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This weekend I was helping a friend set up his MTH New Haven Passenger train. The cars are nicely detailed, but this oddity caught my eye. The New Haven lettering is upside on one side of 2 separate cars. Not sure the quality control inspection process. Have you ever had this occur on any trains you have obtained over the years?? Would love to hear of your  items and if possible post a picturenew haven upside down-1new haven upsidedown-2

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It's always been an issue with MTH.

Grab iron on one side, lower on PS1's is never glued like the other side. Coal hoppers with open bottoms, one bottom brace always falls off, not glued like the other. First LIRR S2, missing road number on front. Menard's will never be equal to the real O, OEM models with their home made toys.

I'm not surprised.

 

 

Last edited by SIRT
Grampstrains posted:

How odd we are.  All the Menard's fans laugh it off when Menard's puts out a car done wrong but when MTH or Lionel does it everyone screams bloody murder.

A $19 Menards car that you can inspect at the store before buying, vs. preorder $600 sets that get shipped to you to find out the paint is upside down or as in the case of my Santa Fe Lionel cars, scuffed paint, badly as applied letterboards.  My CP set, same thing.  I have about 20 Menards cars and not one had issues.  Lionel it is a flip of the coin gamble every time.  

Last edited by VistaDomeScott

With all the "quality control issues" I constantly read about on the Forum, I'll stick to the second hand market.

It is a shame that something as simple as a name plate would be missed but think about the person who sits at a bench all day putting hundreds of them on. I'd probably miss one or two as well.

It's nothing new....check out the nameplate on my 1934 M-10000 motor.

2019-11-23 16.51.30

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"From what the replies are, I guess its no big issue until it happens to "you", (them)"

Nope, just that when it happens to me, I get a little irritated and then get it fixed, exchange it or return for credit.  I try not to generalize to the entire manufacturer's product line (which is nonsense) nor make a biblical epic about it .  It's called perspective and insight. 

Sure Mistakes do happen and my friend is cool about it and sort of relishes in his special train. When others like myself, do notice we usually look c;loser at the item and can still admire the craftsmanship in every other aspect to the train. Not intended to be a bash thread, just curious to see what other oddities exist in our hobby. 

Hmmm.  I’m assuming that these were built and assembled in China or another Asian country.  I suspect that’s what happens when people there may not know english writing and thus may not know the difference.  And when you flip “NEW HAVEN” upside down, well those letters lend themselves to being interpreted as correct.  I wonder if they wrote something in their language that could be flipped and gave them to us upside own, would we know the difference.  I’m not defending their action, but can understand how it could happen in that setting.  Nonetheless, the bottom line is that there really ought to be an inspector on site watching for that very thing.  Such is the cost of a global marketplace.

Quality, how do you say that, Conortal.  (Conrtol)

Is this like a psychological test, or an exercise in oxymorons, or just an oversight, that you comment on another person’s work in quality control when you don’t even have the word control spelled correctly in the heading.  You can edit it.  Seems kind of silly to leave it out of conrtol.

Last edited by William 1
PRRMP54 posted:
M. Mitchell Marmel posted:

Magna-Traction to the rescue!  

 

Mitch 

Yes, but now the number is upside-down!

 

Since we're on this slippery slope...it is spelled "Magne-Traction", not "Magna-Traction". I see this a lot. (You know - "magne" as in "magnet"....)

And I like the MTH car just fine as it came ("factory error" - priceless!) - plus, easier to read in news photos after overturning in a train wreck. Also an opportunity to stage some workers on ladders about to re-letter the car on your RIP track.

D500 posted:
PRRMP54 posted:
M. Mitchell Marmel posted:

Magna-Traction to the rescue!  

 

Mitch 

Yes, but now the number is upside-down!

 

Since we're on this slippery slope...it is spelled "Magne-Traction", not "Magna-Traction". I see this a lot. (You know - "magne" as in "magnet"....)

And I like the MTH car just fine as it came ("factory error" - priceless!) - plus, easier to read in news photos after overturning in a train wreck. Also an opportunity to stage some workers on ladders about to re-letter the car on your RIP track.

That would work. Add a supervisor figure with his arm folded, and two workmen pointing at each other (It was him!) to top it off.

I guess it all comes down to whether the manufacturers are willing to either correct the problem at their cost or issue a refund— the whole built to order idea is so manufacturers know how much to produce ahead of time to save on costs however nobody will commit to purchasing a pig in the poke 1750 engine if there have been quality issues in the past— the Lionel NW J with the wrong color stripe for example— that one is especially egregious since they had it right on previous models

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