MTH 381e traditional motor pulling power?

Sunrise Special posted:

Does anyone by chance have any experience with the 10-1077-0 MTH 381e with traditional motor? How's the pulling power? Also...Observing pictures on the internet...it seems as if the paint chips on the black base where the green hood moves to make curves.  Is this from the operation or simply from picking the unit up and those to parts touching because of the movement?

Thanks,

Sunrise

I have one of these and it pulls very well, hauling all four of the Stephen Girard Passenger cars easily-when its working, because, this is is by far the lousiest engine I have ever owned.  Right out out of the box it had a bad armature so back to the dealer it went.  Upon return in less than a week the E-unit went belly up, back to the dealer it went.  I bought this engine because I thought the Traditional open frame motor would be more reliable than a contemporary motor.  I thought wrong.  Significant paint chips form on the black frame simply from routine running.  Although this engine sports a Build-A-Loco motor, disassembly is a major league pain in the butt if you are required to get inside the interior of the shell if the headlamp tabs fall out- which mine did.   Disassembly and reassembly will lead to a scarred up shell exterior no matter how careful you try to be.  If you already have this engine I hope you have good luck with it.  If you are still in the deciding stage I would think long and hard on it before making the purchase.  I have thought about selling mine but I don't have the heart to dump this lemon on anyone.  

There have been discussions on this forum suggesting that the Chinese factories do not have the experience to build a reliable, smooth running open frame motor. It's nothing like they have ever seen before or are likely to see again.

I have the Lionel Classics 381E (open-frame AC motor), which if I'm not mistaken, was made by MTH. It pulls all 4 of my State Cars, but I can tell it's working very hard. No wonder Lionel offered a green 408E as a replacement back in the day. 

John

BlueComet400 posted:

I have the Lionel Classics 381E (open-frame AC motor), which if I'm not mistaken, was made by MTH. It pulls all 4 of my State Cars, but I can tell it's working very hard. No wonder Lionel offered a green 408E as a replacement back in the day. 

 

John

The Lionel Classics were Korean made and the motors were better, but I agree, pulling those big cars was a challenge for mine also.

Steve