My vote for the worst design of a Lionel Fastrack Item

John;

Yikes, that is bad.

For what FasTrack stuff costs that's just wrong.

Lionel could do better if they cared.

 

Rod

I have a few of these and the only one that quit working was resolved by crimping the track connections.Well hey, this is a great new rant, I've not seen to many folks complaining about fastrack,good thing you got it up before the new catalogs get out!

The Fastrack is fine, it's just this crappy lighted bumpers.   I could see that one might not work, but when both of them in the package didn't work, I was unimpressed!  It was a brand new package of them, so this was a factory issue, not somebody dropping them or the like.

 

Take one apart, you'll be amazed at how low-class they are.

Thats for sure.  At the "Worlds Greatest Hobby Show" this year, I overheard the "Lionel rep" at their booth saying lionel was going to keep "whittling" down the QC and see just how long folks would continue to buy

John,

 

Doesn't it make you wonder what extent the companies will go to make sure that ALL of their products will work properly. Something like the bumpers not lighting up correctly is just stupid it shouldn't happen.

 

Doesn't it also make you wonder if the people at Lionel just let shoddy craftsmanship out knowing that it won't work right?

 

-Mike

Interesting, I have several of the lighted bumpers and never had any problem with them.  As for a Lionel rep commenting about cutting quality, sound like he should be looking for a new job soon.  You never bite the hand that feeds you.  I would rather hear him say I am going to make a difference and committed to improve quality.

I have several FasTrack lighted bumpers on my layout and have never had a problem with any of them.  I use them on the "active" spurs and use non-lighted bumpers on the dead spurs where I park unused engines and rolling stock.

Yeah, I heard they were going to start making their steam engines out of cardstock to see if anybody would notice.

 

John...any pictures you could share of the mods you made?  I have two of these bumpers in unopened boxes and plan to add them to the layout one day.

 

Thanks,

Rick

Ah, Made in China!

Isn't everything?

I have 3 of these gems and 2 of them need occasional prodding to get them lit.  Thanks for the idea on the mod.

I am always amazed when I read about things like these bumpers. Stuff like this should never happen. Makes me wonder who's running the place. Something as simple as a bumper should be perfect. If I was the Foreman or CEO somebody would be seeking a career change. This is unacceptable.

I've never bought a FasTrack bumper.  Instead, I modify a straight section of FasTrack to accept a Lionel #260 bumper.  Bit of a pain, but it works fine.

 

Or another way could be a transition piece to a custom cut section of tubular so the tubular doesn't show.

 

I have (had) one that has the same problem. I disagree as it being the worst Fastrak piece though, IMHO the Fastrak crossing gates are the worst Fastrak piece.

I heard they were going to start with the bumpers.

Well, it's heartening to know I'm not alone with the issues with these.  I'm glad I don't have the Fastrack crossing gates if they're worse than these bumpers!

John,

Thank you for posting the repair. I appreciate people who are a value add to the hobby. I don't use any fastrack, strictly gargraves, ross and atlas laid on cork roadbed.

But I constantly scan these threads for fixes on shoddy released products.

I am concerned that companies need a wake up call about the junk they are releasing.

It really doesn't mater where its made. It's the attention to detail and quality checks that need to be reinforced to catch this stuff.

I have four none of which worked out of the box. I've managed to get two to work with much twisting and prodding but two still won't light and one of them has a broken support leg. Would never buy another one but feel compelled to get the other two working. It's ridiculous that such a defective product would be put out by a company.

I initially tried the "twisting and prodding", however they'd stop working after running for a spell.  That's when I went for the industrial strength repairs.

My only lighted bumper has been 100%.

I agree.  they are junk.   i use 260 bumpers  grind a little off the bottom, grind a little off the inner sides,  drill the fastrak thru the screw holes.    has worked fine for years now.

I have a box with half a dozen of the #260's, I'll have to dig one out and look at the mods.

Give it time.

For all I know, Lionel may have fixed this problem long ago.  Mine were all three+ years ago.

 

One thing to keep in mind is that is that many shops have older inventory.  Lionel could have picked up on market feedback, made changes, and then fixed the problem with current production, but there is a bunch of older inventory out there still selling ocassionally: I was in a store the other day that had NIB K-Line stuff (before Lionel), so you can't be sure.

 

Yes, maybe they could recall those but that would be an effort full of its own problems, and I can't blame them for not doing that.

Well, I just bought these from ModelTrainStuff.  Typically, I think their inventory turns over at a pretty fast clip, so these are doubtless fairly now.

I'm in the same boat so to speak.....I currently have 4 of the lighted fastrack bumpers on my layout, all of which are still working (keeping my fingers crossed) but if memory serves me I think I went through 4 of the  double boxed sets before I ended up with the 4 that work.

 

Each time I would pick up a set, one out of the box wouldn't work. Eventally I realized I had better try them at the store before I left. Even then, I think for the last set I got we had to go through two or three boxes before we could make up a set that worked. Hopefully the duds were sent back and not just resold to someone else, hoping they wouldn't bring them back.

 

REV

One of mine worked out of the box until it was installed, then I noticed it wasn't working.  The other one was dead from the start.  The killer is that the return shipping wasn't worth screwing around with them, so it was either toss them or fix them.

well guess what. . .I just bought a set 7/13/2012 and neither worked. In the future I will consult this board before buying anything from Lionel. Hopefully I can take them back and just get the earthen bumpers. Will be at the hobby shop as they open tomorrow.

 

I just got back into the hobby and haven't had much luck with Lionel. I'm scared to death to move forward with the Legacy stuff and guess I'll roll the dice with MTH.

Hey Doug! Rememember those troublesome berkshires we had. Mine died and I gave up with modern Lionel after the erkshire shot a flame out of the stack the Berk started smoking from the inside and had to throw it in the sink because it was ON FIRE  and all the boards failed and crashed the CW-80 the frame was salvagable with motor the detail parts will be put on my MTH. Went with a zw after the experience. I would highly reccomend MTH never had an mth train i didnt like or didnt work. They have much better smoke and sounds for a lot less. A nice RTR set at model train stuff is only 295 with shipping. That's what I'm running my polar express train with now. The engine looks nice with it and has speed control and better sounds. their transformers are a lot more reliable than Lionel and they come with a remote.

Yep. . .my Berkshire went up in smoke also, fried the boards. That POS had 10,000 miles on it. Unfortunately 9,999 of them on the UPS truck back and forth to Columbus.Got my money back finally. I'm out about 75.00 in UPS charges. Also returned the CW-80 POS, after three attempts to get one that had an output higher than 14v.

I have a couple of these illuminated bumpers, and am quite happy with them. One of them seemed to fail after a few weeks, but the LED would come back to life if I wiggled it. I thought that it might require attention, but when I went to remove it to investigate further, I discovered that the real problem was just a slightly loose track joint connection. A quick adjustment with my pliers, and all has been well ever since. I may be in the minority here, but I think that they are pretty good value. I agree that they could probably be made better, but that would increase the cost.

Lionel must send some real clowns to the WGHS. Early on at the Oaks, PA show I heard one tell the other that this location was "small time". It ended up setting the attendance record at over 45,000.

For the amount that don't work right out of the box you would think Lionel would do a redesign to reduce complaints from their dealers that have to return for a refund or exchange.

Might not be lighted, but it's bulletproof :

 

LED question! These bumper LED's are running off of track power I think? Varying AC voltage up to 18V. How do you run a LED off of AC power? or is 60HZ fast enough to trick your eye into seeing constant light? And using a fixed resistor for LED protection seems difficult if you're varying the power supply voltage?

The LED will run on a wide variety of currents, from a couple of MA to more than 20.  That being said, they'll obviously be brighter at higher voltages (and currents).  The only reason the LED without the protection diode works at all here is that the current limiting resistor is keeping the reverse current low enough to not immediately toast the LED.

 

I used to run my LED's on AC with just the resistor, but after a number bit the dust within a year, I started including the protection diode.  Since that time, I've never lost another LED.  Since many of my LED's are kinda' permanent when I get them installed, it was a PITA to have to replace them, so it's worth the extra five cents for the diode to me.

I've never understood why Lionel didn't just box a pair of 5in straights with predrilled holes for the screws and preformed slots for the legs of the

die-cast lighted bumpers. It would have caused a lot less frustration all the way around.

And don't get me started on the FT Crossing Gates. Why on earth did they put scale, geared, crossing gates on a track system aimed at kids

who invariably try to move them by hand?? It would have made a lot more sense to have integrated the
6-62162 Auto Crossing Gate and Signal in to FasTrack. The kids can move those up and down all day without hurting anything.

But if there's one thing I could change, it would be the undersized wire Lionel includes with everything. Whether it's the FT Terminal/Accesory

Activator tracks, or that totally rediculous 24 gauge green insulation wire they include with the older accesories and lock-ons. Give me a break!