.  Perhaps better packaging is really the answer.  Just a hypothesis.

 

Then it is still the manufacturer's issue. They need to pack their merchandise with withstand real shipping conditions. In one of the videos about Lionel (Making of the Scale Hudson?), there is a segment showing how they did packaging tests back then.

 

The manufacturer cannot blame subcontractors. The final product is theirs.

 Boy if I ever could win the lottery things would change

Apparently, you have never listened to any of the US Senate hearings on TV

I hate to say this.  But maybe we modelers should not buy engines, cars, ET AL, until QA/QI goes up.

 

People stopped buying GM stuff in the 1970's when the qualitiy of their cars went downhill.  Same with EMD after the 50-Series issues.  

 

These are issues a bean counter cannot solve.  Or maybe one needs a new counter because the bean counter pushed for QA/QI cuts short term, but crippled the company over the long haul.

 

Let's take a look at what being a typical industrial assembly worker involves nowadays (and I'm talking US assembly workers.)  This is based on several places I've worked.

 

Punch in for shift.  Even one minute late, get docked 15 minutes pay.  The individual manager may or may not allow the time to be made up.  If allowed to make up the time, you have to punch out 16 minutes after the normal shift end time.  The worker is also expected to be at their appropriate workstation at the shift start time. 

 

Line assembly work is VERY repetitive and can even be mind numbing when preforming the same task over and over again.

 

Assembly tasks.  The worker may or may not have to punch in/out on an individual job.  Each job has a rate for assembly: X amount of units/per hour, half hour or 15 minute period.  The worker is expected to meet the rate at minimum and is reviewed on the basis of meeting or excceding the rate.  There's no walking around and chat idly with the co-workers.  Cell phone calls(except emergency), playing i-games is a no-no.

 

Testing.  Some products, particularly electronics do require testing.  Batches can be as little as one or as many as 500 units or above.  The particular test may have varying degrees of automation or operator intervention.  Failures go off to guys like me for disposition or repair.

 

Breaks. Bathroom breaks are allowed, one or two 15 minute breaks during the day (usually depending if the breaks are paid or not.)  Half hour lunch break, also may or may not be paid.  Usually allowed a couple of minutes before breaks to clean up.

 

Shift end.  Usually allowed 10 minutes for clean up and/or putting the job away.  Cue up at the time clock and wait for the official quitting time.

 

Repeat 5 days a week, 3-4 weeks a month, 12 months a year...

 

Now, the above is not written in stone, most employers do allow a certain amount of flexibility, but it's certainly a more rigid environment than working in an office or field assginment.

 

As I've mentioned before, factory work isn't sexy and it can be suprizingly difficult at times to find people, even in a lousy economy, to get folks to work in one. 

 

Rusty

 

 

Rusty,

 

I enjoyed your synopsis (re USA factory work), but IMHO it does not reflect actual working conditions in today's Chinese factories.

 

But this is not about China.  Quality control and testing, as well as repair, can be done by teams in the USA before final distribution.

 

The long-term benefits of doing that would far exceed the perceived costs.

 

It doesn't take that much time to examine and test each engine before final shipment.

 

And the LHS or purchaser should not have to be the one to do this.

Silly, silly.

Old Lionel trains ran......
Well..... Made loud buzzing, took off like jack rabbits, had no sound, burned up incandescent light bulbs, wore out Ac brushes, had lousy smoke, high friction wheels, lousy details, poor slow performance and...
Wear pretty good toys for families that had a lot of money.

New Lionel trains are highly detailed, complex electronic devices that are aimed at a certain demographic and relatively inexpensive considering their low production quantities.

Most low paying electronic assembly jobs left the USA because even uneducated workers wanted more money to do what is considered boring and tedious.
It really requires concentration and dexterity which a lot of American youths do not have.

Sorry you got unlucky on three toy train related purchases.
I would think it is more of a coincidence than the norm.
It could of easily been three customers buying three items.
Just statistics and the luck of the draw.

Too bad we can't run a poll here and find out once and for all the average percentage of troublesome trains encountered by the members.

 

Too bad also that we don't have access to the percentage of complaints or returns by customers of each manufacturer.

 

Methinks that somewhere between "no problem" and "armageddon" lies the truth.  But I do think it is appropriate to ask manufacturers to do better.

 

And I do not think it is silly that some folks really like and respect old Lionel.  Their esteem is a point well taken.

If the failure rate were truly 10% at delivery, we'd have a revolt.  We do not.  It's not statistically likely that many of us have a 1-2% failure rate (not for locos alone, granted) after purchasing hundreds of products over the years, given that the true rate is 10%.  Thus I think 5% is the outer limit of the true overall failure rate.  Maybe it's 1% for rolling stock and 7-8% for locos, but it surely cannot be 10% overall.  Perhaps for some models it's 45%, but overall, I  own many dozens of locos and have had 1 fail upon initial use.  That's well under 5%.  Many people I know have exactly the same experience, so the estimate of 10% is inconsistent with the 100s or 1000s of locomotives I know about from personal experience.  Our local dealer could not remain in business returning 10% of locos to vendors or repairing them under warranty himself.

 

Does it matter? 5% versus 10%?  I think it does to the consumer.  By the way,  I own about 10 Williams locos.  Zero failures and major defects.  Small numbers, all from the previous owners, but they are what they are.  I think the absence of quality complaints are based upon individual bad luck and the assumption that everyone else is having the same experience.

I think it is the problems with locos that cause the most aggravation.  I have had 0% failure rate with rolling stock.  I think there is simply less to go wrong with rolling stock.  Certainly, if you average all train purchases together, I suspect it would come to less than 5%.  I think that examining and testing each passenger car or freight car or accessory wouldn't make much sense.  However, Lionel in the PW period did test accessories and operating cars.

 

It just seems sensible to me that someone should inspect each engine before it ships, especially when that engine might cost the buyer hundreds or thousands of dollars.  It would probably save money on the service end as well, and it would certainly save the buyer shipping and time costs.

OK.  Let's try to establish a test criteria then.

 

Inspect for blemishes and missing/loose parts: 

Eyeball? 

Magnifyer?

Video Inspection System?

What constitutes pass/fail?

 

Once you put the locomotive under test on a track:

Run it forwards and backwards?

How long of a track? 

Straight?

Loop?

Turnouts?

Grades?

Reverse curves?

Radius? 

 

If on a loop, how long do you run it?

Half minute?

Minute?

Multiple minutes?

Half hour?

Hour?

Half day?

Day?

What is pass/fail.

 

Check conventional, command, sound and light functions?

Does a human do it or is it a computer test?

What is pass/fail?

 

Repeat for each one of the locomotives produced.

 

Add the cost of labor.

 

Rusty

 

No it wouldn't.

 

I presume you would use your newfound wealth to purchase Lionel and bring manufacturing back to the USA.

 

In order to bring manufacturing back to the US, you would have to double, or possibly triple the selling prices of existing products, AND maintain the current sales volume to keep the company at its current financial status.

 

There is no way enough people are going to pay 2X or 3X for the same product. The Chinese have the molds and designs, so they will start shipping cheap knock-offs to undercut you. Sales will go down.

 

You will go belly up, but you can die knowing that for a short while you lived your fantasy of owning Lionel... Until you ran it into the ground!

 

Someone earlier mentioned seeing a film on youtube about Lionel production, and how they showed them "testing" the locomotives.

 

IIRC they ran them back and forth a couple times on a short piece of track, and possibly sent them to the next assembly station under their own power.

 

The "testing" was a joke. ANY testing is a joke.

 

The only way testing can be at all accurate is if you run the locomotive until it fails. If you do that, you end up with NO PRODUCT to sell!

 

I am 100% positive that the Chinese do a basic functionality test, same as, or better than, what was shown in the Lionel film.

 

If it works, it goes in the box. If it doesn't work, it gets rejected and sent back for repair, or discarded.

 

Nobody can predict if the locomotive will fail the next time it is powered up, after 1 minute of operation, after 1 hour of operation, after 100 hours of operation, or after 10 years... Even the best QC will end up with new products being inoperative out of the box.

 

First off, who says there is no testing? You assume because you got a bad one that there is no testing going on.

 

Second off, the average customer only looks at PRICE. They don't care about anything else. They buy based on price alone and then whine when the product breaks or is DOA. The vast majority is not going to pay a lick of attention to how well a product is tested. YOU might, but the vast majority would not.

It is a belief, based on logic.

 

The fact that the vast majority of train sets come through with no noticeable flaws means some sort of QC is taking place. Given how quick and simple Lionel's "testing" was in the 1950's, it would be almost impossible to do less.

 

Conversely, your assertion of "no QC" is not based on evidence either. One bad unit is not evidence of a lack of QC. It is evidence that God is not working the production line.

 

Lately I have been on a buy American kick and find out that comparable American made products in many cases actually cost less than their Chinese counterparts. As for trains, I cannot believe that a $500 or $1000 engine, or a $50 boxcar cannot be made here at a profit.

 

 

 

Mark

 

It's not the Chinese. It's the US companies that have product mfg there. Apple wants a quality product and they surely pay more for it. When you go to China you want it cheap. Probably cheaper that they want to mfg it for. So the Chinese in turn cut some corners so they can make a profit too. I have bought quality product mfg in China and Junk that was mfg in the USA. I don't like it but, as someone pointed out "We got what we asked for".

 

"In all fairness, Mike Wolf opened the door to overseas o guage manufacturing (somehow this one escapes everyone). Lionel had no choice in order to remain competative."

 

Rick has it right. I know this was started by quality issues. I've never once had a bad engine that was made in China. Not everyone has that experience, but that's no reason for the phrase "Chinese junk." I haven't had a defective RMT engine yet. Yes, the couplers are stiff for 027 curves, but that's an engineering issue, not a QC issue.

 

Matt, Lionel would not have to triple prices to be in the US. If that were so, Weaver would be triple in price. When Lionel closed the US plant, Dick Maddox stated what Rick O. referenced, it was for 'Lionel to remain competitive." And what he meant was TOOLING.

 

Not lower consumer prices. Competitive as in reference to K-Line and especially MTH, which had long been overseas. If you look at your catalogs and compare pre-China to Chinese produced Lionel, that's when the NEWLY TOOLED products really started coming. Lower production prices enabled Lionel to put more money into ENGINEERING and TOOLING... just as with MTH and K-Line.

 

I have zero doubt Lionel and the others could have US based manufacturing. But I also have NO DOUBT if this happened, new product introductions would DROP significantly.

 

What is the biggest complaint when Weaver introduces a new catalog?

"Ho hum, same ol' same ol."

"Just a few new road names on the same cars as before."

 

I'm not knocking Weaver. I'm just repeating comments that get made here on this forum. The new product scenario would be the same for Lionel, MTH or any other company having production on US soil. Look at the Lionel MPC catalogs and see how many new product introductions they had. Yes, they had some. Like taking a basic GP-9 frame and putting a U-Boat shell on the frame.

 

And people don't like hearing this, but IT IS the non-scale semi-scale trains that are the bread and butter for the train companies. That's where they made most of their money. With MTH's new product diversions, maybe things have changed, but Mike Wolf has said himself that Railing products are the money makers for MTH and the best selling line.

 

I don't like defects anymore that anyone else. US production would not eliminate defects. It surely would eliminate the vast numbers of new product developments. And given the number of threads here about "why don't they make this or that," I think fewer new products would cause a bigger stir than do the defect rates.

 

PS: if anyone has noticed how new product introductions from new tooling have been pulled back recently... well if it's expensive in China how much more so in the USA?

 

I'll say it again, I've always felt anyone who is unhappy with the state of the hobby, should find out how easy it is by starting up their own train company, produced here in the USA... providing you could find a bank that would be willing to finance millions into a very risky business.

 

So the US Senate is responsible for testing toy trains now?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jerry 

An engine can test out perfectly fine after a lap or two around a test track, maybe even cycling the reverse unit a few times as well, and it could still be DOA when the customer places it on the track, or fail after a few hours, days, weeks, or months afterwards.

 

While doing inspections are all very well & good, no amount of testing will be able to account for all variables out in the real world.  There will always be situations where the product is cosmetically or mechanically damaged in shipping (forklift football as I call it) no matter how well you package it, shakes & vibrations during shipment can cause mounting screws to back out, etc.  There are a multitude of variables that can, and will exist that result in failure that the original designers could never have possibly anticipated.

 

I even seem to recall reading somewhere that either Lionel or MTH (or maybe both) have said that the majority of warranty work done was a result of user error more so than because of a design or quality control issue.

 

Are QA inspections performed?  Yes; it's a foregone conclusion that failure rates would be much higher than they are now if otherwise.  Did MTH say at one point that they inspect every engine before it goes to the dealers?  Yes.  Did they indicate that they stopped doing those inspections?  Not to my knowledge.  Does QA eliminate problems out of the box completely?  Nope; even due diligence is not flawless.

 

 

Even if you moved manufacturing back to the US, who would supply the parts?

 

Whoever makes them the cheapest.

I agree with John. But to Jerry's point I find it interesting that as much as the "quality" topic is felt to be over discussed any time one of these threads comes up it draws hefty and intensive input from a large part of the forum population. I for one enjoy reading these as they provide interesting insights, some history and for the most are civil and well thought out and well written.

 

Try visiting a sports forum some time and you'll see how good we have it.