Whats the most exspensive train repair bill you ve paid

$37 for a WbB DCU unit.....many of them....in Williams, WbB, MTH and Weaver locos....I do all my own work.  Sometimes I loose sounds or other things...but I'm still happy with them.

My lionel chessie system  S4 switcher engine. I spent over 300.00 fixing it. Its on its way to BoxcarBill to put cruise m in it and fix couple other things going to be another 129.00 to fix.     

Bill will make it right for you! You're in good hands. well, your engine is at least.

Rod

Thanks Rod!!! I know he will do a great job he's done a couple things for me did great on it.  

I made a big mistake in getting one of my MTH engines fixed several years ago.  I should have just bought a new engine, but I failed to get estimated price from the dealer.  I paid $405 to replace PS2 and smoke unit.  I learned a hard lesson on repairs.  However, my daughter likes that engine the most. 

Been very fortunate none!

So far $150.00 for parts plus shipping to do a self repair on my favorite steam locomotive....the MTH premier Triplex.  It would have been more if it weren't for a good friend here on the forum that helped me out!

Alan

$150.00 to have ERR Railsounds added to my K-Line Big Boy. Learned a lot since then and now would do it myself.

Steve

I have not had to spend large amounts of money on repairs, mainly because I have the time and skills to do most of it myself, and I have a couple of friends who are very, very knowledgeable about those aspects of train repair (mostly electronics) that are out of my league. I've also been plain lucky a couple of times, spotting loose wires on new units that could have shorted out and blown the electronics. 

There's a post above about spending $300 plus on replacing a blown set of 5v PS-2 electronics with a new 3v board. I had exactly the same problem with a DOA Rail King Doodlebug, which is no way worth that kind of money to fix. I solved it by buying a used Rail King diesel cheap and cannibalizing the old 5v boards. After reselling the hulk for 50 bucks, I wound up with a complete, working set of 5 volt PS/2 boards for about $80. I stuck them in the Doodlebug, loaded up the right sound set, and now it works fine. Same problem, different solution. 

I do find it a bit annoying to spend $35 to ship a locomotive for warranty service when the repair is replacing a six-dollar smoke fan motor. Some manufacturers will just send you the part, others will void the warranty if you turn a screw yourself. The 35 bucks is probably worth it to keep the warranty in effect and get a factory check-out on the repair and the unit in general, but it still kind of grinds me. 

I am looking at upgrading three brass SP steamers with Vanderbilt tenders to DCS and adding fan-driven smoke units, and I'm not quite sure I've got the stones to try those myself. When the PS/3 kits come out, I will have to make the decision either to try it myself or spend some serious money to have it done. I've done one DCS upgrade on a brass steamer and it was challenging. That one had plenty of room in the tender, but cramming everything into the short, round tender on a 3rd Rail SP Mikado will be an order of magnitude harder, not to mention the smoke unit. I chickened out on the smoke unit on the last one I did and left the old Seuthe unit in place. 

Nothing for repairs that would have been covered under warranty.  My two MTH, one Atlas and one K-Line engine failures were early and were covered; no failures after the warranty expired.  Some upgrades and modifications, on the other hand, have been over $300. (NOTE: still debating what to do about that noisy fan on my Lionel Centipede that Lionel says is not a problem.)

Ron

I've had no repairs done to any recent (1990 or newer) loco except under warranty.  Most I fix myself or just don't fix, but frankly few of them give problems.  I've paid up to $65 to have older (postwar) locos worked on. 

Can you post a picture of the engines and tenders?  Maybe some measurements also.  I have converted MTH Tinplate with round tenders and it can be made to work.  Sideways boards, elevated boards, upside down boards.  The issue with PS-3 is the board size is going to be similiar, but you will have to fit a board in the boiler also.  G

I repair most all my trains. However parts can be expensive, and annoying like the doctor bills!

I'm curious why you feel the need to wait for the PS/3 upgrade kit?  I doubt it's going to be cheaper, and the boards are roughly the same size, so why not use the PS/2 kit that's currently available?

What part of the PS/2 upgrade of the brass steamer gave you the most problems?  I happen to be considering one myself...

I'm too embarrassed to confess to all of you how many hundreds ($*00) I paid to have elective surgery on my MTH scale Blue Comet to have it changed over to TMCC, several years ago. However, the locomotive has worked appropriately ever since, despite the surgeon also doing the one thing I specifically asked not to have as a casualty of the process - losing the vigorous smoke-ability of MTH innards - he made sure to do. Now, the engine just sniffs a few insipid puffs out its stack like it has the beginnings of a mild cold. Gone are the roiling billows of smoke I loved for their scented, thick clouds that would hang there for a while.

Oh well. Life is good. FrankM

I have a K-Line by Lionel SD 70 that needs a reverse board. J Daddy Cannot find one. So his estimate on converting it was around $240.00 for parts.... I think.

If this is conventional, it can be done for a lot less than that!

Conventional yes, but. It has all the other bells and whistles. Smoke, sound, cruise, osc. ditch light. the works. All would be lost with a conventional reverse unit. J Daddy loves to tinker and is trying to find another unit with a good board. I'm in no hurry as it never worked since day one. The problem with warranty was K-Line was gone and Lionel said it was their club engine in a Lionel box so nobody wanted to fix it.

I know you can put a BCR or homemade capacitor setup in there, but there is an issue with the 3v PS/2 system that prevents you from renaming or renumbering the locomotive. Most people don't know about it, but the internal self-check will not show a good battery if there is a BCR in there. If the self-check fails, the changes will not save. They will hold for the current session, but it will go back to the factory programming when you shut it down. This was demonstrated to me by a very sharp MTH tech with close ties to the company. Not being able to change the locomotive name or number is a pretty big drawback on a custom installation. As far as I know this is only a problem with the 3v system.

That was only an issue when using the PS2 2mb boards and it has since been solved with the release of the DCS Loader Version 2.30 as that doesn't "read" the battery voltage to write the memory. 

   It should not be a problem with getting parts or repairing.

Bill

I can't testify on older loader versions that may have caused the issue.  But a bad power supply can cause the memory issue.

The older board was the 1Meg, the newer board is the 2meg.  2 Meg boards are "Sharp" boards.

The dealer loader is the only loader that can put a permanent name in the serial file.  If you change the id it will remain until a reset.  The dealer program can put a serial file in with owner specific data and the engine name you want.  G

Other than not being able to put the permanent name into the locomotive, I haven't seen any of these other issues with PS/2 upgrades, and I've done six of them so far.  I'm sure some of the MTH techs that have done many more can comment on these issues from a much broader experience base, but I don't think there's an issue here.

If I remember, $ 150 for an engine that was sent to Lionel's Service Center and needed a new board. I love the engine and that has been it in terms of repairs. It was money well spent for me.

Spend money to repair toys?  Nope, they go in the trash like broken toys should.

You must like email!

Sent in a Coal Turbine for Proto2 upgrade, ended up having to pay for another master unit as the MTH Tech would not do the master/slave kit I had purchased.

When the upgrade was done (as a lash-up) it way exceeded the cost of just buying a new coal turbine ... when the initial purchase price is rolled in with the price of TWO kits PLUS the labor to do it ...

I think that's the last time I'll use the MTH service tech out here for upgrades .... because he didn't do what I asked when he should have just told me "I won't do master/slave upgrades to Proto coal turbines ..."

But it's history now, chalked up to "live and learn ... again ..."

Any repairs I have ever had done--and they have been very few in number of these many years--have been covered by warranty.  I have well over 100 locomotives--all makes--and just have not experienced the problems that are often reported on this forum.

If I ever do have an out-of-warranty locomotive to be repaired, I will either turn to someone locally (preferably) who knows what they are doing, or the item will go onto a display shelf in permanent shelf queen status unless someone I know well enough wants to purchase it at a significant discount and in "as-is" condition.

Absolutely

I'm sure it's going to be my PS2 upgraded engine with its new board and new wiring.....when I get it back from MTH.

Wow!  I read the first half of that sentence and immediately thought "Wow this guy must have kept a record of his whole life in the hobby, maybe even back to the 1970s."  Then I finished the sentence...

This isn't so much about cost (about $90, includes shipping), but the fact that Lionel had the part in stock.  I bought, last fall at auction, a 4006 Big Boy that came with a cracked cab, which was disclosed.  I checked Lionel's website for the exploded parts photo of that model , which I found with the help of this forum, thank you.  When I clicked on the cab, it showed that they had it in stock, so I ordered one and it showed up in a few days.  Maybe this is no big deal, but I was amazed they had one and the engine is pretty much perfect.  Actually, the $90 IS the most I've paid for "repairs", so I consider myself fortunate.

That's a good story to hear, Carlton, a nice positive one.

It's about hitting the ground running, and I really mean RUNNING!

Moonson - I confess, most of my stuff is conventional.  I've picked up a few of them newfangledy, ee-lektronikal engines, so I'm kinda holding my breath... so far, everything's run perfectly out of the box.

Oh, and Allen's post isn't begging the same!?

..hey Allen, what do ya got that's dust covered and needs a new home?...probably all "Alaska RR" anyway...-lol

Boy with all of the "these poor quality chinese trains with too much electronic wizz bang stuff" folks out there I would have thought this thread would have been 5 pages by now. Not to mention most of the "repairs" are actually upgrades...... huh...