Welp as my last thought about this is, You have to question the judgement of a company that bought a O gauge line of trains that never sold
for the old company and based on talking with a few O dealers seems they are not buying from the new company either.
My posts are from my experiences and opinions with said company mileage may vary but truth hurts.
Nick
Thats right Mark V, not sure how I forgot those, I used to have one of the green/yellow ones with sound. Excellent running engine, shame they never did the wide nose variation or the shovel nose GE’s, that would have been an excellent follow up. Guess maybe thats one contributing factor to the down fall of that company, poor follow thru on companion models. Mike
Hans, believe it or not, I was actually in my Local Hobby Shop when the news first broke over us that LGB was, how you say, “kaput”…
That was John’s Trains on the Danforth in Toronto. I believe that at the time and for many years prior, he had been Canada’s biggest LGB Dealer. He and I got the news at the same time. Damned funny coincidence, as I was a newbie of only a couple of years’ standing in LS at the time. (But A Model Rail since '58, when I was ten, and a longstanding customer at John’s…)
Anyway the news floored us both, and over the ensuing weeks we followed the ongoing drama in Germany.
That history makes the present doings at Aristocraft all the more fascinating, doesn’t it?
That day I was admiring Olomana Olowayo.
Didn’t buy her then, but never forgot her.
Got her this past Spring at last, mint…
Love her to death… 
When I got my first G scale trains, it was a LGB Staniz starter set that my aunt and uncle brought back from Germany after a trip to see family there. They even got the USA power pack for it from the factory before heading back to the USA. Wish I still had that set today. All of my current LGB is USA prototype. Really getting the hankering for one of the Uintah mallets, anybody wanna swap for my F units? I hope Aristocraft survives, but they sure are not making very good decisions lately.
John Le Forestier said:
............... Anyway the news floored us both, and over the ensuing weeks we followed the ongoing drama in Germany.That history makes the present doings at Aristocraft all the more fascinating, doesn’t it?
The rest is all history, you know the stuff that no one ever learns anything from.
Spouting BS for as long as some have done in this hobby, will come back and bite them on the backside eventually.
Now what is that old saying??
You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time. … but just you try fooling all of the people, all of the time.
Yes Tony, but who said “There’s a sucker born every minute”? I always wonder if that time frame needs adjusting.
Not, apparently, Mr Phineas T. Barnum… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There’s_a_sucker_born_every_minute
I think this thread has run its course…
I think the next 6-8 months will determine whether we have anything else about this to talk about…that was about how long it took from the Fire Sale in Nurmburg to the Big Firework on the Lakehurst Airfield.
I do sincerely hope that’s not in the cards but these days you just don’t know…
It’s only 110 days to Christmas.
I was thinking more about the ECLSTS in March 2013. I think that show will be the barometer of where things are at.
Nicholas Savatgy said:Hans-Joerg Mueller said:
Nick,They’re probably not bent, just not square on the axles. Apparently that happens all the time with many mfgs in any of the scales. Sloppy quality control!
HJ,
I agree but you would think these days Quality would be a simple thing with the money we pay for train items, I have to laugh because sometimes I get Ragged on be cause I talk about USA Trains all the time, but they “work” simple as that. I take out of the box put them on the track and go.
If they did the same thing Aristo does, I’d be all over them as well. Honestly If you do a search of all the Forums whens the last time you heard of a
problem with USA products compared to Aristo. People cant compare Aristo to USA because USA is out of Aristo league when it comes to everything
train related. Its just really the truth, but sad at the same time.Nick
What this should read is “I take them out of the box put them on the track on the test bench to see what’s wrong. Then I flip them over and remove the drive blocks bottom covers and start replacing ALL of the cracked axle gears with new ones. AFTER I spend another $42.00 per engine then I put them on the track and let them run until the gears split again.”
Just today I opened 2 BRAND NEW old stock USA Trains engines…A GP38-2 & a NW-2…never been run and both have ALL the axle gears split. Now let’s see $15.95 per axle pair comes to $63.80 + $10.00 for s&h = $73.80 and USA Trains won’t warranty these as they’re over a year old. Nice engines but the drives SUCK and the warranty SUCKS…At least Arsito offers a 5 year replacement.
Chuck,
If they’re split it’s definitely a quality problem; either the press fit is too tight or the plastic material is not stable (hardens and shrinks); in which case it wouldn’t surprise me if the Chinese mfg substituted a cheaper type of plastic.
As always, strictly my opinion.
There are fixes for the gears, if you care to make them before the splits get too bad…and cost very little…one fix is with fishline, and CA,the other is brass rod…but then you should contact Dave Goodson…he knows all about these fixes, and how little effort they need to accomplish. It would be best to do the “Fixes”, before the gears split.
Another problem, almost the same as the splitting gears…on the B’mann Annies…the old ones and newest ones. The axles on the pony trucks (Front trucks) have split metal wheels, joined together by a plastick part. That part splits over time, just like the gears. You can replace the plastic part with an appropriately sized plastic (Styrene) tube, cut to the correct length, or (If you use battery power) you can use brass tubing. The splitting of these axle parts is what causes many of the derailment of the pony trucks…wheels going out of gauge is the first indication of a problem causing derailments…often blamed on too light a weight of the front trucks.
I’ve repaired a few Aristo 0-4-0’s split gear plastic bushing thingies on the drive axles. This is just plain old EXTREMELY bad desogn, to use these insane little plastic tubes to hold together, and in quarter, the two halves of a DRIVE axle, for heaven’s sake! Whoever thought it’d be OK to take a drive axle and cut it in half like that anyway?
I jam a piece of brass tubing over that bushing on each side on the main gear after slathering the whole works inside and out with J-B Weld. By the time I’m done, that geared axle set is the STRONGEST part of the loco. Oh, and while I’m at it, I’ve corrected the too small check gauge on these beasts as well…
It’s just amazing to me the Aristo releases them into the market with these obvious and quite serious flaws.
But then, it has to be said that these fixes DO result in a very fine piece of machinery, especially if it has the non-sintered wheelsets. I can count on these beasts to hold up very well at shows where I happily let kids operate 'em all day long… I don’t bother with the smoke and sound effects, and the models are adequately detailed for my use. To me, solid reliability is the most important aspect.
High detailed realism is OK - great -for contests and photography and museums, but nowadays it’s far down my own personal list.
(confessions of a former rivet counter…) ;>)
John Le Forestier said:
............. High detailed realism is OK - great -for contests and photography and museums, but nowadays it's far down my own personal list.(confessions of a former rivet counter…) ;>)
Hans-Joerg Mueller said:John Le Forestier said:
............. High detailed realism is OK - great -for contests and photography and museums, but nowadays it's far down my own personal list.(confessions of a former rivet counter…) ;>)
Yes John, as we get older some of us loose count while counting and that’s a real handicap when counting rivets.