Return of the Blue Comet

Looks like she's up and running, and not at all shy about pulling all 5 of those big cars around the curves.  Nice job.

Wow, that's a great set and you did a nice job restoring your engine. Enjoy it.

Tin

Nice job! Gotta love the Blue Comet.

RAK, just curious, you said you wore out the motor:  did you replace the whole motor with a new one, or did you do a "motor job", brushes bearings armature etc?

The armature looked pretty good, but I replaced it anyway.  The major wear point was  the hole in the phenolic plate that supports the armature on one side of the motor.  The end of the armature shaft had opened up considerably.  I had a spare MTH Build-A-Loco motor that I had purchased for parts about 10 years ago and replaced the entire side frame, including the phenolic portion.  I think I may have replaced the idler gears and the diamond shaped piece that retains them and supports the armature bearing on the other side, many years ago.

I put a lot of time on this 400E-I used to run it in the garden for hours on end.

I have been through a lot with this engine.  When it was about 12 years old, I noticed that there was a gap at the bottom of the boiler front.  The frame was also bowed down.  The frame had actually grown in length about 3/16" of an inch, over time.

I ordered a new frame from MTH then had it custom painted to match (it is not perfect, but pretty close). This 400E was Samhongsa production.

I have two newer 400E's, both by MTH, one about 15 years old, the other about 16-neither one has had a problem with the frame growing, at this point.

Hi,

   Some of the tinplate Engines seem to have that problem either expanding or

cracking frames or metal parts. When I got my Lionel 1385E the frame was great

but the boiler cover and steamchest were pretty much gone so I had to replace

those, but it's rolling again.

Tin

Those 400e frames, I have one blue comet from the 90s that expanded, and the other is perfect, the perfect one never left the box, the expanded one was displayed, always thought that was weird. Very common problem showing up on these MTH produced engines.

RAK,

   Great train, you have to love the Blue Comet, especially on FasTrack!  Dust that big girl off, purchase a couple new switches and expand the layout, man that is a sweet hunk of Tin!

PCRR/Dave

Thank you for the kind comments, gentlemen!

"Very common problem showing up on these MTH produced engines."

The weird thing is that this one is from MTH through Samhongsa, which was based, if memory serves, in Korea, was supposed to be the best subcontractor.  The other two that I have that not, so far, changing, are later models and were made in China.

I guess it jdoes not matter where it was made, it just depends on the quality of the metal at the time of manufacture.

My 384E and 390E appear to be fine, at the moment.

You would think that by the 90's they would have solved the metal issues with these

trains, I mean I would expect this in the 20's or 30's with some of the metals but

not later.

Tin

The Blue Comet is what got my wife interested in Standard Gauge nearly 30 yrs. ago. Slightly off topic, but has anyone else ever seen the Boucher Blue Comet? 4-6-2 engine and more realistic, scale-appearing cars. I wish MTH or Pride Lines would do a reproduction of that set.

I think the issue of the metal tends to be what goes into it. I would think that "pot metal" made in Asia in the 1990's may have been akin to "pot metal" made in the USA in the 1930's, from a technology maturity standpoint, if that makes any sense at all.

Sometimes, even on what appears to be pristine originals, you just can't tell if the metal is bad or not. I had what appeared to be a very high grade 385E that was immaculate. It did not have one spider line in the paint on the frame, and I mean nothing. It's frame cracked above the steam chest when it was picked up. The metal was very porous at the break location. You just never know.

My Lionel Classics 400E frame and steam chest are cracked. I hope to get the parts at York from MTH.  I have 2 other 400Es from MTH and they are fine.

Just a heads up to you gents. I spotted two 400 frames on the Bay yesterday. The prices looked high though.

Bluecometk

Can you replace a CLASSIC frame with any currently offered in the Blue Comet NAVY BLUE???  Are there identifying marks on either frame???  Is the frame on my CLASSIC Blue Comet from 1990 identifiable to that year/era??? How would you proceed??? I would like to keep loco in ORIGINAL condition as to parts!  Thanks, Ron B.

This one was in the Stout auction this January, it went past my bid. The 2225 loco has 2 drive motors (the 2222 looks the same but has 1).

jsrfo,

   Specs for metals here in the USA are all done on the US standards basis, each metal

is producted to a USA spec & standard, strictly adhered to and inspected.The easiest way for me to explain this is thru the Stainless Steel example.  In the the USA when making Stainless Steel there must be a certain amount of Chromium alloy in the metal  so that the metal will never rust. Few countries outside the USA run on our metals standards, that means any business doing production outside the USA must be contract specific on their metals or electrical specs and inspections, when contracting their product to be built.  Product inspection in most Asian countries is not the same as here in the USA either.  So the exact quality of the product may vary greatly as you see with RAK's trains.  Some still perfect another having a problem.  This is the reason my American made Lionel 1900's 263E still runs perfect and his beautiful Blue Comet

had problems, they were made the same.

PCRR/Dave  

My father had the Boucher Blue Comet and we ran it around the room on Christmas. I recall that the Boucher Pacific had two motors and my father remarking that it was the most powerful standard gauge engine.