Mth passenger car saga


kjchronister

kjchronister

Member
So a few days ago, my set of 5 nyc 20th century limited cars arrived: early birthday present.

All of them were what I expect from mth visually: accurate, detailed, great interiors, lighted, etc.

4 of the 5 were good operationally too. But the diner was awful.

Uncoupled constantly and seemingly randomly. Derailed through any turnout about half the time. Derailed on curves. Derailed on straights. And this is on well laid track where nothing else ever derails.

When I dug into it, what a cluster. Three of six wheelsets out of gauge, two narrow and one wide. The wide one was so far out, the wheels wouldn't turn - jammed in tight. The coupler boxes were misaligned. Maybe 1 mm out of şquare to the body. Sounds small, but that's 4 inches out of line in scale. Certainly it was plenty to make the thing decouple constantly, as I bet 4" would be in prototype too.

Fixed those issues, but feel like I shouldn't have had to on $70 cars. And though it's better, it's still finicky and derails occasionally. Will try more fine tuning tomorrow,.

Dunno... guess someone at the factory was having a bad day. And I've heard some knowledgeable folks saying mth quality has been spotty lately on the locos too. My dreyfuss hudson is great. But the recent challengers certainly have a poor reputation from what I've heard.

My 20+ year old rivarossi cars ain't as pretty or prototypical, but they sure as heck don't derail when a butterfly flaps its wings in the next room!
 
Ahh MTH they are an ahhh interesting company lol
Drama abound seems the new run of challengers & big boys have huge issues
Im have read t hat the dealers have a big surplus of both articulateds because nobody
Is buying them
 
MTH latest big boys & challengers are so bad you would think ed dickens was in charge if their steam program too
 
blackz28 said:
MTH latest big boys & challengers are so bad you would think ed dickens was in charge if their steam program too
Click to expand...
Can't let that one go. As I understand it Ed Dickens isn't the problem, apparently he is being micro managed by another high level executive.

As far as MTH goes, would they have disappeared off the face of the planet 20 years ago the MR industry/community would be a lot better off.
 
Personally, don't know or care who Mr. Dickens is. Organizations' people and internal issues are their own concern. My concern is their output. If it's bad, I don't care why. If it's good, I still don't care why, at least as a consumer...
 
I have a few sets of their MTH passenger cars, from 2 year ago. And they are all great, no issues at all. Yes I agree their quality in the recent offerings has gone down considerably. And their prices went up too. Go figure.
 
kjchronister said:
Uncoupled constantly and seemingly randomly. Derailed through any turnout about half the time. Derailed on curves. Derailed on straights. And this is on well laid track where nothing else ever derails.

When I dug into it, what a cluster. Three of six wheelsets out of gauge, two narrow and one wide. The wide one was so far out, the wheels wouldn't turn - jammed in tight. The coupler boxes were misaligned. Maybe 1 mm out of şquare to the body. Sounds small, but that's 4 inches out of line in scale. Certainly it was plenty to make the thing decouple constantly, as I bet 4" would be in prototype too.

Fixed those issues, but feel like I shouldn't have had to on $70 cars. And though it's better, it's still finicky and derails occasionally. Will try more fine tuning tomorrow,.
Click to expand...

What is your minimum radius? I check wheel set gauge and coupler alignment on all new rolling stock and locos. Some tuning to your layout will most likely be required especially with 85 ft. passenger cars, and especially if your minimum radius is below 30" I have a set of MTH passenger cars, a 19 car Daylight. I replaced the plastic couplers with Kadee, moved the draft gear boxes to the inner holes, and did a little tweaking. You should try assembling a passenger train with brass cars or a combination of brass and plastic. That will make you a tuner for sure! What you are describing is a normal part of the hobby. Remember this stuff is all put together by young Chinese girls who aren't model railroaders!
 
Espeefan said:
What is your minimum radius? I check wheel set gauge and coupler alignment on all new rolling stock and locos. Some tuning to your layout will most likely be required especially with 85 ft. passenger cars, and especially if your minimum radius is below 30" I have a set of MTH passenger cars, a 19 car Daylight. I replaced the plastic couplers with Kadee, moved the draft gear boxes to the inner holes, and did a little tweaking. You should try assembling a passenger train with brass cars or a combination of brass and plastic. That will make you a tuner for sure! What you are describing is a normal part of the hobby. Remember this stuff is all put together by young Chinese girls who aren't model railroaders!
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It's 26" min radius, though the cars say they arrive set to handle 22" (as you say, you can also close-couple them and blow 22" away), so I'm well over that. I have many, many other full-length passenger cars none of which have any issues on my curves or turnouts or trackwork generally... Nor did the other 4 MTH cars.

While I realize tuning is part of the hobby, I expect that more with older cars, used stuff off ebay, cheaper stuff, stuff I'm customizing/modifying, etc. For top-end RTR stuff (which -used- to include MTH, but maybe not anymore...) I'd expect a bit better 'out of the box.' And while I'm in "how it oughtta be" mode... For the price and given all the rest, they should include metal couplers from the get-go.

Right on about the assemblers, of course. When I said "someone had a bad day at the factory" i was thinking much the same as you say: some poor Chinese kid had a fight with her boyfriend that morning or something. Having said that, at my company we have items that are assembled in China too... and yet if I send my customers product that's no good, they really don't care. They just return the stuff and go talk about how I sell junk.
 
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