I do not mind paying for shipping to send products back to Lionel for repair.... they have been MORE then accommodating to me, i have to say....they stand behind their products 100%
I have two winning stories about Lionel Customer Service.
#1- My Vision Line Challenger. I bought it second hand off someone on the forums here, as we all know this invalidates the Warranty since i am not the original owner/don't have a receipt from a lionel dealer. It arrived to me with the Whistle Steam non functional, Physical Whistle Broken off (glue residue to show someone attempted to fix it), and after about 4 hours of running it stopped taking legacy commands, and would only surge quickly in forward then stop again under conventional. I contacted Lionel, they explained it would be a charge repair since i was not in warranty, i agreed because i didn't want a Vision Line paerweight..... I shipped it to them, they had it shipped back to me within a week and a half, completely fixed, good as new....with absolutely no charge other then my shipping to them.
#2 Pensylvania Scale Legacy Mikado- Sent it to them because it was not taking programming, would only respond to "Engine 1" and the smoke unit had failed. They sent it back, it took it's engine number just fine, but smoke still did not work. this was right as they were moving to NC from OH. I waited until the move was complete, and just recently emailed them... they apologized and sent me a prepaid UPS shipping label to return it since they did not repair it completely the first time.
Again, nothing but good things to say!!!!