I'd rather be ice fishing posted:My Allegheny was built in the 1990s and lionel had no replacement parts for me nor did they seem overly concerned with my plight. I ended up moneying my way out of it by buying a whole tender shell with good doors from a helpful dealers NOS and I got the impression that was the last one on earth. It was not cheap either..Lionel made no effort to help me with some doors from their newer Alleghenies stating the ones they had were being saved for warrantees. So no love from lionel to me..
Bryan,
In reading your orginal post on the topic a few months
ago,https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/topic/help-my-allegheny-doors-are-broken
you stated you bought a used Lionel 6-38081 C&O 2-6-6-6 Alleghenny Steam engine. It looks like it was catalogued in 2006, so you are right it is about 12 or so years old. I would think your issue is more with the person that sold you the engine, especially if this was some type of well know or documented issue. The engine is long out of warranty, so putting this all on Lionel is not right, since one of the posters noted that they were albe to get replacement parts earlier this year. For an engine that was 12 years old, that not too bad.
I can't tell from your post if this was a just a cosmetic issue or an operational issue that makes it impossible to run.
Lastly, you have done a great service to identify this issue, since I suspect that there could be a lot of these engines that were run a few times and then put back in the box and not looked at in a decade, so the owners don't know they have this problem, also anyone considering buying one should take notice and make sure that the issue is factored into the final purchase price.
I hope you consider changing the title of your post to reflect the fact that this is not just a Lionel issue, I had an issues with some MTH trucks a few years ago and never with a Lionel product.
