@texgeekboy posted:I had problems with a NIB Cab1-L/Base1-L unit. I was able to talk to a support person at Lionel without any hassle. While she didn't seem to really understand the issues, she gave me an RMA number and sent a prepaid USPS label. She did say the turnaround was 5-6 weeks, which I'm okay with. I checked my online account a few hours later, and my case number was already there. About 5 days after I mailed the package I got an automated email from Lionel saying they received it. So now I'm in the 5-6 week period. The warranty experience up to now with Lionel has been about as good as any vendor. I know it's not the same thing as finding parts on their clunky website, but at least some groups in Lionel are doing a decent job.
FWIW, I designed a major DB and wrote a GUI to a search engine for a bespoke application for my former company. The DB grew to be a critical one, and it was huge. The searches on it took fractions of a second. I'm not sure what DB Lionel uses, I used MySQL because it was free and my company was cheap. The option to enter a partial term and do a search on the DB is pretty darn simple. I imagine it's the same for other DBs. So their failure on their parts search is due to poor coding and/or understanding of the customer requirement.
The Lionel Support and Lionel Store website both appear to use Netsuite / Suite Commerce which is an Oracle product. I've worked with both oracle and sql databases and partial searches are just as easy as in sql. There should be no excuse why the online search function is so limited.
