# New PE 21” cars... lots of problems



## Bill Webb (Sep 14, 2015)

First reports on the other forum from those receiving the new Polar Express 21” passenger care are of rattling boxes, loose parts, plenty of problems, and unhappy Santa’s.

We expect to receive six 12/26 from Charles Ro and have three of the new gold cars wrapped under the tree.

Will advise when know more. Sounds pretty sad.


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## Guest (Dec 24, 2018)

Classic Lionel, but it happens pretty often with MTH too. Loose pieces on new stock is sadly the new reality of the hobby. It’s time the Bigs face the truth and adapt there tool kits.

For years we’ve been receiving little bottles of smoke, extra traction tires, that magnetic tool thing and the miniature clear plastic turkey baster with new engines. I’m not even sure what the last two are for. Anyway, it’s time to adapt to reality. From this day forward, all new rolling stock should come with a small screwdriver, tweezers and Crazy Glue. A pair of 2X reading glasses would also be nice.

Emile


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## Rocky Mountaineer (Sep 19, 2015)

Bill, I saw that too. Looks like there's another bad batch of couplers lurking in the midst of those new Scale RPO cars too -- reminds me of what I experienced with my Penn Central passenger set earlier this year.  My "quick fix" for that was to use those small plastic "wire ties" (readily available at Home Depot) to help secure the couplers closed and avoid train cars being unexpectedly left behind during operating sessions.

Frustrating... but the solution seems to have worked if you're lucky that that's the only issue you encounter.  I also read about faulty wheel bushings dropping out which is somewhat ironic -- because the first re-issue of the scale Polar Express locomotives (black and gold) had a similar problem a couple of years ago, but Lionel was very responsive in sending out correct parts in those days. 

Today I'm not sure what their position is on parts for these cars, because they are so new. When we encountered issues with the new 21" ABS cars earlier in 2018, there was no recourse other than returning the cars to the dealer for refund or exchange. One dealer has been selling ala-carte UP Excursion cars from the 4-pack, because they needed to break up their 4-packs to give folks good cars in some cases. And another local dealer here in PA returned close to 100 "problem" cars back to Lionel. Certainly not one of Lionel's best roll-outs... 

David


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## Jeff T (Dec 27, 2011)

They better be careful over there with honest reporting of the product rec'd, they're liable to get booted!!


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## Scrapiron Scher (Dec 20, 2018)

If the new big cheese over there does not like you, expect the boot !!!
It doesn't matter any longer if you were a prolific contributor.
Napoleon syndrome, I believe.


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## Volphin (Dec 7, 2015)

There's a reason I didn't buy these... actually many. The bottom line is, I simply don't want a "kit" I have to put together, or REPAIR. Plus, the snow on the roofs look like %$#&*. If I want snow, I'll put it there. Rant off.


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## Rocky Mountaineer (Sep 19, 2015)

Volphin said:


> There's a reason I didn't buy these... actually many. The bottom line is, I simply don't want a "kit" I have to put together, or REPAIR. Plus, the snow on the roofs look like %$#&*. If I want snow, I'll put it there. Rant off.


Sounds like it's a good thing I passed on these, as I have the original scale P/E cars from about 8-10 years ago as well as a long train of the gold cars. I saw the writing on the wall when Lionel first produced the gold cars with only one observation and one coach, so I grabbed a bunch of gold coaches to make a nice long gold P/E train. Nobody would ever know that the coaches are all the same SKU (in the gold train). 

Too bad everything is a crap-shoot these days. We should be able to buy with confidence, and you'd think the pre-order angle would help to ensure things are built with high quality standards for the sake of future pre-order business. But instead, Lionel sends in orders to factory XYZ and then just waits for the finished product -- all the while blindly hoping on a wing-and-a-prayer. Some stuff arrives great, and some stuff is a disaster -- leaving us to shake our heads when the latter happens. But when catalog time occurs, we get caught up in all the new excitement... and more pre-orders come in and Lionel smiles from ear to ear. It's a vicious cycle, and we're now living with the results.

David


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## seayakbill (Jan 16, 2016)

The folks at the Lionel service center must be working a lot of overtime with all the defective product released this year.

Bill


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## Fabforrest (Aug 31, 2015)

When I sent my defective E6’s in, I was told turnaround time was about a week. That would seem to indicate no overload.


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## Volphin (Dec 7, 2015)

I'll tell ya one item they're getting back after the holidays... my Pere Marquette 1223. They actually produced it with blackened side rods. Um, ALL REAL PM Berkshires were equipped with gleaming valve gear. You know, like the other models Lionel produced in the past? Idiots.


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## Guest (Dec 24, 2018)

Remember the days when you did not have to hold your breath while opening the Lionel boxes. Many years ago when the started to issue the scale PE cars, I received mine with no issues. Even out Gold Edition cars came through trouble free.

But wait, they had factory inspectors back then.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

Fabforrest said:


> When I sent my defective E6’s in, I was told turnaround time was about a week. That would seem to indicate no overload.


Did you get them back yet?


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## Bill Webb (Sep 14, 2015)

*We will know tomorrow.*

Three PE coach cars delivered. Paula is wrapping and putting under the tree. No word on the other cars.


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## Rocky Mountaineer (Sep 19, 2015)

Bill, I hope your cars are free of the problems being sited on the other forum. Word on the street is Santa just unloaded several hoppers full of coal on the powers-at-be over there, so they're a bit buried right now and can't delete these postings fast enough.  Santa told me personally that he was leaving MTF badge holders in the stockings of all OGR owning-partners and management.  

In all seriousness though, this would be such a shame to have these cars make it just in the nick of time for a Christmas delivery only to not hit the quality mark. Keeping my fingers crossed for all you folks who ordered these, that the reported problems don't affect the entire batch of cars. Please keep us posted.

David


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## Traindiesel (Sep 8, 2015)

I really wanted to get a scale PE set this year, but hesitated because of Lionel’s recent quality issues, some of which I’ve experienced. Looks like I’ve made the right decision. 

Hopefully they will be reissued correctly some day, or by someone else.


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## Craignor (Jan 9, 2016)

Lionel is lost.

I have suspended ordering more Lionel until I hear that their QC has gotten better.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

After my last several new Lionel purchases, I'm a bit leery of ordering anything from Lionel. Stuff that I've bought "off the shelf" has generally been much better. That least reasonably good experience I had was the VL-BB, biggest problem there was a smoke thermistor that was out of place and had to be repositioned.

Then came the F40ph fiasco, what a mess! My last purchase the H10, that's the ugliest assembly job I've seen in the tender, what we they thinking?


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## Norton (Nov 5, 2015)

Rocky Mountaineer said:


> Bill, I saw that too. Looks like there's another bad batch of couplers lurking in the midst of those new Scale RPO cars too -- reminds me of what I experienced with my Penn Central passenger set earlier this year.  My "quick fix" for that was to use those small plastic "wire ties" (readily available at Home Depot) to help secure the couplers closed and avoid train cars being unexpectedly left behind during operating sessions.
> 
> David


I was one of the first to pile on with complaints about the trucks and couplers on the Harriman RPOs but now know I was wrong on most of those criticisms. The wheels were hard to move which I attributed to plastic sideframes. Heck they sound like plastic when you hit them but it turns out they are diecast with bronze bushings for the plain axles. 
The bolsters are plastic and because of this there are wipers against all the wheels to pick up contact with the outside rail. 
It turns out the wheels not turning easily was due to the sideframes being to tight against the wheel. By loosening the sideframe screws and moving them out rolling friction is reduced substantially. The wipers only add slightly to the friction.
Also my fix for the dodgey couplers was to remove the thumbtack. This cuts down on the force pulling the retainer bar down. I have no uncoupling tracks on my layout so no need for the thumbtacks anyway.
In this process though I discovered the coupler retaining bar is diecast. I put too much effort (read, got lazy) and tried to pull them off. Thats when the bar broke. All the bars in the past were sheet steel and could have handled this without breaking. To not repeat my mistake simply drill them out. I replaced these with others in my parts drawer taken from TMCC upgrades.
The big plus with this coupler is they have the same mounts as 95% of electro couplers as well as the magnetic couplers found on most conventional engines. That means its a snap to change the coupling gap by swapping out couplers of different length. In fact if you had a train of these cars you could equip them all with electro couplers and radio boards and spot them anywhere on the layout.
No need for coupler picks or magnets in the tracks.
Bottom line I am beginning to appreciate these cars a lot. Mine came as designed with zero defects though the diecast coupler bar is a design fault IMO. Readly corrected for small change.

Pete


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## Bill Webb (Sep 14, 2015)

Okay, eight passenger cars opened. Not actually, we quit after seven.

5 Blue PE 21” cars... every car had issues and all that we checked was the most obvious stuff like missing bearing caps, screws that held on the metal plate under the car, etc. In some cases the parts were in the box, in others they were missing.

Could someone spend time and get most repaired... probably. But then what? Run the cars and have parts falling off that you can’t find or, if you find a part, you don’t know what it goes to. And what else is wrong that our inspection did not identify?


After reading the other forum and what is showing up in the majority of these cars, they aren’t for us. We are not Lionel’s repair service and have no confidence in their product.

Gold PE 21” cars... not the same bearing cap issues but the paint on one is marred and we are over it. We didn’t even bother to open one. We want eight quality cars, not crap.


And we also have a LionChief steamer opened Friday for which the controller was DOA out of the box and the blue tooth alternative wouldn’t work for a lap around the layout without disconnecting. We are going to return it and request a Railking locomotive.

Paula and I own more than 80 Lionel engines and hundreds of pieces of Lionel rolling stock. No more until major changes are made.

A company cannot stand this kind of reputation and incompetence for long, especially in a declining market. I saw 42 people turned off to Lionel Saturday night at our home and can only imagine the thousands who are unhappy today and are telling friends and neighbors.

Hopefully the company can be remade once again but I have to wonder exactly what they have of value given that most of the production is in China. Mr. Menard may want to check things out. He has the smarts and $$$ to make it work.

Next month we expect a Silver Meteor passenger set and Virginian electric from Scott. Bet it is a vastly different outcome than the last few days.

Paula just reminded me about the last Lionel Christmas, a new Y6B that had parts and screws under the engine and tender when opened. It went back for warranty work and there was a screw under the engine when it came back to us. Incompetence which has now become acceptable to some and the norm. These guys should be politicians.


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## Guest (Dec 25, 2018)

Sorry to learn of this significant disappointment, Bill. You would think that the dealer knowing there are problems with new Lionel equipment would inspect every item *BEFORE* shipment to the customer. Lionel is not alone in losing a customer, no doubt the dealer will suffer the same fate.

Lionel faces an uncertain future if this is allowed to continue.They appear to be bombarded with complaints. This is and will be a huge problem for the big L if this is allowed to continue for very long.


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## Bill Webb (Sep 14, 2015)

Brian I was in Vienna and Salzburg, Austria at a major producers conference for Continental Insurance Company a number of years ago. They were having similar problems... forgetting what made them successful and failing to tend to business. They had a fantastic conference, private train to Budapest, and all kinds of events. Successful company? And they were gone a few years later.

I think that Lionel’s future is certain if they continue on this path. They won’t be here either. I am really concerned about the harm that they are doing to the industry and especially the O gauge portion of the hobby. Exactly what does Lionel have of value other than their good name? Is someone going to tell us that they can get something out of China?

When the bottom drops out, the end can come quickly.

And yes, I expect that a dealer relationship of more than thirty-five years may well be over.


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## Rocky Mountaineer (Sep 19, 2015)

Bill Webb said:


> ....Paula and I own more than 80 Lionel engines and hundreds of pieces of Lionel rolling stock. No more until major changes are made.
> 
> ....
> 
> Paula just reminded me about the last Lionel Christmas, a new Y6B that had parts and screws under the engine and tender when opened. It went back for warranty work and there was a screw under the engine when it came back to us. Incompetence which has now become acceptable to some and the norm. These guys should be politicians.


Bill, sorry to hear of your disappointment. Seems Lionel just can't put a decent passenger car together these days without problems lurking for buyers to discover. And then Lionel's management gets upset when folks post about their experiences. 

I could be wrong on this point, but I get the impression there are growing number of enthusiasts who are inclined to hold off on future pre-orders -- largely based on the sloppy craftsmanship folks are discovering in recent shipments. It'll be interesting to see what Lionel has in store for folks in order to tempt them in 2019's Signature Catalog (or Big Book). I for one plan to watch on the sidelines

Regarding the customer service center... I try to avoid that at all costs, but sometimes it's necessary. Several years ago, I purchased the last of Nicholas Smith Trains' Canadian Pacific Legacy AA's, only to find the letters "Canadian Pacific" were printed at a noticeable slant on one of the A-units. Nicholas Smith would have exchanged the set, but it was indeed their last one. So I sent the entire set (one power and one dummy) in to Lionel service with a note explaining the problem. When the set was returned, they swapped the wrong shell. So the one with the slanted lettering was still in my hands again!!!  Seriously, how incompetent can somebody be to not SEE that???? 

So I called Lionel and this time only sent the ONE A-unit that had the slanted lettering. Lionel eventually fixed the problem, but I must say when I sent the unit in, the foam was practically brand new and pure white. When it came back to me, the foam insert looked like it had been through a war -- or at minimum, it looked like a grease monkey wiped his hands all over it.  Left me VERY unimpressed with Lionel service techs... and this was still when Mike R was heading up customer service. Now? Forgettaboutit....




Passenger Train Collector said:


> .... You would think that the dealer knowing there are problems with new Lionel equipment would inspect every item *BEFORE* shipment to the customer. Lionel is not alone in losing a customer, no doubt the dealer will suffer the same fate.
> 
> ....


I can say definitively that two LHS's in southeastern PA inspected ALL of the passenger cars in the batch that included the UP Excursion cars from early 2018 once they heard of first-round customer complaints. When all was said and done, EACH dealer sent back close to 100 faulty cars, and they were essentially picking the good cars from various 4-packs to create a new 4-pack that would be acceptable to their customer.

THAT's why I was so candid about my comments regarding those passenger cars on the other forum earlier in 2018. And that's why I knew that forum's management didn't know what the heck they were talking about when they accused me of overstating the problem. I already knew local dealers were breaking up sets and sending back huge numbers of faulty cars to Lionel. They obviously didn't have that important piece of information when they booted me off their forum. 

David


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## Guest (Dec 26, 2018)

Rocky Mountaineer said:


> THAT's why I was so candid about my comments regarding those passenger cars on the other forum earlier in 2018. And that's why I knew that forum's management didn't know what the heck they were talking about when they accused me of overstating the problem. I already knew local dealers were breaking up sets and sending back huge numbers of faulty cars to Lionel. They obviously didn't have that important piece of information when they booted me off their forum.


They have only 1 play in their playbook: The Delete button.

View attachment 477744


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## Lee Willis (Jan 1, 2014)

Volphin said:


> I'll tell ya one item they're getting back after the holidays... my Pere Marquette 1223. They actually produced it with blackened side rods. Um, ALL REAL PM Berkshires were equipped with gleaming valve gear. You know, like the other models Lionel produced in the past? Idiots.


This is the type of mistake you get when the people making the model trains don't really love trains.


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## seayakbill (Jan 16, 2016)

Lee Willis said:


> This is the type of mistake you get when the people making the model trains don't really love trains.


Lee, ya nailed it.

Bill


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## Ted W (Jan 15, 2017)

My contribution: Got this allegheny back from the lionel repair shop. They worked on a missing screw on an eccentric crank. Just shake your head and back it goes...


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## Bill Webb (Sep 14, 2015)

Paula is still raising heck. Social media can let a large number of people know about nefarious corporations that mask themselves as serving children very quickly.

I love her latest quote, “On the Island of Misfit Toys, at least the toys work.”

First she had to explain the story in her “ Latin Teacher” manner to her former insurance agent husband. Great story.


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## Rocky Mountaineer (Sep 19, 2015)

Wow!!! I noticed this morning that the number of folks disappointed with the new scale P/E passenger cars continue to pile on in the thread "over there". Quite frankly, it's now making the early candid reports on Lionel's UP Excursion cars earlier in 2018 look like glowing reports in comparison. 

It will be interesting to see how long that thread is allowed to continue before it's locked... or if Lionel speaks up and tells OGR to can the comments causing individual reprimands like OGR did with the UP Excursion cars. I think OGR took lots of heat on their handling of the UP Excursion thread(s), but that's never stopped management over there from changing their ways before since their arrogance is blinding. As much as Lionel hates doing this, I suspect they will need to make some kind of statement regarding these Polar Express scale passenger cars... since too many folks are reporting issues, and NOBODY that I can see has provided truly positive feedback. So Lionel taking the position that the forum isn't representative of these cars in the overall marketplace isn't gonna fly.

Too bad... because I know LOTS of folks were counting on more gold P/E cars, after they didn't order enough back when those were first announced several years ago. The other sad piece to all of this is these cars (gold as well as regular) were pretty much manufactured with existing tooling. Yes, the rooftop snow effect is new, as is placing the "Polar Express" graphics below the windows rather than above. However, speaking by and large, these cars are built on existing tooling. So the culprits have gotta be a combination of poor craftsmanship, lower quality sub-parts, and no project oversight/supervision.

This is not rocket science.

David


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## Volphin (Dec 7, 2015)

Rocky Mountaineer said:


> It will be interesting to see how long that thread is allowed to continue before it's locked... or if Lionel speaks up and tells OGR to can the comments causing individual reprimands like OGR did with the UP Excursion cars.


I catalog all their comments for quality control purposes. :laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:


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## Volphin (Dec 7, 2015)

PS: Howard doesn't read much I'll bet. Sigh...

https://www.chinalawblog.com/2017/02/manufacturing-in-china-the-business-risks-part-3.html


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## Volphin (Dec 7, 2015)

I've fixed bunches of these popped off "bearing caps" over the years, but they will never come off again if you follow this repair technique. The equalizer bars lift slightly allowing the top of the bearing cap to be fitted. Place a small drop of CA in the lower bearing journal slot, and a small drop on the top of the upper cap tab on the cap itself. Carefully raise the equalizer bars a tiny bit. This is done by carefully pushing upward from the bottom of the bar, against the spring pressure downward. Gently place cap back into position, then release the equalizer bars so they rest on top of the cap. Helpful hints to the newbie: Try this "dry fitment" a few times before using the CA. You may want to enlist a good friend to help out placing the cap with good tweezers steadier hands etc.


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## Lionelmaster55 (Dec 22, 2018)

Volphin; after reading that blog you linked to in your post, I’m left wondering why in the name of God anyone would have products manufactured by a third party in China. Talk about a chilling message...

Curt


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## Volphin (Dec 7, 2015)

Lionelmaster55 said:


> Volphin; after reading that blog you linked to in your post, I’m left wondering why in the name of God anyone would have products manufactured by a third party in China. Talk about a chilling message...
> 
> Curt


TRUTH. But Lionel is owned by a holding company, where the rule is: Make it look pretty in the window so some poor sucker will buy it.


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## Rocky Mountaineer (Sep 19, 2015)

Volphin said:


> TRUTH. But Lionel is owned by a holding company, where the rule is: Make it look pretty in the window so some poor sucker will buy it.


And you can bet Lionel will be doing its best to lure enthusiasts back to pre-ordering new things from their upcoming 2019 Signature Catalog (or Big Book) in just over a month already. Toy Fair 2019 is in mid-February.

However, this time there's been SO much bad press with 2018 ending on a sour note of poorly delivered scale Polar Express passenger cars, we've gotta believe that increasing numbers of folks are gonna be ever more skeptical about pre-ordering products. BTO hype or not -- I can see more and more folks just sitting out this next pre-order cycle, until they see a drastic improvement with more consistent, high-quality product roll-outs (i.e., think VisionLine Niagara in 2018). That's GOTTA happen across the board -- not just for the VisionLine crowd. 

David


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## Norton (Nov 5, 2015)

Volphin said:


> I've fixed bunches of these popped off "bearing caps" over the years, but they will never come off again if you follow this repair technique. The equalizer bars lift slightly allowing the top of the bearing cap to be fitted. Place a small drop of CA in the lower bearing journal slot, and a small drop on the top of the upper cap tab on the cap itself. Carefully raise the equalizer bars a tiny bit. This is done by carefully pushing upward from the bottom of the bar, against the spring pressure downward. Gently place cap back into position, then release the equalizer bars so they rest on top of the cap. Helpful hints to the newbie: Try this "dry fitment" a few times before using the CA. You may want to enlist a good friend to help out placing the cap with good tweezers steadier hands etc.


So these are the same trucks that have been used on scale heavyweight cars in the past? I have a set from around 2007 and haven't seen the problem of bearing caps coming off but some are now disintegrating from zinc rot. At least those who have these cars can return them for replacement or repair. If you have a ten year old car you are out of luck.

Pete


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## Volphin (Dec 7, 2015)

Norton said:


> So these are the same trucks that have been used on scale heavyweight cars in the past? I have a set from around 2007 and haven't seen the problem of bearing caps coming off but some are now disintegrating from zinc rot. At least those who have these cars can return them for replacement or repair. If you have a ten year old car you are out of luck.
> 
> Pete


I doubt they changed the molds... too expensive. Any heavyweight truck with an E-Clip mount will work. I heard some early ones (04-06) had the contaminated zinc. I have not found that to be the case on PE heavies.


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## Pebo (Sep 27, 2015)

Just horrible.
Peter


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## Bryan Moran (Jan 15, 2017)

I did not pay much attention to this thread but pulled down my $600 Rock Island passenger set (4 cars) and saw it said 21" Passenger car set on it. 

I needed to test them on my narrow end of the layout I am building. I thought quality was good but these have never been run. 

$600 was tough to spend. I hope these will be OK.


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## Volphin (Dec 7, 2015)

I can report another set of cars with various (at least 6) caps loose and rattling on the box. 
I'm about to suggest Mike take the PE licensing.


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## Bill Webb (Sep 14, 2015)

Ryan posted a reply from Lionel on the other forum. Would someone please copy it here so that we can see it? Don’t know how to do with my I-pad. I prefer not to comment on it until all have an opportunity to read it.

Thanks.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

*Here you go.* Note the attached PDF that describes Lionel's fix for the journals.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

First, thank you all for posting your concerns. Rather than engage immediately in the usual fray of comments that inevitably spring to the logical conclusion that only by firing Howard can we fix your trucks and save Christmas (insert sarcasm smiley face emoji icon here), I've spent some time personally looking into the truck and what needs to be done to fix the journals and assess the scope of the problem and corrective actions for the manufacturing team. 

To the immediate problem of the 18" passenger cars discussed in this thread: The most common issue appears to be journal covers coming off. 

Having not repaired one of these trucks yet myself, I took this opportunity to teach myself by breaking one so I could learn what fails. I'm good at breaking stuff as you all know (no sarcasm emoji needed - totally true!!) I've attached a write up that explains how to replace these journals. In the photos that I have seen, most fall into the easy-to-repair category of a cover that just fell off. However, in breaking my car here, I found it very easy to also damage the back half of the journal. There is a big difference between a part which comes dislodged by rough handling on its journey around the globe and a five-thumbed brute prying it off with a screwdriver - so hopefully most of you will find you can fix this faster than you can read this lengthy post. So before sending your cars back, please check to see if in fact it is an easy fix - you'll save yourself a lot of time and be back to running trains.

I do not recommend adding any glue to these parts! They are designed for a press fit and to move up and down in the truck sideframe. However, if you have one that just won't seem to stay on and you want to give it a try, you'll see in the attached pdf where I would suggest the SMALLEST drop of glue. 

If your trucks or cars are broken in any other way, please contact us via phone or email and send your car in for repair or contact your dealer/service center if you prefer. This includes if you have a small break on the back half of the journal. You can't take the sideframes off without taking the truck off of the car and that requires a lot of disassembly. While not difficult, there are a lot of hard to find screws and lots of ways to make a simple problem worse if you don't know what you're doing. We do experience our highest call volumes of the year this week. Please allow for a little more time than usual for your calls, but we will get to you and we will make it right.

I have already reached out to our factory teams about this issue. We are going to take a look at the assembly process and pieces to see what, if anything, changed since the previous runs of these trucks to cause the increased frequency of problems. From the types of damage shown and described so far, it seems that most of this occurred somewhere between the factory and your home - ie shipping. So we're also taking a look at the packaging on these cars to see what can be improved on our end there as well so that 2019 deliveries do not repeat the same mistakes.

We are still assessing the volume of cars affected. As of this morning, we have had one call and one email (from a dealer) to our customer service line about the issue and I have been working with one of our largest dealers to assess the situation on their end as well. It is too early to say the full scope of the percentage of cars impacted. It appears to be higher than normal, but also far from a majority of the production run. Keep in mind, we just shipped A LOT of passenger cars. Even if the fall out rate is still the usual small percentage, we're going to see more of it when the production run is so much larger. Add in the holidays and getting an accurate picture of the damage can take a few days or weeks.

Thank you as always for your support, concerns and patience and best wishes for a happy 2019.

Ryan Kunkle

Director of Production, Lionel LLC

View attachment scale passenger truck journal repair.pdf


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## Bill Webb (Sep 14, 2015)

Thanks John.


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2018)

*"It is too early to say the full scope of the percentage of cars impacted. It appears to be higher than normal, but also far from a majority of the production run. Keep in mind, we just shipped A LOT of passenger cars. Even if the fall out rate is still the usual small percentage, we're going to see more of it when the production run is so much larger."*

Well, in a perfect world, just one car that is "screwed up" is too many. Probably not the best choice of words to explain what appears to be a big problem with this run. Shipping from China for our train equipment has gone on for years and to say that this may be the cause is another stretch.

All right, an explanation from Lionel, but no we apologize for messing up someones Christmas. I guess that would be too much to expect. I was not affected by this but I feel bad for all those who were like our own Bill Webb that had all eight of what he ordered bad. That is sure the *MAJORITY* for him!!!!!


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2018)

Something just came to mind:

View attachment 478094


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2018)

Oh, another thought while we are on the subject. John has to copy the letter and post it for us to see.

It makes me feel like:

View attachment 478096


*Now many may like it, but not me. I will remember that when their catalog comes in*.


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## Roving Sign (Apr 23, 2017)

Wow - and to make it over 5 characters - "just wow"



gunrunnerjohn said:


> *Here you go.* Note the attached PDF that describes Lionel's fix for the journals.
> Ryan Kunkle
> 
> Director of Production, Lionel LLC
> ...


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## Fabforrest (Aug 31, 2015)

“ As of this morning, we have had one call and one email (from a dealer) to our customer service line about the issue ”

I find this hard to believe.


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## Millstonemike (Aug 9, 2018)

Fabforrest said:


> “ As of this morning, we have had one call and one email (from a dealer) to our customer service line about the issue ”
> 
> I find this hard to believe.


Right. Only two reported instances. Yet they felt the need to recreate the problem, go public with the issue, and recommend you fix it yourself.


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## Bill Webb (Sep 14, 2015)

Forrest I don’t question what anyone has said. When I talked to Butch at Charles Ro, he was very nice and unaware of the problem. It sounds as if quite a few people are attempting to repair the problems themselves and I appreciate Ryan promptly posting a fix in his PDF.

Paula and I made the decision that we simply do not want any of the cars that we ordered. We are also returning an 0-4-0 LionChief plus steamer that didn’t work out of the box which we received a few days before Christmas. We no longer trust Lionel products and this is no longer fun.

We have been strong Lionel supporters and hope to be again. We like the Lionel employees that we have met, wish them the best, and want the company to be successful. But, like others have decided, no more Lionel purchases for us until things change. We have one more item ordered and have to discuss that.


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## Rocky Mountaineer (Sep 19, 2015)

Well, FWIW -- at least on the surface -- it appears both OGR and Lionel are playing this out MUCH differently than they did earlier this year when yours truly had some heart-to-heart correspondences with Herr Melvin over there and subsequently got booted from "his" forum. Now in the spirit of full disclosure, Rich and I butted heads OFTEN over the 17 years I was a member there, so it didn't take much for Rich to look for excuses to hit the delete button on my account. And when he hand-picked Alan to follow on as Publisher, let's just say the apple didn't fall too far from the tree... because Alan would edit my posts almost daily as if he were editing copy for the magazine. So saying there's no love lost between me and those two is putting things very kindly.

Having said all of that, the big Polar Express thread in question over there is now a solid 4 pages of complaints followed by Ryan's response... and now a few folks are taking some subtle (or not so-subtle) jabs at Ryan's response. To put it bluntly, that thread makes the UP Excursion Car thread(s) earlier in 2018 look like a walk-in-the-park. So it's quite amazing the thread didn't get deleted earlier... or at a minimum didn't get locked -- especially after Ryan's response. It wouldn't at all surprise me if that happens now... or if those folks taking jabs at Ryan's response receive a friendly email from the Keystone Kops over there tonight.

*Perhaps the one thing that is different this time is the tact Lionel is taking with their response.* When I got booted, Herr Melvin passed along verbatim comments to me from a Lionel staffer (whose identity he protected) that were nowhere near as carefully worded as Ryan's response this time. Earlier in 2018, the Lionel comments to OGR were MUCH more terse.

As I've maintained all along, Lionel's comments were so unprofessionally worded, I've kept the verbatim wording out of the public eye so as not to taint anyone's view of Lionel or its management. But generally speaking, Lionel was "upset" that comments on the OGR Forum were making the problem sound worse than it really was. And Lionel was concerned the comments would tarnish their image and hurt sales. That's all OGR needed to hear, since Lionel is a sponsor paying $$$$ to OGR. Lionel maintained to OGR that the early forum reports were isolated instances, but I knew two dealers in my local neck of the woods who were sending back unusually high numbers of faulty cars. And they were also breaking up 4-packs to weed out more bad cars and re-package new sets of 4-packs that would be acceptable to consumers. So the stars weren't exactly lining up between what dealers were seeing and what Lionel told OGR.

Now whether this type of terse correspondence between Lionel and OGR has occurred this time is an unknown. I'm sensing perhaps not, since the thread has gone untouched for so long. But as I indicated last time, it would have been better if OGR approached Lionel and made suggestions on how to deal with the real problem, rather than what they did in March 2018 which was essentially pound their chests, shoot the messenger(s), maintain there was no problem at all to speak of, and then get brownie points with Lionel so that Lionel would stay on as a forum sponsor.

I frankly don't care who wrote the terse correspondence to OGR last time. That's water under the bridge, and perhaps that "staffer" learned their lesson not to say those things outside internal corporate walls. But at least this time Lionel is trying to wordsmith more delicately around the problem -- thereby just "suggesting" not all cars exhibit these problems... at least until more time transpires and more cars that were delivered are actually taken out of the box and USED on layouts or test tracks.

Whatever the case may be, the problems seem very real with respect to the scale Polar Express cars recently released. Does anyone here get the impression that the Pennsy Broadway Ltd heavyweight cars are also seeing the same issues? I'll need to re-read what's been reported so far, but I think most of the negative feedback thus far has been specific to the scale Polar Express heavyweight cars because folks were excited to get them around Christmastime.

Meanwhile, I have a set of Reading & Northern 18" heavyweight cars that I ordered from Charlie Ro, and the last update on those was an ETA of 1/2/2019 (according to Charlie's website). So hopefully dealers will check a few of those out before just shipping a whole bunch of them blindly on the heals of this Polar Express debacle.

Ya think???

David


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## Big Jim (Nov 17, 2015)

> But as I indicated last time, it would have been better if OGR approached Lionel and made suggestions on how to deal with the real problem, rather than what they did in March 2018 which was essentially pound their chests, shoot the messenger(s), maintain there was no problem at all to speak of, and then get brownie points with Lionel so that Lionel would stay on as a forum sponsor.


Many times in the past I have posted to the forums that OGR, CTT and the major hobby shops, should do this exact thing only to be deleted or poo-pooed by loyalist forumites. 
So, here we are again!


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## Craignor (Jan 9, 2016)

Lionel management is clearly in over their heads, they need to be replaced.


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