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CB45A00E-66D6-499C-93D9-CD2EA05D99ACUpon reviewing a picture on Lionel’s website of my Missouri Pacific 2202 steam engine from Lionel, I have discovered a typo on the word Missouri. On the tender, it’s spelled Missiouri. It hasn’t arrived at my local hobby shop yet but when it does and if it has the typo on it, what should I do? 

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Last edited by adkmodelrailroader26
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For the amount of money I paid for it and how’ve long I’ve waited for it, it’s totally unacceptable and a total embarrassment on Lionel’s part. If it comes into the shop like this I will send it back and demand my money back from Lionel. What amazes me is how many times I’ve looked over the engine on the website and the catalog and never once noticed this until tonight. 

Last edited by adkmodelrailroader26

I personally am interested in prewar, postwar and some MPC items. My last purchase of a new catalog item from Lionel was back in 1982. I have read numerous threads on recent Lionel engines, in particular, that when delivered did not represent the Advertised engine in way of color or detail.

Here we have a case of an advertised product, albeit, with a misspelled road name, and it needs to be returned because the road name is misspelled. Interesting twist. 

Hopefully it is a picture of a production prototype and the misspelling is not on all produced for sale tenders.

....................

In today's manufacturing world, I'm afraid that's sort of like the joke about hoping the photocopier caught a typo on some of the resumes a person just sent out.

The "factory error" issues of way back when where there were "a few" of something like this before someone caught an error and corrected it are over, I believe.  To the people making these trains, it's just a graphic, since most do not presumably speak English, much less have mastery enough of the language to notice a spelling issue.  To them it's a graphic, just like to many of us, if we had to letter something using Chinese characters, it would be highly unlikely for one of us to catch some subtle difference that changed the meaning.

Huck Fin (one n), Nortern, Mermack, Soutern, Awared, Westerh Bucyrus Eric, etc.  The list goes on.

A slightly different situation, if a small segment of the lettering ends up just plain missing, that could be something not across all units, as if the graphics are applied in multiple steps, missing a step can happen no matter what language you speak or are trying to apply as decoration.   Like this culvert car missing the last letter.

-Dave

Last edited by Dave45681

Since you know about the incorrect spelling now just cancel the order and save yourself the hassle of returning it. They probably will not correct it. I for one, would most likely keep it since I’m a poor speller anyway and most visitors would not likely see it either. I realize that will not help improve the Lionel quality problems but life’s too short for me to worry anymore. 

Last edited by romiller49

They must have used Goofle's Spellwreck. It doesn't obey settings and loves to turn your perfect sentences to nonsesnse as you close a composure.

Rio Grande switcher with the reversed letter did ok value wise.

Is it decal or paint?  I'd expect a new decal, paint might go back. Tough choice, I like odd mistakes like that sometimes.

I could handle it, but have empathy for those who would want it done right.

"a total embarrassment on Lionel’s part."

Let those amongst us without sin cast the first stone.   The title is not remotely correct English either.  I wouldn't consider this human error a total embarrassment to the original poster. 

You're the consumer.  If there's something truly wrong about the product, it's your right to receive a refund or a correction.  Unlike the poster above who says Lionel will do nothing about it,  I'm pretty sure they will give the dealer a refund if you reject the product and they return it.

Last edited by Landsteiner
@Landsteiner posted:

"a total embarrassment on Lionel’s part."

Let those amongst us without sin cast the first stone.   The title is not remotely correct English either.  I wouldn't consider this human error a total embarrassment to the original poster. 

You're the consumer.  If there's something truly wrong about the product, it's your right to receive a refund or a correction.  Unlike the poster above who says Lionel will do nothing about it,  I'm pretty sure they will give the dealer a refund if you reject the product and they return it.

Some people want the locomotive, not a refund, they want a fix. As in the other thread about the misspelling on their locomotives, Lionel has not responded to their concerns.  Lionel sometimes does step up and take care of issues, like the wrong color j 611, the wrong color f units.  If it's a know issue they are misspelled, Lionel shouldn't send them to dealers, fix them, then ship to dealers, consumer should not be the quality control department.

3rd Rail / Golden Gate Depot had a similar goof. They had lettered their SP/T&NO Harriman passenger cars lettered wrong. They did TN&O instead of T&NO. All they did was say oops, sorry. No offer to fix it or anything. Kind of surprising and sad if I must say for 3rd Rail. That is more what I would expect from Lionel.

Obviously no one from Lionel is in China checking their product before it is packaged and placed in the shipping container.  With Lionel doing some in house cars now with Lionscale, you would think there would be a way for them to use their printers that do the graphics on the Lionscale cars to correct this and other mistakes in house.  

Neal Jeter

If it's just one engine with the incorrect spelling, I would keep it because  the value of it will soar with collectors looking for oddities.

If it's the entire run, then I would refuse the engine and demand a refund from Lionel.

Just like the Seinfeld episode with the bubble boy that had "Moors " spelled wrong as "Moops " in the Trivial Pursuit game, it would be a classic .

@RickO posted:

Well they spelled it incorrectly on the Mikado and thats what was delivered:

 https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/...ling-error-on-tender

Photo taken by forum member Mike H:

(Maybe its like the paint colors and whistle tones. If "Lionel says its correct, then its correct".)

 

IMG_6170

Indeed that was the engine/tender I received last year.  I'm not a steam guy.  That was a big purchase for me.   It was going to be my only steam engine.  I live in Missouri and I'll be d____d if I'm going to run that as a conversation piece or some-such.  What a joke.  I returned it immediately.  And what's worse is all the big dealers are still selling them with no mention of the error.  And Lionel has done nothing.  I'm glad to be rid of it.  Two years into this hobby and they taught me a lesson: That's my last preorder.

@rplst8 posted:

MTH is guilty of this too.  In the 2015 volume 1 catalog they put "N.Y.C.ST.L&C." on the loco's sand dome for their model of the NKP ("N.Y.C.&ST.L.") 765 Berk.  I have no idea what it looked like when it was delivered.

A misspelling in a catalog representation is bad enough, but a misspelling on the actual delivered model is simply poor quality control, and should be returned for full refund.

If it were me, I'd still buy the engine and know that it would be a conversation piece at anytime a guest spies the misspelling.  That would be similar to my "Moron/Monon" boxcar...as I run a consist, I'll slow down the train and hope a guest reads the boxcar...then the fun continues...

Well, a boxcar intentionally misspelled because it represents a prototype car that was vandalized by some college kids, is a bit interesting.

A tender misspelled because the manufacturer simply screwed up....not so much. 

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