TMCC PRR M1a 6-38056 erratic

If the R2LC didn't fix it, check the program switch.  The only thing that makes sense with those symptoms is the R2LC or the program switch.  Also, Lionel has been known to ship defective parts...

Are you running with a Cab-1, Cab-1L or the Cab-2?

If Cab-1, are the batteries fresh?

Thanks guys.

John, I bought 2 R2LC, will check the other one out and the switch. Nice to know I could have gotten bad parts....

Bob- This is with my CAB2 and CAB1 on my test stand.

Well I’m glad it was a 50% parts sale, because out of the 2 R2LC boards I bought, only 50% worked...... guess it’s a call to Lionel tomorrow for a RA on the bad board.

M1a is working fine on the test stand. Will put the shell back on and give it a run around the layout for a good 1/2 hour.

Guess the take away is, test your parts from the sale as there is only a 30day warranty.

Thanks for the help guys.

Color me surprised, I've gotten bad parts over the years.

Well, in all fairness to Lionel. The "parts" come from complete locomotives that are disassembled stateside.

If a complete loco can be delivered to the purchaser with defective parts, certainly the "parts loco" can.

"Why doesn't Lionel test for defective parts?"  ..... I guess for the same reason they don't test for a defective loco

@RickO posted:

Well, in all fairness to Lionel. The "parts" come from complete locomotives that are disassembled stateside.

If a complete loco can be delivered to the purchaser with defective parts, certainly the "parts loco" can.

"Why doesn't Lionel test for defective parts?"  ..... I guess for the same reason they don't test for a defective loco

They really disassemble locos for parts? Why not just get the parts from the builder? Seems like a very stupid business model.

Apparently, the Chinese won't sell just parts.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Apparently, the Chinese won't sell just parts.

I can’t believe the builder has that power over their customer. Guess we know why the build quality never improves, the builder is on auto pilot and Lionel is either ok with it or too scared or lazy to find better labor.....

@Coalguy posted:

I can’t believe the builder has that power over their customer. Guess we know why the build quality never improves, the builder is on auto pilot and Lionel is either ok with it or too scared or lazy to find better labor.....

You think that's bad, they also can't take the tooling out of China, so the manufacturer has more power than you would imagine!  So, finding better labor isn't going to fly, the most expensive part of the manufacturing cycle is trapped in China!

The ol' Rock & Hard Place.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

You think that's bad, they also can't take the tooling out of China, so the manufacturer has more power than you would imagine!  So, finding better labor isn't going to fly, the most expensive part of the manufacturing cycle is trapped in China!

The ol' Rock & Hard Place.

Sold their souls..... I hope it was worth the couple % profit.....

Two 10m waits on hold only to be hung up on twice.   Lionel just sucks.

10 minutes, you're lucky!  I waited over 30 minutes twice a couple weeks ago, then they abruptly transferred me to voice mail.  The voice mail announced the box was full and they weren't accepting any voice mail!  After that, ***CLICK***

@Coalguy posted:

Sold their souls..... I hope it was worth the couple % profit.....

That's not how it is at all. It's just the way it is doing business in China, which I suspect is typical regardless of what's being made there. China's position is take it or leave it. It has nothing to do with Lionel getting more profit in exchange for the manufacturer keeping the tooling.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Apparently, the Chinese won't sell just parts.

Makes sense, from their prospective, I'd think. The cost of producing thousands of separate parts individually for every different engine produced, with all the added expense and complication of doing that,  all the addtional organization, cataloging, setting up separate production procedures, pricing and additional labor staff to do it all, etc. etc. would be prohibitive.

It seems clear the Chinese manufacturer has determined it isn't worth it to do all that - the cost would be more than whatever profit they could make from parts. From their prospective, just cranking out more complete engines on their production line and letting Lionel cannabalize some of them for parts makes much more sense economically. It could very well be cheaper for Lionel, too, compared with how much extra the parts would cost if they had to buy them individually from the Chinese manufacturer. Lionel would have to do a lot of the organization and distribution work anyway, running the parts department, cataloging and managing inventory, operating a parts sales department, etc. Just IMHO, of course.

Interesting perspective on the parts.  FWIW, I worked in aerospace for years, and when we produced an instrument or black-box for a aircraft manufacturer, say Boeing.  There was a price negotiated for a ship-set for each airplane.  OTOH, when the airlines came to buy spare parts, there was a very different part for individual pieces of a ship-set.  If they bought a ship-set of equipment using the spare parts prices, the price was about triple what Boeing originally spent for the same stuff.  I always marveled that there wasn't a peep out of any of the airlines about the prices for spares.

@Coalguy posted:

You can’t tell me Lionel couldn’t find a manufacturer that would sell them the parts that are already being inventoried by the manufacturer to manufacturer the trains, so that argument just doesn’t hold water.

All of this conversation is mostly speculation.  We can only view it with the evidence before us, that being the cannibalize locomotives for parts.  As to the exact negotiations, I suggest you contact Howard at Lionel, he knows what happened.