new acela issue this time its the engine.

Roger,

Are you getting an error code from the 2021 cab (in the form of a blinking white light in the cab)?

Is 2021 still operating perfectly using the bluetooth smartphone app?

No blinking light. App seems to work direction wise and crew talk working .pantographs are not working at all bruce.

Well, no blinking light is a little bit of good news meaning you have no catastrophic failure like I had with 2021.  My 2024 had a mechanical failure between the motor and truck gears. Both are in Lionel sickbay.

Maybe related to your problem, I was hoping to ask Lionel if there was a better reset routine or method to do a complete software reload of the engine.

In the meantime, I would suggest you not attempt to pull your cars with the 2024 alone. I measured a drawbar load of 0.5 lbs trying to pull the 8 cars. I never had a chance to measure the drawbar pull on either engine but believed the one engine was straining trying to pull the cars.

My engines have been at Lionel for 2 1/2 weeks but another poster had his Acela at Lionel 2 weeks earlier than mine.

Will do. Thanks bruce. Still puzzles me that it was working fine then stopped working all of a sudden.must be a bad board or software issue.

Wow I was hoping this latest acela reissue would be trouble free. I guessed wrong.

guess I am not the only acela in repair. called lionel and got my ra# the turn around time is 6 to 8 weeks.

what sucks is I havent even got my add on set from charles ro. they are waiting on lionel for more to arrive that they ordered.

I just hope there is no couplers or bistro car issues and this set is problem free. not counting on it though.

this may be my last NEW lionel purchase other than the 2-10-10-2 I have comming. when I buy used engines it seems they have already had the bugs worked out and have very little if any issues.

the cost and quality control issues are just getting to much bear.

@Lionelzwl2012 posted:

guess I am not the only acela in repair. called lionel and got my ra# the turn around time is 6 to 8 weeks.

They've been telling everyone 6-8 weeks.  Folks are getting their equipment back much sooner.

thats at least some positive news out of all my troubles. thanks marty.

still would like to know the cause though? I hope lionel details the issue on the repair slip.

@Bruce Brown posted:

In the meantime, I would suggest you not attempt to pull your cars with the 2024 alone. I measured a drawbar load of 0.5 lbs trying to pull the 8 cars. I never had a chance to measure the drawbar pull on either engine but believed the one engine was straining trying to pull the cars.

A drawbar load of half a pound shouldn't be a challenge for a single dual motored locomotive.  My Lionel Legacy Santa Fe Northern pulls ten Lionel heavyweight cars around, including my 2.5% grade without breaking a sweat.  I'm sure the drawbar load is at least that much.  My little MTH VO-1000 has a measured drawbar pull of 1.5 pounds.

GRJ,

Some of these these Acela engines are obviously failing for both electrical, mechanical and maybe S/W reasons. So why push the envelope when the set was designed to have a pushing engine?

I can't argue that point Bruce, they seem to be croaking at an alarming rate!

From my notes, those who have expressed some sort of issue with the set (other than myself, and not including the bistro speaker visibility concern) includes:

Jeff, Greg, Adrian, Tony, Roger, JoeV, Art, Gweedo, Mich, Zigmont and Chris. Anyone I left off?

wow bruce thats a lot of guys. seems lionel strikes again. wonder how many more unreported owners with issues  that are out there. the ones not on the forums at all.

I was hoping this set would have a better board set up as the boards would be the latest rcmc with bluetooth. guess I was wrong.

still cant wrap my head around why the engine responds in bluetooth via the app,but nothing via the cab2. thats whats got me curious more than mad at this point.

even the reset procedure does not cure it. thats odd also. lets just hope lionel has the fix for us.

My Pantagraphs were in the up position when the engine stoped responding. I am hoping I dont damage them when I box it back up. I plan on paper around the engine body and some rubber bands to keep them down so they do not get destroyed in the box.

I am also putting some foam around the nose cone area when placed in the box to prevent damage also.

I hate to say it but I still love this set, just not all the issues.

@Lionelzwl2012 posted:

I hate to say it but I still love this set, just not all the issues.

Roger,

I fully understand and appreciate your sentiment. It is indeed a visually magnificent set!  (And the pantographs going up and down are pretty neat.) I still remain hopeful we can get all these issues ironed out someway, somehow.

I brought the Acela set and expansion set home from York. I got it from MrMuffins. They were aware of the nose cone issues and pre opened up all of the sets that they sold.  I am in the process of opening up this set now. The nose cones are fine. Other than the nose cone what other issues have been noted?  I remember one person lost screw out of one of the couplers and another had a short in one of the engines caused by miscellaneous metal debris.  Anything else to check for ?

Just make sure your engine rollers are in the down position and not stuck up in the frame where they will cause a short. The other issue has been derailments running multiple loops on a layout due to 1) less-than-perfect track layout, or 2) trailing engine moving a bit faster than the lead engine. If you can successfully loop this train, and your cars don't decouple due to a loose screw, you will be in great shape!

Thank you Bruce. Those were some of the issues that I forgot about. I’ll definitely ck the engine rollers. I think i will run the 2 engines in pairing mode without the cars. I will separate them by a couple of inches and run them around the layout a few times. If they maintain that distance between them they should be ok. Ill ck in both directions, forward and reverse. Any other ideas?

Thank you, Greatly appreciated.

Suggest using a fast-acting circuit breaker so if there is a derailment, excessive drag will not be placed on the engine. We are not exactly sure why some of the engines are failing but maybe the breaker will help or, down the road and more ambitiously, a TVS in the engine. Hopefully Lionel will soon let some of us know what internals are being repaired/replaced. Check for loose coupling screws in all the cars.