# MTH did it again!



## Lynn D Bennett (Jul 27, 2013)

I bought the MTH RailKing 4 car 60 ft streamliner UP passenger set (30-67735) which is specified to handle O-31 curves. Well, three of the four cars do but not the Observation car.

The end piece on the Observation car restricts the motion of the rear truck derailing the car. The car comes with an uninstalled rear coupler but the bar that takes that coupler that is attached to the truck hits the end piece of car body limiting the curve the Observation car will make. It will make O-42 curves, just not O-31. I think, since I did not intend to install the coupler anyway, I'll just cut off the long bar that comes from the rear truck assembly to allow the rear truck of the observation car more rotation to make the tighter curves on my layout. I'll inspect it again to see if there is a less intrusive fix (??).

In addition, the Baggage car pickup rollers did not freely move up and down shorting out the track until I opened the pickup bracket more for freer movement. But there is still a 18 inch long curve section of track where the interior lights flicker only in this baggage car and none of the others. More work is required regardless that the rollers are now somewhat free to move up and down.

I recently bought a Premier Chessie bay window caboose that also shorted out the track. It turns out that during assembly the frame was rotate 180 degrees from its intended position and the wires were too short causing the electrical shorting problem. Fixed it but it took a few minutes to determine what the problem was.

I love the detail, the look, the scale size of all these cars, both RailKing and Premier, but MTH seems to lack some quality control. I'll still buy MTH products but with every purchase I'll expect to have to solve one or two problems. 

For what MTH gets for this train stuff you'd think they could do better especially with the inexpensive labor they employ in China. They should be doing a better job of inspecting and testing these products before releasing them for sale.

On still another MTH problem I asked via email for the parts diagrams for a couple of my engines. The service people were suppose to contact me. Its been two weeks and no response one way or the other. One email I sent to them took months (really, months!) for them to answer. By the time I got a response I was beyond the problem.

Oh well, such is life....never a dull moment.

LDBennett


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## Lynn D Bennett (Jul 27, 2013)

OK...Nothing short of cutting off the bar gives the clearance the Observation car needs to get around the O-31 curves of my layout so it is done. The set of cars easily gets through the O-31 curves now.

All the layout problems are solved......for now.

LDBennett


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## Big Ed (Jun 16, 2009)

All these MTH problems and lack of service from them convinced me not to purchase anything from MTH.
Not only your problems but others.


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## njrailer93 (Nov 28, 2011)

Agreed I bought a brand new mth work caboose and the thing is so noisy. Almost noisier than the locomotive.


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## Rabbitman (Jan 24, 2014)

Lynn D Bennett said:


> I bought the MTH RailKing 4 car 60 ft streamliner UP passenger set (30-67735) which is specified to handle O-31 curves. Well, three of the four cars do but not the Observation car.
> 
> The end piece on the Observation car restricts the motion of the rear truck derailing the car. The car comes with an uninstalled rear coupler but the bar that takes that coupler that is attached to the truck hits the end piece of car body limiting the curve the Observation car will make. It will make O-42 curves, just not O-31. I think, since I did not intend to install the coupler anyway, I'll just cut off the long bar that comes from the rear truck assembly to allow the rear truck of the observation car more rotation to make the tighter curves on my layout. I'll inspect it again to see if there is a less intrusive fix (??).
> 
> ...



I have the same trouble with the Southern Pacific Daylight set too. First thing I did was put the coupler on and haven't got around to taking it back off yet for the same problem. You would think they would test this stuff better than they do.
But on a positive note though for MTH, today is a week I've had my 4-8-4 back now and it's still running. If I can get at least 2 more weeks out of it it will set a record for lasting more than 3 weeks. But so far so good and it couldn't be running, sounding or smoking any better. 
I can tell you one thing though, if it does go out again I have plans for it which includes a 12 pound sledge hammer and a rock outcrop in the back bard before it gets sent back to them.


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## Magic (Jan 28, 2014)

Rabbitman said:


> I can tell you one thing though, if it does go out again I have plans for it which includes a 12 pound sledge hammer and a rock outcrop in the back bard before it gets sent back to them.


You sound like me, none of my train stuff YET but several other items have been introduced to the old 12 pounder.   Sure helps to get the frustration out. :smilie_daumenpos:

Magic


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## briangcc (Oct 11, 2012)

For the amount of money being shelled out for new MTH, you shouldn't have to go through gyrations to get it to work on track curves they state it will work on. I'd be livid and yelling at MTH customer service over it. Just out of curiosity, have you contacted MTH to inform them of their engineering snafu?


I'm convinced not to touch MTH stuff unless I want to put work into it. I definitely won't be buying locos from them.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

Funny thing is, I have just as much luck with MTH as I do with other brands. All of them have their issues at times. I have a bunch of MTH stuff, and I can't really complain about excessive issues with their products. I probably have at least 15 PS/2 locomotives, and when I get some of these upgrade kits in, I'll have some more.


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## KarenORichmond (Nov 14, 2011)

gunrunnerjohn said:


> Funny thing is, I have just as much luck with MTH as I do with other brands. All of them have their issues at times. I have a bunch of MTH stuff, and I can't really complain about excessive issues with their products. I probably have at least 15 PS/2 locomotives, and when I get some of these upgrade kits in, I'll have some more.


I agree with you. I have only really had battery issues with MTH ones, other than the one diesel I had to simply reseat the smoke unit seal on to fix it. I have had issues with one Lionel engine (and it is acting up again) that is very aggravating. 

Lynn, I believe you had the same cars as I do and mine run fine on O27 curves.


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## Big Ed (Jun 16, 2009)

gunrunnerjohn said:


> Funny thing is, I have just as much luck with MTH as I do with other brands. All of them have their issues at times. I have a bunch of MTH stuff, and I can't really complain about excessive issues with their products. I probably have at least 15 PS/2 locomotives, and when I get some of these upgrade kits in, I'll have some more.


But as you have no table yet how much run time do they really get?

All brands work great sitting in it's box on a shelf, they are kind of hard to break if you don't run them.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

Two or three of my engines get run several times a week at the club layout.


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## Big Ed (Jun 16, 2009)

gunrunnerjohn said:


> Two or three of my engines get run several times a week at the club layout.


I knew you were going to say that. 

With all the trains you have are you sure you only have 15 of those?


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## Rabbitman (Jan 24, 2014)

Lynn D Bennett said:


> OK...Nothing short of cutting off the bar gives the clearance the Observation car needs to get around the O-31 curves of my layout so it is done. The set of cars easily gets through the O-31 curves now.
> 
> All the layout problems are solved......for now.
> 
> LDBennett


 Mine would go around the track fine (042) and through all the (042) switches fine but the problem is when you try to backup and that's when the rear coupler and the truck locks up somehow. I just put it on for looks anyhow and haven't actualy tried to pull anything behind that car and forget about it till I decide to back the train up and then it jumps off before I even get to the switch. But again that's not the point. A hundred years ago they were making these little trains go around the tracks forward and backward. 
Now they've become so advanced with all the new features it's unbelievable but you would at least think something new could be expected to pull itself out of the box, stay on the tracks in both directions at low speed and not burn up in 3 weeks.

Have you tried to take the roof off one of those passenger cars yet? It's not just a take the screws out and lift it off kind of thing.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

Rabbitman said:


> Have you tried to take the roof off one of those passenger cars yet? It's not just a take the screws out and lift it off kind of thing.


It's a lot easier to take the roof off modern passenger cars than taking them off the old Lionel 2400 series cars!


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## Lynn D Bennett (Jul 27, 2013)

It was not the added coupler that was the problem but the the coupler mounting bar that is part of the truck. Because of the closed end on the observation car, that bar hit the rounded part of the underside of the body. Mine never had the coupler installed and it derailed the car.

As for removing the roof of my UP passenger car set....dead simple. Remove the screws on the bottom of the frame then twist the body of the car and the roof snaps off. Getting it back on was harder but really nothing more than snapping the roof on then replacing the screws.

I like theses cars as the detailing is excellent.They run well except the Baggage car lighting that flickers in one spot on the layout while none of the other cars do that. These are only RailKing and are still very nice. I could not buy the Premier passenger cars as they would no work on my O-31 curves whereas the RailKing versions would.

LDBennett


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

Lynn D Bennett said:


> I like theses cars as the detailing is excellent.They run well except the Baggage car lighting that flickers in one spot on the layout while none of the other cars do that.


Think LED lighting upgrades, none of my passenger cars flicker at all on any layout.


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## Lynn D Bennett (Jul 27, 2013)

John:

It is a pickup problem.The u-shaped bracket that hold the center rail pickup roller does not have free motion vertically on the mounting point on the truck. The assembly is not following the track correctly. I opened the brackets up a little but not enough, apparently. None of the other cars flicker at all.

What is weird about my Realtrax layout is that I find discrete places on the rails where there are burn marks from arcing. I don't see it happening real time but the evidence is left as burn marks on the track. It occurs on some switches, and some tight curves. I can NOT see the train hesitate in these sections either (??). The continuity of the track has to be pretty good around the layout as the signal strength test usually returns all 10's.

Another problem area is the uncoupler track sections. I have two on sidings and one on the mainline. I lowered the electromagnet with washers so that the the engines did not catch up on them. The trains get a small bump when the engines crosses them. The top of the tracks are not smooth with plastic to metal rail section that are not equal height. They no longer derail the engines but they do cause a small bump. I need to look into them I suppose. RealTrax sucks!

Lynn............


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

I've found that burn marks are usually pilots hitting the rails, blind flangeless wheels hitting, or the coupler magnetic tack hanging too low. Look in those places for matching burn marks.


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## Rabbitman (Jan 24, 2014)

Lynn D Bennett said:


> John:
> 
> It is a pickup problem.The u-shaped bracket that hold the center rail pickup roller does not have free motion vertically on the mounting point on the truck. The assembly is not following the track correctly. I opened the brackets up a little but not enough, apparently. None of the other cars flicker at all.
> 
> ...


 Now that you mentioned it I do remember having to do some adjusting on my pickup brackets too for the same reason on that set, finaly they all became solid with no flickering, they are sensitive to dirty rack though.


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## briangcc (Oct 11, 2012)

gunrunnerjohn said:


> Think LED lighting upgrades, none of my passenger cars flicker at all on any layout.


I've got a simpler solution - two pin connectors between cars. Just link them electrically and you'll stop the flickering issue. I plan on doing this once my kids are old enough to know not to pull the cars apart before disconnecting the wiring.

I've done this with my Hobbytown HO units and they'll go over almost anything without stalling. I've used the Minatronics connectors in the past, expensive but very small footprint.


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## Lynn D Bennett (Jul 27, 2013)

OK, i obviously was not clear enough.

One car out of four flickers three times over a curved section of O-31 track that is 1/2 of a circle. Everywhere else all is fine with all of the cars. This is a problem with one car that has a roller center rail pickup problem from the factory that I attempted to fix once when it was much worse and the roller assembly was stuck all the way up. Once this car is totally fixed there will be more flicker anywhere.

These cars have dual pickups place at opposite ends of the car that bridge about any shaky area of track. That is not the problem. At one point I tried to run the Lionel City of Denver set with cars with only one pickup per car. Now, that train flickered. But it also would not run through an particular O-31 switch on my layout without arcs and sparks due to a design problem in the engines dual pickups on the one powered truck. It got relegated to the XMAS tree simple oval layout where it works flicker free without arc and sparks.

LDBennett


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

Personally, adding tethers is not my idea of a good solution for passenger cars. I simply convert them to LED lighting, no flickering and no tethers.

One thing you're going to find with those Minitronics tethers is a derailment that shorts the roller to the outside rail is going to smoke the fine wire in those in a heartbeat! When I do passenger cars, I use a PTC between the two rollers in the car for the same reason.


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## Lynn D Bennett (Jul 27, 2013)

John:

Please explain why the LED lighting with microsecond response time will not flicker when an incandescent bulb with parts of a second response time will flicker. 

Is it not the off time but the fast turn on time of the LED in recovering from the interruption of power?

Lynn............


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

It's called capacitance.  

I add a 220uf capacitor to my upgrades. This allows about 1/4 second of full intensity for the 20ma lighting current, far longer than any normal dirty track or switch interruptions would cause.

When you draw very low currents, it's easy to solve flickering issues.


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## briangcc (Oct 11, 2012)

Ah..that's why. The capacitor covers the momentary loss of power, not the LED's. Big difference there John 


Personally, I'm still tying things together electrically when I get to that stage. I'll probably go larger than the Minatronics connectors to make sure I have the voltage/amp covered but the power protection on even the low end CW-80 seems to cut right out when a car is knocked off the track so I'm sure a momentary short could be sustained without damage.


Now in the Command Control world I can see where dumping a constant 18V to the rails could be more of an issue when shorts occur due to derailment.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

I've replaced the wiring in several locomotives and a number of passenger cars after derailments, it can and does happen. I figure while I'm in there I might as well fix that as well.


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## Lynn D Bennett (Jul 27, 2013)

When there is a derailment on my MTH DCS layout there are always visible arcs and sparks. I have a fast acting Circuit Breaker that clicks off at about 7 amps. At 18 volts and 7 amps that is about 100 watts, the rating of my MTH Power Brick. That is a lot of energy. 

I had one engine that would short out the tracks every time it went across a certain switch. The eroded track rails and eroded roller assembly on the engine that caused the short was readily apparent. There was some real welding going on. I no longer run that engine on my layout.

John:

It is the unsaid that is key....Capacitor!

LDBennett


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## Lynn D Bennett (Jul 27, 2013)

*Flickering lighting problem solved!*

OK...Found the problem with the flickering lighting on the UP Streamliner Baggage car.

There was not enough extra wire coming out of the bottom of the car going to the trucks. Every time the trucks would turn for a full O-31 curve the tight wires would pull the roller up off the center rail. Both trucks had the problem.

When I took the car apart I saw that they had failed to let enough wire out the hole to the trucks and had actually pinched the wires between the inner body and the lower chassis. I pulled almost twice of much wire out the hole to the trucks, taped the excess to the bottom of the car and routed the wires such that they did not pull on the pickup roller as the truck turned. The flicker is now gone.

Another MTH quality control issue. Funny but as I am working on the bottom of the car there is the "PASSED QUALITY" sticker staring at me. I don't think so!

For me it is a love/hate relationship with MTH. Theses cars are beautifully detailed and made. The quality issues are small but nagging.

LDBennett


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