Scale Polar Express Lionel cars - Santa is NOT happy!

That's just it though, this isn't the newest WHIZ bang thing. Lionel made the exact same thing 5 years ago and did a good job then, why not now? Surely, they should be able to repeat the experience after all they did it once before successfully.

If shipping a product is becoming a problem when delivering damaged trains, perhaps Lionel should look into logistics consulting to improve packaging or finding better ways to move product.

Case in point, in 1999 I bought 1998 used pickup. That  pickup was awesome, I absolutely loved it. I later found out that in 2003 the production for that model was ending and decided to buy a brand new right off the lot version of the same truck.

I test drove it, and as expected it ran pretty much the same. About two months in the troubles began. Little things mostly caused by cost cutting measures, I also noticed it too when I had the truck home and had more time to spend examining it. Again, little things, many of which didn't matter, but you could tell they were done to save money. Needles to say my 98 model built better, with more care and was a better vehicle. The 2003 even though it was the same model, with the same features, just didn't make the quality cut I expected. Now I still buy vehicles from this manufacture and have been extremely happy with my purchases since.

I agree with the loyalty thing, and willing to give someone a chance to make it right. Lionel has had plenty of chances to get things right and you're right, it starting to hurt that loyal base. I'm with you, I like to buy tried and true products that I know I can trust. Most of my locomotive power is now (used) Railking, the mechanics of the locos are simple, and haven't changed much if at all in years. MPC may not be Lionel's bright years, but they did run, and wasn't too hard to repair when needed.

First, thank you all for posting your concerns. Rather than engage immediately in the usual fray of comments that inevitably spring to the logical conclusion that only by firing Howard can we fix your trucks and save Christmas (insert sarcasm smiley face emoji icon here), I've spent some time personally looking into the truck and what needs to be done to fix the journals and  assess the scope of the problem and corrective actions for the manufacturing team. 

To the immediate problem of the 18" passenger cars discussed in this thread:  The most common issue appears to be journal covers coming off. 

Having not repaired one of these trucks yet myself, I took this opportunity to teach myself by breaking one so I could learn what fails. I'm good at breaking stuff as you all know (no sarcasm emoji needed - totally true!!) I've attached a write up that explains how to replace these journals. In the photos that I have seen, most fall into the easy-to-repair category of a cover that just fell off. However, in breaking my car here, I found it very easy to also damage the back half of the journal. There is a big difference between a part which comes dislodged by rough handling on its journey around the globe and a five-thumbed brute prying it off with a screwdriver - so hopefully most of you will find you can fix this faster than you can read this lengthy post. So before sending your cars back, please check to see if in fact it is an easy fix - you'll save yourself a lot of time and be back to running trains.

I do not recommend adding any glue to these parts! They are designed for a press fit and to move up and down in the truck sideframe. However, if you have one that just won't seem to stay on and you want to give it a try, you'll see in the attached pdf where I would suggest the SMALLEST drop of glue. 

If your trucks or cars are broken in any other way, please contact us via phone or email and send your car in for repair or contact your dealer/service center if you prefer. This includes if you have a small break on the back half of the journal. You can't take the sideframes off without taking the truck off of the car and that requires a lot of disassembly. While not difficult, there are a lot of hard to find screws and lots of ways to make a simple problem worse if you don't know what you're doing. We do experience our highest call volumes of the year this week. Please allow for a little more time than usual for your calls, but we will get to you and we will make it right.

I have already reached out to our factory teams about this issue. We are going to take a look at the assembly process and pieces to see what, if anything, changed since the previous runs of these trucks to cause the increased frequency of problems. From the types of damage shown and described so far, it seems that most of this occurred somewhere between the factory and your home - ie shipping. So we're also taking a look at the packaging on these cars to see what can be improved on our end there as well so that 2019 deliveries do not repeat the same mistakes.

We are still assessing the volume of cars affected. As of this morning, we have had one call and one email (from a dealer) to our customer service line about the issue and I have been working with one of our largest dealers to assess the situation on their end as well. It is too early to say the full scope of the percentage of cars impacted. It appears to be higher than normal, but also far from a majority of the production run. Keep in mind, we just shipped A LOT of passenger cars. Even if the fall out rate is still the usual small percentage, we're going to see more of it when the production run is so much larger. Add in the holidays and getting an accurate picture of the damage can take a few days or weeks.

Thank you as always for your support, concerns and patience and best wishes for a happy 2019.

I don't want to be a Lionel basher, and I don't think I have been. Like Rick, my last five Legacy engines have been fine out of the box, though I only buy one per year on average. I probably just jinxed myself.

Perhaps rolling stock is made in a different factory/city/province of China. Whatever the case, something went amiss for the latest round of scale heavyweights.

Conrail6358 posted:

First, thank you all for posting your concerns. Rather than engage immediately in the usual fray of comments that inevitably spring to the logical conclusion that only by firing Howard can we fix your trucks and save Christmas (insert sarcasm smiley face emoji icon here), I've spent some time personally looking into the truck and what needs to be done to fix the journals and  assess the scope of the problem and corrective actions for the manufacturing team. 

To the immediate problem of the 18" passenger cars discussed in this thread:  The most common issue appears to be journal covers coming off. 

Having not repaired one of these trucks yet myself, I took this opportunity to teach myself by breaking one so I could learn what fails. I'm good at breaking stuff as you all know (no sarcasm emoji needed - totally true!!) I've attached a write up that explains how to replace these journals. In the photos that I have seen, most fall into the easy-to-repair category of a cover that just fell off. However, in breaking my car here, I found it very easy to also damage the back half of the journal. There is a big difference between a part which comes dislodged by rough handling on its journey around the globe and a five-thumbed brute prying it off with a screwdriver - so hopefully most of you will find you can fix this faster than you can read this lengthy post. So before sending your cars back, please check to see if in fact it is an easy fix - you'll save yourself a lot of time and be back to running trains.

I do not recommend adding any glue to these parts! They are designed for a press fit and to move up and down in the truck sideframe. However, if you have one that just won't seem to stay on and you want to give it a try, you'll see in the attached pdf where I would suggest the SMALLEST drop of glue. 

If your trucks or cars are broken in any other way, please contact us via phone or email and send your car in for repair or contact your dealer/service center if you prefer. This includes if you have a small break on the back half of the journal. You can't take the sideframes off without taking the truck off of the car and that requires a lot of disassembly. While not difficult, there are a lot of hard to find screws and lots of ways to make a simple problem worse if you don't know what you're doing. We do experience our highest call volumes of the year this week. Please allow for a little more time than usual for your calls, but we will get to you and we will make it right.

I have already reached out to our factory teams about this issue. We are going to take a look at the assembly process and pieces to see what, if anything, changed since the previous runs of these trucks to cause the increased frequency of problems. From the types of damage shown and described so far, it seems that most of this occurred somewhere between the factory and your home - ie shipping. So we're also taking a look at the packaging on these cars to see what can be improved on our end there as well so that 2019 deliveries do not repeat the same mistakes.

We are still assessing the volume of cars affected. As of this morning, we have had one call and one email (from a dealer) to our customer service line about the issue and I have been working with one of our largest dealers to assess the situation on their end as well. It is too early to say the full scope of the percentage of cars impacted. It appears to be higher than normal, but also far from a majority of the production run. Keep in mind, we just shipped A LOT of passenger cars. Even if the fall out rate is still the usual small percentage, we're going to see more of it when the production run is so much larger. Add in the holidays and getting an accurate picture of the damage can take a few days or weeks.

Thank you as always for your support, concerns and patience and best wishes for a happy 2019.

Thanks Ryan for responding.  I have found that these journals often do not stay in place even after refitting them.  Not all, but some.  A TINY amount of CA is all that is required.  I encourage the gel type that allows some workability before applying activator.  I just got tired of finding them all over the layout.  My PE cars are first runs... so they have many MANY scale miles on them without another failure.

Thank you Ryan 

I am thinking about buying a set of these but after reading this thread I wanted to wait for the smoke to clear - you’ve set my mind at ease a bit 👍🏼

Thank you Ryan. Mine will be going back to Lionel next week for repairs. Can the green tinted windows be replaced with clear? If not it's not that big of a deal. My cars have missing parts, no loose journal covers that I have found. I am sending them all back so any issues can be corrected. I hope they go over them with a fine tooth comb.

I received my 5 car set yesterday and was dreading opening them after reading all the above. Here is what I found:  All of cars look good. No paint issues or roof issues. One of the cars had 4 journals off and they seemed to push in after I figured out how they work.  Another car has a lose table in it (rattles around) but I can live with that. My issues do seem to be shipping related. The blue/green window tint is odd. I haven't put them on the track yet so I don't know about lighting.  I plan on putting them on the track tonight along with the PE engine that I haven't tested yet either.

 It was very disappointing that the cars showed up after Christmas. Having a $1500 engine with no cars was poor execution on Lionel's part! They can blame who they want but it's Lionel's name on the box. 

I plan on letting Lionel know my concerns and If the journals pop back off I will send to lionel for repair.

Matt

Really sorry to hear of everyone's problems. All my trains are Lionel and I would never think of buying anything else.........But this Lionel of today is NOT the Lionel of past. Cheap China trains = Lionel 2018.

Thank you Ryan.

John Rowlen

All this is sad.   I got a 4 car disconnect set today in the mail that appears to be fine.  I sure hope so!   Now do I want to order a new engine?

Jim

Did anyone else receive theirs?

Peter Araujo posted:

Did anyone else receive theirs?

All 5 cars... Journals intact. Paint is fine, don't seem to have any of the problems listed in this thread. Received mine before Christmas.

Have I hit the lottery or are we just hearing from the squeaky wheels?  

My only problems are the known design inaccuracies with these heavyweights... green Window glazing and shortened observation deck.  I knew about these going in though. Otherwise they run well, light up, and trail that legacy loco beautifully.

Could we see some full view pictures of them?

I received my 5 cars yesterday and imediately inspected them.  Out of the 5 only one was ok.  I averaged 3 missing journals for each car and several globs of paint touch ups.  It actually looked like they used a Q-tip to glob it on for fine scratches, they should have just used a hammer.  All damaged cars had their plastic insert not snapped on the roof sections and the internal plastic cut along the bottom.  I also had loose tables rattling in observation cars.  What makes this even more difficult and troublesome is that I purchased this as a gift for my son and family for Christmas.  Lionel should really needs to make this rite for all involved.  Time will tell.

While it is nice to see Ryan chime in, (I actually feel sorry for Ryan, Dave and the other "front line" folks at Lionel that get stuck with this), the "sorry, send it in and we'll make it right" is just too little, too late.

I returned all 5 cars to my dealer today and purchased another MTH Premier diesel (perfect out of the box). After the Mogul, this, and my E6 Atlantic that originally would not run in conventional, was repaired and returned to me running but with substantial cosmetic damage, the "send it back, we'll make it right" just isn't cutting it. For the price of this stuff, it should be 100% perfect out of the box. FWIW, my H10 set I picked up at the same time as these cars has gotten several hours of running time. It was, and continues to be flawless and a real joy to run.

I have pretty much adopted a plan where, regardless of manufacturer, if it is not perfect out of the box, I get my $$$ back. Life is too short and I don't have the patience or time to be shipping this crap back and forth.

Good luck to those of you willing to stick it out on these. I'm done and over it.

smilesrs posted:

 Lionel should really needs to make this rite for all involved.  Time will tell.

Yes, time will tell.  FYI this thread has been on the front page for more than 6 days.  Did Lionel shut down for Christmas week?  Just sayin’.

Wow, morbid curiosity drove me to read the entirety of this this thread.   So sorry there has been so much unacceptable breakage and paintwork for you all.  

I was really admiring these cars -though it was never going to happen for me- and in a backwards way it does make me even more content with the simple O-27 conventional  (not Polar Express) my son has been enjoying under the tree for the last week or so.  

Also I just wanted to say that the fellow who arranged a loaner for his neighbor with the damaged standard Polar Express set is a gentleman and a credit to the hobby.

Conrail6358 posted:

First, thank you all for posting your concerns. Rather than engage immediately in the usual fray of comments that inevitably spring to the logical conclusion that only by firing Howard can we fix your trucks and save Christmas

Well maybe, at the very least ,the "Quality Assurance Team" Howard stated was in place should be fired and/or replaced.

If your trucks or cars are broken in any other way, please contact us via phone or email and send your car in for repair or contact your dealer/service center if you prefer. 

Emails go unanswered, and phone contact has seemingly endless hold times. Does anyone ever answer???

I have already reached out to our factory teams about this issue. We are going to take a look at the assembly process and pieces to see what, if anything, changed since the previous runs of these trucks to cause the increased frequency of problems. 

We are still assessing the volume of cars affected.  It is too early to say the full scope of the percentage of cars impacted. It appears to be higher than normal, but also far from a majority of the production run. Keep in mind, we just shipped A LOT of passenger cars. Even if the fall out rate is still the usual small percentage, we're going to see more of it when the production run is so much larger. Add in the holidays and getting an accurate picture of the damage can take a few days or weeks

I'll let Steven Tyler handle that last one:

Went on line tonight to look at these cars.  Put together a cart of five, and did NOT buy.

We need a new thread on OGR Forum called "Trains I did NOT buy today".  Please include the total money you did not spend.  I did not spend $950.00 today.  I did not buy the Bipolar Express 18" cars.

Sincerely, John Rowlen

SCAM & RIP OFF

RickO posted:

Conrail6358 posted:

If your trucks or cars are broken in any other way, please contact us via phone or email and send your car in for repair or contact your dealer/service center if you prefer. 

Emails go unanswered, and phone contact has seemingly endless hold times. Does anyone ever answer???

 

I guess everyone has their own experience but I called Lionel today to update my address. Assuming I may be on hold for a while, I sent an email with my info while on hold. The call was answered within 3 minutes, my email was responded to within 3 hours. I think that is not bad for a regular week none the less Christmas week.

SJC

My H10 has been running fine also, along with my K-line heavyweights.  Sometimes things just go wrong, I'm sure we hear from Lionel soon about this issue.  Has anyone tried calling Lionel?

carsntrains posted:

All this is sad.   I got a 4 car disconnect set today in the mail that appears to be fine.  I sure hope so!   Now do I want to order a new engine?

Jim

That’s the magic question that should turn the big L’s stomach......I’d like to see them grab this bull by the horns and put this to bed....it’s discussed in so many threads. It’s really getting to be a dark cloud on a forum that’s supposed to be fun.....Ryan; ....when people begin to question whether or not they should buy the next piece of equipment, instead of they are buying the next piece of equipment ...this should speak volumes, not phrases....carsntrains made it quite clear “Now do I order a new engine?”......The floor is yours, please get the powers to be involved and make a stand.....it’s time.......Pat

just recieved a Lionel 6-84826 Pennsylvania Heavyweight, Observation- Colonel Lindbergh from Charles Ro

Individual car brown outer shipping box, typical orange inner box, clear plastic 2 piece snap blister pack with car wrapped in plastic sheet and cardboard inserts to protect and keep truck assembly from moving. (Similar to some boxcar packaging).

Car has flawless paint, beautiful painted under carriage and trucks.  Shipped USPS, Massachusetts to Iowa...No..problems.

Sorry for the unfortunate experiences of others here.

But, Thank you Lionel and Charlie Ro.

My Lionel H-10 "Pennsylvania Lines #1709" and "Western Allegheny #85" run so well that I bought the "Pennsylvania H-10 #1288", but it is currently lost in the USPS system.  It was accepted early morning on the 27th and disappeared.  As of 1:00 A.M. on the 29th of December, 2018, it has not resurfaced.

The Lionel H-10 is the best engine I purchased in the last two years. Good job Lionel. Give the factory that manufactured this engine all your work.

Sincerely, John Rowlen

Received my scale pe coach yesterday from Ro. Journal  cap missing, glue smears on the windows and lights do not work (tried switch in both directions just in case they put them in backwards).

John, My Bellefonte Central H10 worked so well I bought the PRR Coal Hauler set but my  #1288 had a bent side rod. The dealer is replacing it.

John Rowlen posted:

My Lionel H-10 "Pennsylvania Lines #1709" and "Western Allegheny #85" run so well that I bought the "Pennsylvania H-10 #1288", but it is currently lost in the USPS system.  It was accepted early morning on the 27th and disappeared.  As of 1:00 A.M. on the 29th of December, 2018, it has not resurfaced.

The Lionel H-10 is the best engine I purchased in the last two years. Good job Lionel. Give the factory that manufactured this engine all your work.

Sincerely, John Rowlen

John, I have noticed the same thing with items I ordered off the Bay; don't think the USPS is consistent in scanning; on one item, it scanned at a local distribution point and stayed there for 3 days during the Christmas rush; others just showed up.

The Pennsylvania H-10 #1288 now shows it arrived at my post office on Saturday, December 29, 2018 in the morning.  Surprise!  I am hopeful this engine will be in good shape. The  #1288 engine has been the one H-10 with the most needs: new tender screws for Gunrunner John, and the side rod just reported. The only other H-10 issue was a noisy smoke fan on a Western Allegheny #85.  This is a very good engine.  I have been watching for posts.  My Western Allegheny pulls twelve Lionel 21" passenger cars easily.

At half the price of a 2-6-6-2, the H-10 has swinging Bell, Whistle Smoke and regular Stack Smoke.  The crew talk sounds a good too.  I love the whistle.

Sincerely, John Rowlen

John Rowlen posted:

The Pennsylvania H-10 #1288 now shows it arrived at my post office on Saturday, December 29, 2018 in the morning.  Surprise!  I am hopeful this engine will be in good shape. The  #1288 engine has been the one H-10 with the most needs: new tender screws for Gunrunner John, and the side rod just reported. 

You may want to reread Johns " new h10 assembled with power tools" thread.

It also had an incorrectly mounted board in the tender which was hitting the volume pot and cutting the wires. The wires to the electocoupler were nearly pulled out.

Additionally the access hatch doesn't sit flush on the 1288(incorrectly cast mounting posts) and some modification/ adjustment was needed there as well.

 Lastly,mine also had a wiring harness rubbing on the flywheel . A gentle tug on the wires going to the drawbar resolved this.

Good luck when it arrives, 

In the stteamlined era, I think the ATSF did use light green tinted windows...

Green windows for a heavyweight set?  As Mr. Spock would say:  NOT LOGICIAL!

RickO posted:

This can't be!!!..........

Howard Hitchcock stated on his last interview with Notch 6 that he had a QA team in place!!!!

 

Somewhere Mike Reagan is shaking his head.

Yea, your right Rick. But what he did not say was that his QC team was a couple of over worked twelve year olds who don't come in from the fields until after dark.

RickO,  Thank you for filling in the details on GunrunnerJohn's H-10 #1288.  I knew someone would.  I often get accused of being negative.  

The Pennsylvania #1288 is running perfectly. Three good engines in a row. Wow. That is some kind of record.

Another thread has a H-10 that's coupler overheated, heating the rear of the tender that burned the owner's hand.  Now that's serious damage.  I am checking all of my electro-couplers.

I bought four Pennsylvania 19" Heavyweight passenger cars: two Observations, a Diner and Central Park Sleeper.  Can't wait to see that they have loose Journal covers too.

Sincerely, John Rowlen

I put my 5 car collection on the track to test lighting and they all worked. HOWEVER, the observation car has a blue tint and the rest of the cars have the greenish tint? Am I special or are they all this way?

Matt

palallin posted:

All that said, however, a significant fraction of the problem is the consumer demand for gizmos, gee-whiz-widgets, and imported Italian fragilees.  That ANY of those things survive the trip here and work at all is a minor miracle.  The problem is not all Lionel's fault.  Too many buyers demand the NEWEST, GREATEST, Whizz-Bangest every year, or they will not buy.  And then they complain because the NEWEST, GREATEST, Whizz-Bangest isn't perfect when it manages to survive long-distance, multimode transportation AND the baggage-crushers at FedUP Postal Service.

 

I disagree with this.  It is 100% their fault.  We're talking about passenger cars not Visionline engines.  They offer a product, we expect it to work.  There is nothing wrong with that and I will accept zero responsibility for their failure to deliver.  Most of us receive technology laden items in the mail/FedEx/UPS.  Until recently, I lived in a rural area and received hundreds of shipments per year via Internet retailers.  I'm batting 1.000 on TV's, iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, computer monitors, high-end cameras & lenses, audio equipment, the list goes on and on.   You name it, not one failure out of the box.  If Lionel can't get it done, they just need to go away.

Picked up my reading and northern dome car, now I inspect everything b4 I take it home. Blemishes all over it, got another off the shelf, was much better condition, they packaged the other one up with yellow post its pointing out blemishes to send back to Lionel. My Conrail theatre car had a scratch on it too, and the  shop let me swap it for another 1.  So if your buying in person open it b4 you take it home. If your buying online I guess your sorta stuck

tom21pa posted:

Picked up my reading and northern dome car, now I inspect everything b4 I take it home. Blemishes all over it, got another off the shelf, was much better condition, they packaged the other one up with yellow post its pointing out blemishes to send back to Lionel. My Conrail theatre car had a scratch on it too, and the  shop let me swap it for another 1.  So if your buying in person open it b4 you take it home. If your buying online I guess your sorta stuck

Yep, that's most likely the case. No refund and hope your defective items get repaired properly.

I have 2 Lionel f40s, both had the flywheel cut thru the wires, one I sent thru the dealer repair & the other 1 went to Lionel, the one that went to dealer service came back fine, the one that went to Lionel came back with the wrong sounds, sent it back again, comes back with right sounds and marks from someone prying hatch off, and paint chipped, and the lift rings glued onto hatch with glue residue all over.  Totally unacceptable, it's like they don't even want your business the way you & your item is treated. Your screwed either way

I don't have a dog in this fight, as I run about 95% postwar Lionel these days after many QC issues with newer stuff.  That being said, the last few days I was browsing the internets looking to pick up 2 LC+ engines for my kids to enjoy on my postwar layout as they really like the sounds & the remote control makes it easy for them to run the trains.  Now the question is, do I buy them & hope nothing is wrong or just go with an MTH engine?  I should not have to worry if these engines will be working out of the box or if I have to take a drive up to Concord for repairs.   I'm not sure as of what to do, but this should be concerning to Lionel. This is money out of their bottom line & I'm sure I'm not the only person who feels this way.  The only way a company learns is if you don't buy their products.  

BTW - green tint on passenger car windows (and I'm surprised nobody has mentioned it yet) Metra has them on their passenger cars. 

So what is the reason you keep buying Lionel if it's so bad. I used to be a Lionel fan too but I gave up on  them a long time ago. I have a lot of tmcc but only one legacy engine. I used to spend about 30,000.00 a year on engines and cars from all the manufacturers. 

 I guit Lionel when I went into a shop to buy the Lionel legacy big boy. It was sitting on the layout and the store owner was bragging how great it was. I said can I hear it run, he said well it doesn't work it was DOA. 

I went home thought about it and came to the conclusion that I wasn't going to fall into this cell phone mentality of upgrading every couple of years. What I have is good enough. I'm not going to be made a fool of. I guess Lionel doesn't miss a customer like me. A good portion of that 30k went to Lionel now it's zero. They should go back to making toy like trains they did a better job. 

I would never buy a bunch of passenger sets to just to make a good one. The would have to make it right that is all there is to it. 

Ex Lionel fan

Bob