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Post by ptc on Dec 29, 2019 14:59:30 GMT
Mr. Muffin sent a J to Harry Hieke to be weathered. He wondered if weathering would somewhat tone down the redish stripe that Lionel chose for it's new J series. Harry took one look at it and said NO!!!!! He suggested that it be repainted to the correct color. Harry then called Mr. Muffin's customer to see if he wanted him to fix this issue before weathering his engine. The customer was excited that it could be corrected.
Take a look at what can be done. Lionel should sent all of theri J's to Harry to be fixed.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2019 15:08:48 GMT
The list of engines from Lionel to stay away from grows. Another cluster Lionel hopes will just go away, sad. As always, Harry is the man
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Post by ptc on Dec 29, 2019 15:20:17 GMT
The good news is if you purchased one of these bummers, it can be corrected. If it were me, I would send the bill to Lionel.
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Post by sdivtim on Dec 29, 2019 16:57:49 GMT
Harry made it look like the mistake didn’t happen. I agree Brian, send the Bill to Lionel
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2019 18:40:28 GMT
Well done Harry!! Shame about the color mix up in the first place. I wanted to pre order one but I am glad I didn't.
Gary.
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Post by ptc on Dec 29, 2019 18:45:44 GMT
"Well done Harry!! Shame about the color mix up in the first place. I wanted to pre order one but I am glad I didn't."
I bet a lot of people feel the way you do, Gary. I paid no attention to it or the entire catalog until they correct their QC issues. These J's sure highlight a big problem.
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Post by kstrains on Dec 29, 2019 20:55:49 GMT
Harry did great job to make the J look like it supposed to with correct color stripe. If it were me and If I bought the engine and really wanted to keep it, instead of waiting for Lionel to make up their decision if they are going to correct the problem or not, I would send it Harry! A lot quicker turn around time than waiting on Lionel and avoid the risk of the possibility of them screwing it up again.
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Post by ptc on Dec 29, 2019 22:33:05 GMT
Mr. Muffin is now offering this stripe conversion thanks to Harry.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2019 22:44:53 GMT
Lionel also catalogued two sets of passenger cars, a N and W Cavalier set and a NS Spirit of Roanoke set that the 611 pulls now. We have heard nothing about these sets although the word was that a large number of passenger sets came in before Christmas. Has anyone heard or seen anything? If these passenger sets are also painted incorrectly, Lionel may have a much bigger problem than the stripe on the engine and tender.
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Post by rockymountaineer on Dec 30, 2019 6:06:10 GMT
Lionel also catalogued two sets of passenger cars, a N and W Cavalier set and a NS Spirit of Roanoke set that the 611 pulls now. We have heard nothing about these sets although the word was that a large number of passenger sets came in before Christmas. Has anyone heard or seen anything? If these passenger sets are also painted incorrectly, Lionel may have a much bigger problem than the stripe on the engine and tender. I was instant-messaging with somebody in the know yesterday, and he confirmed that the N&W passenger cars were indeed painted incorrectly. He described them as "raspberry red". So the cars are incorrect in that they should have been more of a dark maroon. But as they are delivered, they apparently match the bright red stripe on the newest Lionel J's. So everything is relative in this mess. If you purchased a new J locomotive AND a new set of N&W passenger cars, then apparently everything matches -- even though it's the wrong color. The people who are really adversely affected are those who pre-ordered a locomotive to use with existing N&W passenger cars. Or those who purchased the new N&W passenger cars to use with an existing J locomotive they already own. BTW, I hear Mr. Muffin's Trains is now handling J "repaint requests" for Harry. Steve handles the credit card charge and mailing labels from your residence to Harry's workshop (and back to you). You ship your locomotive using the pre-paid label from Steve, and Harry will do the work and then ship the locomotive back to you using the other pre-paid return label from Steve. The only fly in the ointment here is the CONSUMER is billed for this service. In actuality, Lionel should be the one picking up the tab for Harry's work -- especially if you only want Harry to fix the stripe color and not also weather the locomotive. I can see the cost of weathering should be paid for by the consumer. But not the cost of just fixing the stripe color. That should be all on Lionel IMHO. Now that the N&W passenger cars have arrived Stateside with the same red color that matches the locomotive stripe but is inconsistent with N&W prototype colors, it'll be very interesting to see if Lionel even addresses the issue anymore. At this point, I can see Lionel saying... look you can purchase the locomotive with MATCHING passenger cars... so what's the problem? I really hope Lionel management proves me wrong on this one. But the marketplace already seems to be moving in a direction to pay Harry to "fix" Lionel's stripe problem, and some folks may just foot the bill themselves... which I'm sure Lionel is very happy to see. On the other hand, I'd be surprised if those same folks are gonna pony up a sizeable fee to have Harry also repaint the passenger cars to the correct N&W color. That would most certainly be a hefty charge. All in all, this is yet another nail in the coffin for Lionel's BTO product line as far as I'm concerned. How anybody pre-orders anything from Lionel anymore is beyond me. I've stopped pre-ordering Lionel high-end products and have chosen to wait for those products to arrive Stateside before making any purchases. I just recently did this with the Defense Special passenger cars, after I saw them at York with CLEAR windows instead of mint-green windows. So when I heard these cars arrived, I ordered a 6-car set from Charlie Ro. But I emphasized I only wanted them if the windows were indeed CLEAR -- not mint-green. It's a shame buyers have to put up with this kind of nonsense, given the premium prices that are being paid. Not many consumers of other special-interest products would tolerate the kinds of stuff we've seen from Lionel in the past couple of years. When Lionel hits a home run, it's often a grand slam. Unfortunately, they haven't hit too many home runs these days. I still maintain Lionel is offering far too many SKU's each year for their Stateside product management gurus to keep tabs on important production issues. These folks often don't know what's gonna really arrive Stateside, until the shipping containers/pallets show up in North Carolina. And that ain't gonna change if folks ante in to get these products fixed on their own dime.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2019 10:55:34 GMT
Thanks David.
I don’t think it is practical to have your products manufactured in several different countries, often with plants in different locations in country and expect to control quality with the limited staff that Lionel has. Getting samples sounds nice but when you are rushed for time and are trying to review a number of them, errors happen, ie the Polar Express RPO cars.
As the number of screw ups increases, it becomes the customers fault because their expectations are “unrealistic”,” obviously perfection is impossible, and only a “small minority” complain and expect things to be correct. And so it becomes the customer’s or dealer’s responsibility to not only make it right but to pay the cost required to do so.
We don’t do BTO any longer and our interest in Lionel continues to decline. It just is not worth the BS, especially given the high prices involved.
Home runs don’t win as many games when the number of outs continues to increase. So we won’t attend as many games and will likely choose teams who offer quality, albeit at a higher cost.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2019 12:12:33 GMT
Where were these J's made? Korea, like the newest Hudsons and Niagaras? China, some other plant? Not knowing how Lionel approves these painted engines? You see Dave with production samples but unpainted ones. Even the newest J3 Hudsons, the grey smokebox is not correct to past offerings. One reason I had my weathered. I list of engines to avoid from Lionel is getting long. J's for wrong paint, Challengers for incorrect sounds, Pennsy J's for bad wiring, the list goes on.
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Post by harborbelt70 on Dec 30, 2019 13:06:24 GMT
Where were these J's made? Korea, like the newest Hudsons and Niagaras? The list of engines to avoid from Lionel is getting long. J's for wrong paint, Challengers for incorrect sounds, Pennsy J's for bad wiring, the list goes on. That’s a good question (country of manufacture). Dunno the answer. I did not notice that my Niagara was shown as Korean manufacture on the shipping carton. As far as I am concerned, the VL Niagara was the last home run Lionel hit. I only got mine after seeing reports from those who did pre-orders. Wider production is less like hit and more like third strike miss. These color errors are unforgivable given that there are methods of getting an exact match from a scan or using color charts. Lack of QC and attention to detail seems likely to be the explanation. Incidentally, I see that on the Lionel replacement parts list there are now Challenger sound repair “kits” priced at $240 (!) and available only by contacting Lionel. These have the newer style part numbering and so I assume relate the the last lot of VL Challengers. I didn’t know Lionel was selling this. There’s no illustration so I’ve no idea what the “kit” includes.
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Post by Joe Saggese on Dec 30, 2019 13:15:21 GMT
There is no viable excuse for anything like this to occur. At least there is a fix and the manufacturer should pick up the tab. (IMO)
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2019 13:18:35 GMT
Where were these J's made? Korea, like the newest Hudsons and Niagaras? The list of engines to avoid from Lionel is getting long. J's for wrong paint, Challengers for incorrect sounds, Pennsy J's for bad wiring, the list goes on. That’s a good question (country of manufacture). Dunno the answer. I did not notice that my Niagara was shown as Korean manufacture on the shipping carton. As far as I am concerned, the VL Niagara was the last home run Lionel hit. I only got mine after seeing reports from those who did pre-orders. Wider production is less like hit and more like third strike miss. These color errors are unforgivable given that there are methods of getting an exact match from a scan or using color charts. Lack of QC and attention to detail seems likely to be the explanation. Incidentally, I see that on the Lionel replacement parts list there are now Challenger sound repair “kits” priced at $240 (!) and available only by contacting Lionel. These have the newer style part numbering and so I assume relate the the last lot of VL Challengers. I didn’t know Lionel was selling this. There’s no illustration so I’ve no idea what the “kit” includes. My guess it's a board swap and that's it. Both in the engine and tender for the Railsounds.
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