Mr. Sartor would be correct, in his assumption. While it would be nice if you could just "plug in" your replacement lamp the feasibility of that reality is not to be. Allow me to give you another example. A single 6V grain of wheat lamp. There were 205 individual part numbers in the old system for this part (yes 205 different part numbers for the same lamp! because one may have had leads that were 75mm L with a 2-pos plug while the next one had leads that were 75.9mm L and so on). In the spirit of keeping the original numbers in tact all of these 205 different part numbers for single 6V grain of wheat lamps now point to CA0000074. One part number for "CA0000074 LAMP / 6V / 60mA / 3mm D x 6.3mm L / ASSORTED LENGTH WIRES / SINGLE LAMP / GRAIN OF WHEAT".
The reality of it is this; we just do not have the bandwidth to manage 206 different part numbers for the same part, just does not make sense, especially given the fact that we have essentially started this endeavor 30 years late!
One thing I would like everyone to know and repeat as gospel is this;
When you are searching the parts database please keep this in mind; If the part name is in all CAPS (like the lamp example above) then we have actually laid hands on the part, have renamed it appropriately and photographed it (or have it in the que to be photographed). If the part name has a capital letter and all smaller case letters, such as "Shell" then it is technically an invalid part number (we have not seen it, have not touched it and do not have it in inventory). Here are some examples;
GA1100108B SHELL / TENDER / COMPLETE / PS 2 & 3 / SOUTHERN PACIFIC DAYLIGHT #4438 / PREMIER GS-4 4-8-4
This would be a part we have in stock.
FB1200342 Shell (boiler)
This would be a part we have not seen and have not renamed. (Do we have it? "Maybe"? We have over 30 skids stacked 5' high that have boxes of parts that have never been cataloged to date (yes, read job security or (job insanity)).
There is a long road ahead of us to get everything into the system and available for the end users, but it is an endeavor worth finishing.
Janet Mattern, The screw you want to order used to be called; IA-0000069 Screw. After our revamp the part is now: IA0000069 SCREW / WSHRHD / SELF-CUTTING / 3mm x 8mm. (Much easier to know at a glance what you are buying (there used to be 800+ parts named "screw". Yes, we literally determined the thread size/pitch of all 800+ screws and whittled it down to far less than 800+ parts named "screw"!
I am sure you can all see the chaos we have diligently been organizing over the last 15 months. It's a lot of tedious work, but my hope is that you will be satisfied with the outcome (and come buy some parts as a result!)
Also, TW Trainworx has not undertaken this endeavor, its just me with a couple other folks doing this work. The team at TW Trainworx have all been diligently engaged in creating custom layouts for clients, I just furloughed myself to partake in this adventure for a little over a year. Please don't call TW looking for MTH parts! They have enough on their plate as it is, unless of course you need someone to build you your dream layout!
Thank you,
Mike Reagan
MTH Parts & Sales LLC
