Zinc pest surprise ????

OH BOY! A potential nightmare for Atlas and the owners of those reefers!  😐

Sure looks like it, and diecast trucks seem to be one of it's big targets.

Maybe it's me. But in all my years with trains i've never seen this condition untill now. Could explain why a lot of train's I find at trainshows have 1or 2 truck's completely missing. But what about fleemarket,yard sales,antique shops,neighbors, friends etc....still no. I've been lucky? Maybe. What I do believe in is over oiling the axles and pivot pin. Then Dad says too much,wipe that off!!! My 1956 2225 and all my rolling stock are so impregnated with sewing machine oil that they looked brand new (stolen in 2017). Since 1996 when I started adding to my collection,I always use the gerase rag and wipe the trucks. Maybe that is the key for preservation. 

I can assure you, zinc pest is real Ron!   It has nothing to do with oil, but it's "baked in" during the casting process.

I had the same thing on 3 seperate reefers.  The trucks aren’t cheap either. They are 35.00 a pair for the express trucks  The last one I found a junker on eBay that had good trucks and just swapped them over

Ron464nyc posted:

Maybe it's me. But in all my years with trains i've never seen this condition untill now. Could explain why a lot of train's I find at trainshows have 1or 2 truck's completely missing. But what about fleemarket,yard sales,antique shops,neighbors, friends etc....still no. I've been lucky? Maybe. What I do believe in is over oiling the axles and pivot pin. Then Dad says too much,wipe that off!!! My 1956 2225 and all my rolling stock are so impregnated with sewing machine oil that they looked brand new (stolen in 2017). Since 1996 when I started adding to my collection,I always use the gerase rag and wipe the trucks. Maybe that is the key for preservation. 

 

Just do a Google search for zinc pest or zinc rot and you’ll learn something. It’s an uncommon problem, but very real and very avoidable if the parts maker does the job right. 

I recently purchased an 072/054 Atlas switch online.  It was not new but, didn't look used either.   Upon taking it out the box parts of the blackened 3rd rail and other parts crumbled into little pieces.  While the seller indicated he had a couple more, (was selling Atlas products) I believe he knew there was  an issue.  I just ate the loss because I didn't feel like dealing with the  aggravation.  This was my 1st experience with the rot issue. 

I supposes unless you do your melting and casting in house it is impossible to catch this before it is too late. What a mess and it sucks for all of us in the hobby.

Subcontractors in China are definitely the problem. The main factory work with suppliers who, according to news reports, often involve small “garage” businesses whose production standards don’t always follow best practices.

What’s unclear is whether the American companies who are working with the primary factory have any control over who that factory deals with. In the case of toy train production, where production might only involve several thousand truck parts at a time, factories may have to depend on smallish suppliers.

I suspect larger manufacturers, like Mattel, have a larger say about factory production. When you are producing millions of Hot Wheels per year, you can do that, however.