Wearing Trains Out...The Future?

One of the side effects of today's demand for higher fidelity models and manufacturing techniques is the increased use of unique parts.
During the prewar, postwar, and first thirty some odd years of the modern era, many parts were used again and again.
So there is enough demand for many older parts to be reproduced. And there are plenty of junkers to provide older parts too.

Maybe not for the newer high fidelity stuff.

I like my traditionally detailed and constructed trains.

And I have a good supply of consumable parts, such as e-unit renewal pieces and brushes/springs.

I plan to be around in twenty years

That time is NOW.

My last engine purchases have been 3 1990s Williams brass engines made 25 years ago.  Try finding OEM replacement traction tires or even parts if needed.  There's always a work-around, even if you have to use another makers parts.  I had a Weaver 4-6-0 brass chassis/running gear but no boiler or tender.  I modified a MTH boiler and used a tender from an engine that was getting a scratchbuilt Vanderbilt tender.

If there's a will there's a way to keep these things running.

Had a guy in the HO club I used to belong to. He had an extensive collection of Brass Locos that didn't run real great to begin with.

Anyway, he would bring one and run it one Maybe 2 laps around the layout and then pull it off. when asked why, he would say, don't want to wear it out.

He got the nickname "Half Lap Pete".

Have to be careful how you define "wear out."  Having written a book about aging electric equipment and when it is "worm out" I will use my definition there: It is worn out when it is not repairable or not worth fixing.

I have worn out a Lionmaster Legacy Big Boy.  About 800 hours a year of running for three to four years.  The electronics still worked except for one minor problem that I could have fixed, but mechanically it was loose throughout and I put in on the shelf . . . I had a WBB Trainmaster that had about 1500 hours on it and burned out two motors (about a year apart) during that time, the first i replaced and when the second one blew I did not replace it - figured there was something wrong with this (can motors just never fail on their own unless you abuse them and I wasn't - I figured something in the loco was!).

Lionel conventional Hall class (like the Harry Potter train only this was Hallows Eve) - I overloaded it (it has a small engine) and the board actually died not the motor).  I took it apart for parts.

More remarkable is, have you ever seen someone wear out track?  The folks at my local LHS ran a ceiling train all the time and it eventually worn away the metal entirely from the inside of O-27 track in some of its curves!

Wow, that is a lot of hours of running!

I'm not losing any sleep over wearing them out, I'll be worn out long before most of the trains.

Lee,

What would you say are your most reliable, best, and enjoyable running engines and sets that you run in conventional mode?

Well according the the lawsuit you could just use an MTH part to fix that

I had an issue with the same Allegheny where it caught fire (seriously, wiring harness burned) and they shipped me an entirely new engine. That was only about 2 weeks after release. Odd they couldn't just use my old one that they had back there for parts.  Luckily that was in the "Bad Old Days" of Lionel Service. Things are much better now.

Will we have parts forever, no but hopefully we will have parts for a while. I do have a Shay I seldom use due to a bad designed drive system that strips gears. It was also subject of the MTH lawsuit, so I guess it's MTH's fault

It is hard to say because I have had such good luck with most - at least all but cheap stuff.  I have about 110 locos, mostly Lionel and MTH, but RMT, Williams, WBB, K-Line, Atlas, Marx, and Darstead.  Nothing in my experience indicates that electronics are particularly unreliable or wear out sooner.  I most prefer Legacy because it seems bulletproof and Legacy locos run very well in conventional: smoothly at very low speeds (for conventional).  Premier can't quite match that, but runs well at nearly low speeds (20 mph minimum vs 12-15 for Legacy perhaps)  - I buy Premier whenever they have a loco I want without that mattering at all.  

It is a tie between the Lionel and MTH premium grades - with both getting a perfect score.  I have about 35 Vision and Legacy and maybe 20 Premier: I have never had any problems with any of them as far as durability.  Some I run a lot and some I run only a few hours a year.  Now, I did have one Lionel and one MTH loco had problems out the box - loose or missing parts, but each company just sent me the parts through the retailer, and other than that the only problems have been my fault: I left a razorsaw on the layout that broke an axle on a Legacy ATSF Northern (I fixed that myself) and I broke a Legacy U30C that was beyond fixing.

TMCC locos I don't like purely because they tend to jackrabbit a bit and not run that smoothly at low speeds, but the dozen or so I have all run fine - not alot of hours however since I dont' run them often, but nothing wrong with the electronics that I can see that would not let them be running as good as new thirty years from now.  PS1 locos I have had several boards scramble and just replaced them with something else, but that is a known design flaw I will call it.  

All the personal experience I have says lower cost locos, regardless of electronics, are the  ones that fail first.  I have about 30 BEEPS.  Two have died -  electronics.  Both ran alot of hours, but not nearly as many as the Lionmaster big boy did.  I had that WBB Trainmaster die two, first about about 400 hours, then at about 600 with a second bad motor.  Of three MTH steam starter sets I recently bought (about ayear ago, all at the same time) to build up an inventory of trains and rolling stock for my grandkids layout, two had problems with the little hand-held controller (one I fixed using parts for the other broken one so only one was a loss) andthe third loco died soon after new - perhaps due to abuse by kids, perhaps not.  They now have all LC and LC+ locos though  and there seem to be no problems. They cost about 60% more though so . . .

I guess I would hope that an expensive engine would have a longer lifespan than an inexpensive one. It's good to read that Lee's experience bares that out.

I wonder.. given the above, is the expensive engine a better buy if one considers its cost as being so many dollars per operating hour?

It is hard to say because I have had such good luck with most - at least all but cheap stuff.  I have about 110 locos, mostly Lionel and MTH, but RMT, Williams, WBB, K-Line, Atlas, Marx, and Darstead.  Nothing in my experience indicates that electronics are particularly unreliable or wear out sooner.  I most prefer Legacy because it seems bulletproof and Legacy locos run very well in conventional: smoothly at very low speeds (for conventional).  Premier can't quite match that, but runs well at nearly low speeds (20 mph minimum vs 12-15 for Legacy perhaps)  - I buy Premier whenever they have a loco I want without that mattering at all.  

It is a tie between the Lionel and MTH premium grades - with both getting a perfect score.  I have about 35 Vision and Legacy and maybe 20 Premier: I have never had any problems with any of them as far as durability.  Some I run a lot and some I run only a few hours a year.  Now, I did have one Lionel and one MTH loco had problems out the box - loose or missing parts, but each company just sent me the parts through the retailer, and other than that the only problems have been my fault: I left a razorsaw on the layout that broke an axle on a Legacy ATSF Northern (I fixed that myself) and I broke a Legacy U30C that was beyond fixing.

TMCC locos I don't like purely because they tend to jackrabbit a bit and not run that smoothly at low speeds, but the dozen or so I have all run fine - not alot of hours however since I dont' run them often, but nothing wrong with the electronics that I can see that would not let them be running as good as new thirty years from now.  PS1 locos I have had several boards scramble and just replaced them with something else, but that is a known design flaw I will call it.  

All the personal experience I have says lower cost locos, regardless of electronics, are the  ones that fail first.  

• I have about 30 BEEPS.  Two have died -  electronics.   Both ran alot of hours, but not nearly as many as the Lionmaster big boy did.  
• I had that WBB Trainmaster die twice, first about about 400 hours - replaced a motor and that fixed it, then at about 600 with the other motor bad - did not fix again.  
• I have three Lionel dockside switchers and the one I ran alot is dead (no idea why) at about 400 hours.  I just run the other two now and they see fine but neither has reached 400 hours yet. 
• Of three MTH steam starter sets I recently bought (about a year ago, all at the same time) to build up an inventory of trains and rolling stock for my grandkids layout.  A real bargain I thought, but two had problems with the little hand-held controller within just the time I had then here setting them up (one I fixed using parts for the other broken one so only one was a loss) and the third loco died soon after new - perhaps due to abuse by kids, perhaps not).  The grandkids now have all LC and LC+ locos though and there seem to be no problems. They cost about 60% more though than those MTH so that reinforces my point about cheap vs not so . . .

There are three ways to answer the question:

1.  You don't actually deal with the question.  Instead you defuse it by saying:  "Who cares?  I won't be around to deal with the problem anyway."

2.  There are parts available right now, so I stock up to prepare for the future because I suspect there won't be parts later on.

3.  I refuse to run my engine to wear it out because it is a collectible and the possibility of getting parts for it is uncertain.

Take your choice whether or not you want to use the engine or preserve it for posterity.  

Now, I have an extensive collection of film cameras and lenses, a lot of vinyl recordings, cassette tapes, and VCR tapes--everything in great shape and well protected.  Problem is that nobody cares or even wants the stuff.  So I guess just enjoying it now is my only option especially since film choices and processing options are dwindling, it's hard to find good turntables for records, and there aren't many companies making VCR players and CD players anymore.  Factor into the equation the fact that there are fewer repair shops that deal with these items.  This might give you some notion of what can happen if your engine wears out.

Chris,

Didn't think about using MTH parts.  Guess I could have...

With regard to the fire, I experienced something similar.  Was running the Allegheny and all of a sudden it stopped dead in it's tracks.  I noticed the engine had "firebox glow" appearing above the trailing truck which I knew that engine didn't have.  The glow was also accompanied with what appeared to be steam but was actually something electronic burning up as was apparent by the smell.  This was confirmed when the transformer's red short light began to glow.

Turns out the motor driver board failed.  Got a replacement pretty quick from Lionel.  I installed it an ran the engine at our next modular meet.  Engine ran fine for about thirty minutes and started to operate jerky until it stopped all together.   After that incident, I boxed it up and didn't take it out again for five or six years.  I was pretty disgusted.

Last year I decided to look at  the engine again to see what went wrong this time.  Again, I figured it was the motor driver board and had one I could install.  I removed the old driver board and saw a small bubble on the bridge rectifier.  I thought that moment was an "ah ha" moment.  Not to be.  The engine reacted the same way with the new board.  I finally came to the conclusion it had to be the motor.  Ordered a replacement from Lionel and that finally solved the problem.  All I can figure is the first motor driver board failure caused damage to the motor.

All is good with the engine now (finally after 14 years).  Every time I opened it up to work on it I looked for yellow primer and the scent of lemon.  Now the engine has ERR Cruise Commander M installed and I couldn't be happier with it.

I have an old Marx locomotive that I wore out as a kid.  By this I mean that when you applied track power it just sat there, did nothing, no noise, but light up.  As a teen, I got it fixed, and ran it a lot again, until it reached the same situation. But by that time I was in N scale so it went on a shelf.  Then once I found and got my 4 year old son a Marx train set for Christmas, realized I liked the size, and bought a locomotive for myself, I dug the Marx back out and again got it fixed.  So it's on it's 3rd life, and may be nearing the end of it.  There's just something about that 1st electric train of mine that I just can't help running it into the ground.  It holds so much value to me, which is why I can't just let it sit on the shelf, I just have to run it.  Now the drivers are loose on the axles, it heats up really hot and starts to smoke off the oil (It smokes almost as well as some of my MTH steamers, yet it doesn't have a smoke unit!), and after a few laps it slows down or doesn't want to go.  I fear it's close approaching the can't be rebuilt stage, but until it does reach that, I'll keep running it as that's what it was meant for.  And that's how I'll treat all my trains, I'll run them all until they run no more.

At the Train Shack in Burbank CA they told me that they had actually worn out the Atlas track they have on their store layout that runs from the time they open until closing time.

Nice thing about Marx is that spare parts are just the next loco away! Most of the locos use the same motor, just different mounts from one type to another. If yours gets beyond repair you can just swap out the motor from a donor engine and keep your favorite loco running. Probably will be enough parts and donors available that your son will be able to fix it again when he gives it to his son!  lol

One nice thing about a company making basically the same stuff year in and year out is there's plenty of donor items for parts. For limited run items, perhaps we need to buy two identical models, one to run and one to cannibalize for future spare parts?

As long as the manufacturers are still around, I don't see a problem. As Lee Willis says, they may not be worth fixing by then or obsolete like our cell phones and computers are now, who knows? I still have a flip phone (no iphone here), a couple years ago the battery in my old one died, so I went to get a new battery. They said you can pay $40 for a new battery or get a new phone with more features for free. I got the new phone.

Another point from my perspective is as GRJ said above, I won't be around in 20-30 more years so it really doesn't matter to me whether I can get parts or not. I also try not to worry too much about things that haven't happened yet. No need to worry until there is a problem. Life's too short!

Thanks Lee!

In short, that is the last thing that I am worried about in running our trains.

As one poster hinted to earlier.  If we had the engineering drawings for the parts we could load the software in a 3d printer as an .stl file and make our own parts instantly.  That is where the future is and I would like to be a part of it.  Not sure how to approach a business opportunity like that.

I figure my Postwar will last longer than I will. As to the rest, I'll enjoy it till it breaks down or crumbles and then rain down curses upon it.