Continuing Saga of Lionel's poor new truck design

just got a new two pack of bnsf rotary dump cars. the couplers are dummy and thats the way the old ones were. this couplers how ever would not work one my other cars. they fit together ok, but would not allow the other car to close and lock the nuckle all the way.

grinding the front of the nuckle a little flatter solved my problem. now they work fine with any car coupled up to them. dissapointed that this had to be done on a brand new car though.

I bought a new I12 caboose that continues to throw herself off the rails, and quite dramatically.  It happens on O48 curves, and also on O60 & O72 FT switches into a curve.  It's gotta be these new trucks.  I'm still searching for possible replacements.  Maybe some trucks off of a scale bay window caboose may work.  Anyone else had this problem with the I12s?

I may have missed it because this topic is getting long, but can we get a picture of where you guys are grinding/filing the coupler to make it work.  Thanks.

Go to my post on page 2 of this thread. It's about halfway down the page. (I'm set for 40 posts per page.)

Chris

LVHR

CAPPilot,

Here is what I documented, see photos. Although I filed the couplers so they would mate with older couplers, I decided to remove them and replace them with spare trucks I had in my parts bin. I do not like the new truck design at all as others have stated, the new trucks have a tendency to jump the track.

RAY

@lehighline posted:

Go to my post on page 2 of this thread. It's about halfway down the page. (I'm set for 40 posts per page.)

Chris

LVHR

Here's a link to the post Chris mentions.  https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/...2#153463017520922272

@Lionelzwl2012 posted:

just got a new two pack of bnsf rotary dump cars. the couplers are dummy and thats the way the old ones were.

All runs of the rotary dump cars before the latest one with the new tooling had a fixed rotary coupler on one end and an operating coupler on the other.  The newest run has non-operating couplers on both ends despite the box label saying otherwise.

CAPPilot - If you close the coupler (bad one), and you look at the inside lower left corner of the pocket from the underside, you will notice that the base of the coupler is not completely flush with the base of the coupler housing when closed.  It's easy to compare the 2, old and new.  I did the inside of the hinge as opposed to the outside and I dremmeled the non recessed piece and now my Cupolacam caboose works perfectly.  No more forcing the coupler to the left with eventual derailment and they mate with barely a push of the caboose to any of my tenders or older cars.

For the PS-1 Friendship, I ordered 6-14078 to try and also 6-12843.  I am pretty sure 6-14078 will work on the PS-1 box car, but the Cupolacam caboose and the Flat tire NYC Box car both need the track power circuit and for that I am waiting on Lionel to get back to me.

Mike

The fact that the new couplers are non articulated is what bothers me more than anything.

Lionel has to realize that now, especially with the advent of TMCC, theres alot of people who now like to run their trains like the "scale" guys and actually do switching, etc. vs just running around in circles (which there is nothing wrong with).  If you cannot couple the cars together with out using the old 0-5-0, their function is pretty much relegated to the display shelf.

@Farmall-Joe posted:

Lionel has to realize that now, especially with the advent of TMCC, theres alot of people who now like to run their trains like the "scale" guys and actually do switching, etc. vs just running around in circles (which there is nothing wrong with).  If you cannot couple the cars together with out using the old 0-5-0, their function is pretty much relegated to the display shelf.

The plan must be to use a TMCC/Legacy command crane car to lift the new cars back on the track after all the derailments from the non-articulated couplers.

The customer has now become the final stage manufacturer

Adding Photos for good donor couplers to new Friendship PS-1 boxcar with crappy couplers.

Photo #1 - Sorry for the focus issue, but it gets the point across - Photo of crappy coupler, you can see the base of the hinge does in the pocket does not recess completely as it does in photo #2, the older version on the bottom, this is why the coupler doesn't close as it should what I filed so that it was flush.

Photo #2 - The crappy coupler on top, the older better coupler from the donor boxcar on the bottom.  This is a good comparison as you can see the defect in engineering in the crappy coupler.

Photo #3 - The UP donor boxcar

Photo #4 - shows the crappy coupler still installed on the Friendship PS-1

Photo #5 - shows the donor coupler protrudes out about a mm or 2 more from the car than the crappy coupler as in photo #4

In summary, the transplant resulted in the PS-1 getting the couplers from the older UP boxcar and as expected, it works 1000x better, but, the donor coupler arms are a tab bit longer.  The older better couplers also pivot where the crappy ones do not.  This make tight curves easy to navigate.

Mike

Why in the world did Lionel change a great design. If that’s cutting cost then shame on them. Something as simple as a box car should be their shining star. They are making many of us realize we have enough engines and rolling stock. If I get the urge I’ll simply buy new old stock.

Seems the coupler nuckle shape is different in all truck designs just slightly. Maybe the moldes or just the design of them. I to had trouble with a sound box car. I luckly had some new style  trucks a forum member sold me. I unscrewed just the knuckle piece off each truck and swaped them. Now the car works with anycar I have. So not sure how slight the difference in the knuckles themselves, but ones worked fine and the others did not.

The reason I had to remove the knuckle only is the coupler shank piece was to long on the ones bought here off the forum as apposed to the ones on my box car. Different lengths probably for different cars such as hoopers and tankers.

I liked these couplers at first. The first cars I got with them worked great. After buying several ps1 box cars used with the old design swivel coupers with hidden tabs. I see what everyone is saying. I now have changed my mind about these new couplers. Especially having to file and grind on them right out of the box to get them to play well with all my other cars.

Maybe the old post war design with the hidden tab and tab on the side for manual uncoupling could be brought back. This design always worked. Just my 2 cents here.

The solution is obvious. Lionel needs to return to the coupler design they had used for many, many years before they made the inexplicable and disastrous decision in approximately 2016 to change to a new truck and coupler design, and it's been all downhill since then. As the old saying goes: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Pat

Did couplers on 5 Vietnam cars yesterday. Started out using files until used too much force and broke a coupler. Got out the Dremel tool works much better. More control and faster. First couple cars took a little while to figure where and how much to grind off. After that they went fairly quick. Now the cars couple and track OK even on 031 curves. I know should not have to do this stuff but gave up looking at the cars for a month waiting to hear what Lionel was going to do if anything.  Took about a hour or so to fix them.

@electric_express_200 posted:

Photo #2 - The crappy coupler on top, the older better coupler from the donor boxcar on the bottom.  This is a good comparison as you can see the defect in engineering in the crappy coupler.

Wow, that definitely shows the issue perfectly. The top one goes down to a tiny point where the fingers of the other coupler should fit.  No wonder it doesn’t work!

Even the uncoupling tap on the shank looks flimsier.

@KOOLjock1 posted:

Regarding the scale milk car trucks:

After the first run many years ago, Lionel chose to move production out of China for these.  Originally to Eastern Europe.  China will only produce a completed product.  They will not allow a company to produce a car body in one country, and get the trucks from China.  And they won't allow the trucks tooling out.  China is a Totalitarian Fascist economy under a Totalitarian Communist rule.  You can't expect any American company doing business with them to not be dictated to.

I'm sure that wherever these cars and trucks were made, they were given the design and samples and then proceeded to copy them very badly.  Probably a "lowest bidder" kind of deal in another third world country.

Jon

@NOT LionelLLC posted:

The latest scale milk cars come in boxes that say Made in China.

Stu

I'm confused. Lionel made those great Milk cars with the outstanding metal sprung trucks in China. Lionel moved production to Eastern Europe where nothing actually was produced. Now they are being produced back in China? With an inferior truck design.

Did the Chinese tooling actually head to Europe? Or was that brand new tooling in Europe because as they say "you can't take it with you?" If it is the old Chinese tooling being used for production now, then why not use it to make those great trucks again?

@romiller49 posted:

Why in the world did Lionel change a great design. If that’s cutting cost then shame on them. Something as simple as a box car should be their shining star. They are making many of us realize we have enough engines and rolling stock. If I get the urge I’ll simply buy new old stock.

Rod:

You asked the right question and Lionel has never officially answered it. The change made no sense from the outset and disenfranchised the vast majority of Lionel's customer base. It was made without conducting any market research ( a violation of marketing rule #1) and caught everyone by surprise, including Lionel's top dealers. I wrote a letter to Lionel President Howard Hitchcock back in 2016 asking the same question, which incorporated terrific input from numerous Forum members, and presented compelling arguments against the change. Incredibly, Lionel never answered my letter, even after I followed up several times, which was a clear indication that they had no good answer.

Various reasons have been given by current and former Lionel employees I have spoken to at various train meets and shows in the years that followed, such as cost cutting, and attempting to accommodate the 3-rail scale and 2-rail individuals by providing new couplers that were easier to sub out for Kadees. BTW, both MTH and ATLAS O were able to navigate the accommodation issue with their trucks and couplers, but not Lionel. A former high ranking Lionel official (who will remain nameless, in fairness to him) was also blamed for making the change.

Lionel initially replaced its trucks and couplers with non-sprung trucks and horrific thumb-tack couplers, but at least the couplers were articulated. Very recently, Lionel made more changes. They kept the non-sprung trucks, pivoted back to hidden uncoupling tabs, and commenced to use non-articulated couplers. While pivoting back to hidden uncoupling tabs was a positive, the addition of non-articulated couplers was another huge mistake, and made the latest set of changes a net negative, by a wide margin.

Bottom line is that Lionel needs to immediately stop producing any cars with non-articulated couplers and offer replacement couplers to anyone who has purchased such cars. That's called coming right with your customers.

Pat