Vision Locomotives

Bobby Cox posted:

Is it true that all Vision Line engines have to be sent back to Lionel for service and can not be serviced by Lionel certified service centers?

I have a Lionel GE Vision Line Evo that just stopped producing smoke and the Crew Talk quit working a few days later. Operating with Cab2/Legacy Base. Any ideas?

The smoke unit is the smoke pcb probley. I have changed many of them .. As for Lionel only for repairs a lot of us fourm members fix them .. Its out of warranty so I think you have to wait till they slow down if you want them to fix it.  The crew talk not working is weird .. You probley turned the volume down on it somehow. 

How do you adjust the volume on the crew talk?

Hell I can't even get Lionel to assist me with getting parts to repair a vision big boy that was delivered to me damaged out of the box.  I've dealt with lionel in the past with great success but something has changed.   Its really frustrating.  I work in a customer service industry and they have real work to do.  I don't mind things being broke crap happens. however customer service is about yet customer and my most recent experience was very unstatifying.   Rant over sorry .

Why don't you e mail Lionel and ask THEM?Nick

After 2 years, all bets are off on who repairs them.  I would recommend Alex Malliae here on the forum.

None of my Vision Line stuff is under warranty, and I simply work on them. 

Jeremy, unless you are a  Lionel tech, my bet is you will not get parts for a recent Vision engine.  Like any other big company, they also have policies.

Bobby Cox posted:

Is it true that all Vision Line engines have to be sent back to Lionel for service and can not be serviced by Lionel certified service centers?

I have a Lionel GE Vision Line Evo that just stopped producing smoke and the Crew Talk quit working a few days later. Operating with Cab2/Legacy Base. Any ideas?

in warranty yes

out of warranty no

Marty Fitzhenry posted:

Jeremy, unless you are a  Lionel tech, my bet is you will not get parts for a recent Vision engine.  Like any other big company, they also have policies.

They sell me parts to any of them. I have a grave yard of diecast es44shells .

jojofry posted:

Marty Fitzhenry posted:

Jeremy, unless you are a  Lionel tech, my bet is you will not get parts for a recent Vision engine.  Like any other big company, they also have policies.

They sell me parts to any of them. I have a grave yard of diecast es44shells .

Would you have a extra set of AC cab doors for the GE Hybrid?

A bit off topic and I'm not looking for a political response but I watched the old video "The making of the Hudson" the other, night.  It got me thinking with so much that went into building that model, (primitive by today's standards) my question is, seeing with the current push to build American or pay tariffs, does anyone believe in this day and age its even possible to design & build a quality VL type model in the states today? 

Joe

Anyone can get most parts.  Being a Lionel Tech, I get them for half off the retail price.  Lionel is very good getting parts out.  

Bobby Cox posted:

How do you adjust the volume on the crew talk?

The volume of crew talk is not independently adjustable. I am having trouble imagining a scenario where bell and horn continue to work but crew talk is not playing. One test, if you have a simple way to  run in conventional/transformer control mode would be to bring engine up in conventional mode, and play a single short horn blow, with no other horn 2 seconds before or 2 seconds after. The horn needs to be as short as you can make it. This "isolated" short horn will trigger crew talk from the horn button on your transformer. See if you can get upper ES44 to talk using this method and report back.

JC642 posted:

, does anyone believe in this day and age its even possible to design & build a quality VL type model in the states today? 

Joe

IMO, that art of manufacturing is gone for good here in the states. No one wants to work with their hands anymore, they want to push buttons on a computer.....and they want top dollar.

I'm raising a few millennials myself, no way they'd sit a bench and solder for 8 hours a day. Hard work is not popular with young folks these days.

Outside of the handful of people on the forum that we know are capable of assembling a locomotive from scratch. I can't see where a train manufacturer could come up with a whole factory of skilled people here in the States.

Maybe small numbers of trains like those produced by 3rd rail  would be possible. 1000 -2000 VL bigoys???? good luck.

Marty Fitzhenry posted:

Anyone can get most parts.  Being a Lionel Tech, I get them for half off the retail price.  Lionel is very good getting parts out.  

Yes you do and called and asked for them to do a school and you know where that went .

Have you tried a Factory Reset from the manual? Most likely that might be it or the wick is so dried up it might need to get changed 

RickO posted:

JC642 posted:

, does anyone believe in this day and age its even possible to design & build a quality VL type model in the states today? 

Joe

IMO, that art of manufacturing is gone for good here in the states. No one wants to work with their hands anymore, they want to push buttons on a computer.....and they want top dollar.

I'm raising a few millennials myself, no way they'd sit a bench and solder for 8 hours a day. Hard work is not popular with young folks these days.

Outside of the handful of people on the forum that we know are capable of assembling a locomotive from scratch. I can't see where a train manufacturer could come up with a whole factory of skilled people here in the States.

Maybe small numbers of trains like those produced by 3rd rail  would be possible. 1000 -2000 VL bigoys???? good luck.

That's sad to hear.  I soldered by way through college in a factory that made communication filters (1980's).  I enjoyed the work and my time there.  Hard to believe people don't want those jobs.  Wasn't that hard to do and I had variety in my work so I wasn't really bored.

Railsounds posted:

Bobby Cox posted:

How do you adjust the volume on the crew talk?

The volume of crew talk is not independently adjustable. I am having trouble imagining a scenario where bell and horn continue to work but crew talk is not playing. One test, if you have a simple way to  run in conventional/transformer control mode would be to bring engine up in conventional mode, and play a single short horn blow, with no other horn 2 seconds before or 2 seconds after. The horn needs to be as short as you can make it. This "isolated" short horn will trigger crew talk from the horn button on your transformer. See if you can get upper ES44 to talk using this method and report back.

 

Director of Audio?

In that case, can you play more Springsteen?  

In all seriousness, thanks for making yourself available on the Forum.

I want to apologize to all but especially to Mr. Trubitt from Lionel for my ignorance envolving model trains.  The GE Evo is talking again. I had the Railsounds switch on the loco in the wrong position. Looking at the switch it had pic of horns on one side and RS symbol on the other side. RS symbol is very small and hard to see. After going back and studying the manual I figured it out. Moved switch to RS position and she talked like a trained parrot! Thanks to all who replied to my original post. I am learning the Legacy Control System but it is taking me some time. I am new to hobby but having fun figuring things out.

Still won't smoke after several resets.

No apologies necessary, I'm glad it is speaking now! I suggest you contact customer service regarding the smoke unit.

Bobby Cox posted:

I want to apologize to all but especially to Mr. Trubitt from Lionel for my ignorance envolving model trains.  The GE Evo is talking again. I had the Railsounds switch on the loco in the wrong position. Looking at the switch it had pic of horns on one side and RS symbol on the other side. RS symbol is very small and hard to see. After going back and studying the manual I figured it out. Moved switch to RS position and she talked like a trained parrot! Thanks to all who replied to my original post. I am learning the Legacy Control System but it is taking me some time. I am new to hobby but having fun figuring things out.

Still won't smoke after several resets.

The smoke pcb is bad!

Thanks Rudy! Also, thanks Jojofry. I will contact Lionel about smoke unit. Is that something I might be able to do myself?

If your very mechanically incline yes if not. No