S gauge FlyerChief GP7's are arriving from dealers...tell us your views and/or reviews.

Hey Mark,

The app will only work on bluetooth equipped Flyerchief correct? So that would be the Northerns, GP7's and newest Berks.

Hello,

FedX is definitely working overtime. I received my Chas. Ro delivery late yesterday morning. It arrived as we were leaving on a shopping trip so I did not get a chance to operate yesterday. This morning I opened the boxes and found as Mark mentioned a beautiful add on coach for the P.E. and a pretty nice looking P.E. refer. I also ordered the Santa Fe Blue Bonnet locomotive. I was a bit disappointed in the packaging of the engine, as I pulled its shipping box out of the larger box which the three items came, I tipped the box and heard the engine inside of the box go clunk, the box did not have the usual Styrofoam lid on it allowing the engine to float inside of the box, this may be the reason for some paint chipping as Mark mentioned. I ran the GP this morning and did notice some surging of the speed, that may go away with some break in time, I also notice the side frame on the power truck is a little cockeyed, high at the front and lower toward the rear. I ran the two cars behind the engine and did have them both derail a few times, checking the gauge of the wheels showed they will need some adjustment on both cars. The new P.E. coach will in the near future get the LED lighting as all of the rest of my P.E. cars have. Happy to have this before Christmas.

Merry Christmas to all

Ray

As I said on another string mine arrived too.  It works great and pulled 20 Gilbert freight cars easily on Gilbert track and switches.  16 cars up the Gilbert trestle set on my layout.  21 cars is all I ever do as the weight pulls the cars off around the corners.

No rubs or scuffs on my UP version.  Very well done.

Mark, the manual on page 16 gives you a different way to adjust volume.  It doesn't work as written.  Your method of holding down the Shift/Announcement key does work. This should be noted to people so I have used red here.   

On the PE car the wires are longer to the trucks where they are soldered.  Earlier cars had shorter wires and that was part of the problem.  With shorter wires it pulled at the solder on every turn.

Mark and Bill,

As I remember on my P.E. Berk and my Nickel Plate Berk I adjusted the volume on those by holding down the two buttons and turning the throttle knob, am I missing something?

On the GP7 I did adjust as per instructions in the universal remote manual.

Older LionChief products (pre-BlueTooth) used the two-button-turn method. The current production Bluetooth enabled engines and the Universal Remote use the newer method. Apologies for the out-of-date info in some of the owner's manuals, I've made a note to get this corrected going forward.

Thankyou Rudy,  Thought I was loosing it

Ray

I received mine too, the North Pole Central version just for running under the tree.  Runs well, sounds are good, electrocouplers actually perform intended function. Most impressive to me is the app. With the lionchief app I get almost almost all of the functions I make use of with Legacy engines.  I lose connectivity though when I am about 15 feet away.  A little annoyance on the app is that I do have to hold my finger on the slide bars for a while to get them to move.

I received my UP today and it has a broken roller on the rear truck. It does run that way but it has a lot of gear noise going forward and is silent in reverse. The blue tooth connection is VERY slow to respond. Has anyone compared the  Apple vs Android to see what worked better? I used Android......

I will be sending it back. No fun under the tree with it this year....

I have not done a comparison between the two but I have used the android app and it seemed to work fine, I would say definitely not slow. Because, though, I could only control one locomotive with the app I now have the universal remote, updated by some very nice Lionel Reps. That works very nicely with my three Flyer Chief locomotives.

Ray

Mine had all kinds of varying issues. After close inspection i believe the screws on the trucks were not tightened all the way in the factory. (I found a screw on the track and then tightened the remaining truck screws , they were loose.) allowing the truck to arc on the track damaging the board. That's my working theory to explain how erratic it was acting. My replacement should be on the way. 

Received my NP GP7 yesterday. After about an hour of running on and off. The front head light went dead.rear light and cab light work ok. Tempted to remove the shell to see what may be wrong. Better to leave it alone and return it to Charlesro.

Mine had all kinds of varying issues. After close inspection i believe the screws on the trucks were not tightened all the way in the factory. (I found a screw on the track and then tightened the remaining truck screws , they were loose.) allowing the truck to arc on the track damaging the board. That's my working theory to explain how erratic it was acting. My replacement should be on the way. 

Thank you GREEKCHIEF, I checked the screws on the trucks on my GP, they were loose.,now my side frames are level. I did find one screw that was not holding at all, not long enough but I will replace it.

I will say the Railsounds on the GP is very loud, if the first run Berks had volume like these I would have never chaged the speaker.

Ray

While some know I have more or less left S (I am keeping some fastrack and a few pieces of Flyonel) I did make that decision after I ordered the UP unit earlier in the year.  

I took delivery of it on Saturday, but just got around to running it tonight.  My thoughts;

I ran it with just the Bluetooth app, for me I don’t much see the use in the remote anymore.  

The paint was without flaw, I have seen a report or two of smudges, no issues with mine.  All the screws were pretty tight, I did maybe get a half a turn out of one, but I don’t think they would have come off without attention. The Railsounds were all good.  The locomotive functioned as advertised and the electro couplers actually released the attached car.  The packing is also an improvement in my opinion, this has a lid on the box like a shoe box, more in line with what you see in the high end HO world. 

My only negative, the motor noise was louder than I would have expected.  Both in forward and reverse. It is well  disguised when the rail sounds is turned up, but still, I have older Flyonel engines that made less noise. 

Considering the price point of this and it’s features....I give it a solid “B”.  

Ben 

Chuck K posted:

I received mine too, the North Pole Central version just for running under the tree.  Runs well, sounds are good, electrocouplers actually perform intended function. Most impressive to me is the app. With the lionchief app I get almost almost all of the functions I make use of with Legacy engines.  I lose connectivity though when I am about 15 feet away.  A little annoyance on the app is that I do have to hold my finger on the slide bars for a while to get them to move.

After about 20 minutes of run time, it's a different story. Two truck screws have fallen out. Threads are stripped and they will not stay in.  Also gear noise is very loud, esp. in reverse. It is emanating from the worm gear.  Lastly, because of the comments above, I checked the side frame screws. One is in at an angle and another has the hex head stripped and cannot be removed, a necessity when replacing the traction tires.  Off to Concord it goes.

I'm wondering if they had a bad assembler when they ran the North Pole centrals. 

The QA elf on the paint line can't read English either.  At least not the letter "O".  Also expected the black plastic pivoting end steps to be gray to match the frame. 

I just spoke with Ro about the return of my UP. I was told they are opening, inspecting, and running the engines before shipping any more.

Does anyone have a good running UP? I may need to see if I can get a Santa Fe instead.

]

My UP GP7 is perfect.  Only one screw was 1/2 a turn loose.  Runs very well with Bluetooth AP.  Pulls 21 Gilbert freight cars on Gilbert track with only one motor.  This is the max as more cars won't make the corners because of weight and come off the track.

Mine (UP) is on the way back to Charles Ro as well for lettering error.  They called me to say just send the shell, but it was already on the USPS truck. Shucks! My haste to not miss out on a replacement worked against me. Ah well.

I finally got to run my ATSF units.  The units looked good, no issues.  I had no loose screws.  The dedicated remotes worked.  One remote will control both engines in unison.  Universal remote - I put the first engine on the track - the universal remote connected right up.  I removed that engine and put the second engine on the track and the universal wouldn't connect.  I cleared the remote but still no connection.  Not sure what is going on there.

I wasn't planning on MUing the two but tried it anyway.  I set them on the track, but not coupled, and ran them to see how well they matched.  The two engines didn't accelerate the same.  There was only one particular throttle setting where they were relatively close.  Maybe after break-in runs they will match better.

I was able to pull 15 flyonel 40 footers with one engine before the engine started to struggle.  

The biggest issue is that both units growl going around my R27 fastrack curves.  It sounds like the traction tires are dragging.  I don't have any R20 track setup to test with, yet.  

Brendan

HI,

I was going to order one today, should I wait?  UP or SF?

Thanks,

TIm

Update on my issue.  I tried to narrow down the growling.  As I ran the engines more, the sound actually sounds like part of the engine rubbing the ties.  It only happens on certain pieces of R27 track.  I moved the pieces around and the sound followed them.  When I get more time I will try to see the differences in track pieces.  i set up a loop of R20 and there was no issues.

Brendan

Brendan

The “first” batch of R27 curves had a defect of sorts, the simulated spike on the rails were to tall, and made contact with some of the flanges of highrail wheels.  This was a popular topic at the time (like 5 years ago) on this board.  Lionel advised at the time, that it did not effect the operation of the trains so they were not going to do anything about it (as far as identifying it as a defect).

I believe Mike R at the time had said that future runs of the track would have this fixed.  I don’t know if they ever did another run of track, and if so, if the issue resolved. This is something I have often wondered about.

Maybe Dave Olsen can chime in on that.  I personally purchased one loop of R27 track and was quite put off with the rattling cars that went along with it. Especially with the PE passenger cars with the glued on wiring! I would have bought more, but not with that defect. 

Ben

Thanks Ben.  That info saves me from investigating.  I'm glad it is not the locos.  I hadn't noticed it before with the equipment I run.  It is 4 pieces that seem to be a problem; got them about a year ago.  

Brendan

Brendan posted:

Thanks Ben.  That info saves me from investigating.  I'm glad it is not the locos.  I hadn't noticed it before with the equipment I run.  It is 4 pieces that seem to be a problem; got them about a year ago.  

Brendan

Good catch by Ben. I am familiar with this same issue. I bought my son a flyonel Legacy Texas Special PA and discovered this issue.  It's not a fun one. No simple solution. 

To assure yourself that this is the issue, you could hold the Geep in your hand and roll the non-powered truck over a piece of your R27 track.

Our train club met today and there were 5 of the GP7s there.  Loose screws were on four of them.  One was so loose on the powered truck that is was sparking.  Luckily no fried board. Once the screws were all tight no issues were there. To me the screw thing is simply a quality control problem that should have been caught by final inspection at the plant.  At least it is easily fixed when you get the engine.

No gear noises with any of the engines.  All thought they were loud and I had to explain that the manual was wrong about adjustment and I showed them how to do it.

I had to go into some detail about how the Gilbert trucks were always wrong sized to fit the PA truck motor size.  All thought the ones on these engines were too small.  On the way I took a picture of a GP7 that is still operation near me on the Fort Worth and Western RR.  It runs from FT. Worth to Brownwood TX.  Attached photo here.in 

Chuck K posted:

To assure yourself that this is the issue, you could hold the Geep in your hand and roll the non-powered truck over a piece of your R27 track.

That's it.  Not a defect my eye.

Brendan

Here's the nickel Plate Road version.  I'm currently working up my review which I'll post in it's own thread.

Rusty

Hello, I removed the shell on my new North Pole Central. I was curious to see what was inside. What I found was that the flywheel was and did cut into a lead wire to the LED. No problem it was still working. The insulation was nicked and had showing wire. Applied a strip of rubber tape to the LED wires that are in the cab close to the flywheel.

had a LED problem with my new NP gp7. I did not take the shell off to see what may have killed the LED. I just packed it up and sent back to ChasRo for a refund. Waiting for the Reading GP7. Hope I won't have trouble with it.

I got my Santa Fe GP7 and was able to give it a good testing this weekend.

I experienced many of the same issues others have:

First, my engine made a scraping sound going in both directions.  The cause of this was the wires to the front head light resting on top of the fly wheel.  Pressing these up into the roof of the short hood fixed that. 

Second was the grinding  noise made when going around curves. This was being caused by the fly wheel rubbing on the inside of the shell in the short hood.  I took my dremel to the shell on both sides to create a little more clearance. Noise is gone now. 

Lastly gear noise.  I have noticed a trend on the last few new Lionel locos I have gotten.  The worm gear is dry with no grease applied from the factory. I greased the gears and it improved the gear noise, but it is not completely gone. 

Mark, are they going to replace it or repair it?  My guess is Ro could use either option.

banjoflyer posted:

There is a bright side to these problems. All the defective engines will probably  be sent back to Lionel where they most likely  will be dis-assembled and parted out for repairs of other engines in the future. I think that's how Lionel is able to stock parts...either from returned engines (not repaired) or new engines bought from China specifically to be dis-assembled to have parts on hand. That's my theory anyway!

Mark

I hope they don't really rely on their products being defective to get replacement parts!

Brendan

banjoflyer posted:

I think that's how Lionel is able to stock parts...either from returned engines (not repaired) or new engines bought from China specifically to be dis-assembled to have parts on hand. That's my theory anyway!

Mark

That's exactly how they do it. I've  watched techs disassemble new pieces and bag the individual parts.

Bob

Lionel has told me that they are not in the parts business anymore much.  Tearing down defective units is exactly how they repair other engines.  That is why units years old are not repairable except with aftermarket motors and E-units where available.

Today, I learned of another quality control problem with the Geeps from a dealer.  Boxes labeled for the UP engines have Santa Fe's inside.  To get buyers the right engine the wrong one has to be shipped back to the distributor who then has to send them to Lionel.  The guy at Lionel who has to deal with replacement is on vacation till mid January.  Buyers are dead in the water on getting their engine till then.  

I wonder if all the O Gauge people are suffering with quality control with new releases along with Flyer people? 

If you follow the O gauge side, you will see that this is not unique to S. 

Ben

Roundhouse Bill posted:

 

Today, I learned of another quality control problem with the Geeps from a dealer.  Boxes labeled for the UP engines have Santa Fe's inside.  To get buyers the right engine the wrong one has to be shipped back to the distributor who then has to send them to Lionel.  The guy at Lionel who has to deal with replacement is on vacation till mid January.  Buyers are dead in the water on getting their engine till then.  

 

Could become problem if there aren't an equal amount of Santa Fe Geeps in UP boxes returned...

Rusty

I suspect there are two types of replacement parts.  Some are common to a variety of different Flychief and LC+ locomotives (motor, gears, wheels, electronics, operating couplers, smoke units) and probably are available from stock for replacement without requiring reuse of defective products.  Others (shells, external detail fittings) are probably only available when recycled from defective locos/rolling stock.  For units that cannot be easily repaired, salvaging materials is both sound business practice and environmentally laudable .

Returned mine 21 Dec. via Priority Mail, Charles Ro received 26 Dec.  Returning by FEDEX, sent 29th with a January 4th planned delivery.  Considering the holiday rush, that's not too bad.  Agree on turn-around likely being a new engine as replacement.  I do hope it was tested as mentioned above.  Happy New Year Everyone!

I received my replacement from Charles Ro and it is much better that the one it replaced. I would suggest checking ALL the screws. It still had some gear noise and I found that one of the screws that goes through the bottom of the truck to hold the motor in place was screwing into the truck and then the motor. I was able to correct that and thread both screws into the motor only to hold it in the correct position in the truck.  Now I can't hear the gears over the sound of the wheels on the track.