I take no offence whatever to what you've said, Passenger Train Collector, and applaud you for what you've done and plan on doing for that family in the future. It's certainly true that giving joy to others results in a giver receiving in return a joy that is always inmeasureably greater than the joy they gave.
That said, without being perceived as overreacting and blowing my original posting out of proportion, I empathasized with my nephew's disappointment at his train not running last Christmas and also empathize with other families and their children who might have had a similar "Christmas experience." While I'm able to replace the PE engine, other families in a similar situation might not be able to readily or easily do that for their child.
I don't want to berate the Lionel Corp. but feel that their placing on the PE add-on cars catalog pages a warning notice stating the inabilty of the original PE set locomotives to be able to pull all available add-on cars simultaneously would be a gesture of goodwill to those customers who bought the PE when it was first introduced and thereby made it the instant success that it was.
When a consumer purchases in good faith accessories marketed for a certain product, shouldn't that consumer expect at the very least to be forewarned that those accessories might under certain conditions not possibly work well with a particular version of the product they were purchased for?
Those are my final thoughts on this topic and I thank all forum readers who've responded with their thoughts and suggestions to this posting. Keep reading and enjoying the OGR forums and continued happy model railroading. Cheers to all of you!!!
