Would like an Honest answer

[Broken Shay]

I must have the worst luck of all when it comes to the shays.

I have had 5 of them and everyone has had a cracked gear and waddles down the track like a goose.

So I took a chance and bought another one hoping that the issue with the gears has been resolved.

Got it today put in on my test track and same thing.  brought out the optivisor and two cracked gears. 

Less than 30 seconds of run time and two bad gears.

The rod locos run great, my most resent was the 4-6-0 and that thing is a dream. 

I bought this in hope of having at least one running shay,  but hopes are dashed.


Please fix this.

John

[Hobojohn]

One wonders why it is not possible to really have 'bagfuls' of replacementgears available.
The discussion on this forum on this subject is (too) long and pops up at regular intervals.

Mr Bachmann: your company does not deserve such a discussion! With it, your reputation on producing fine railroad equipment is under pression. You should not want this!

Please Mr. Bachmann, act further, in the broken gearissue ansd come up with a solution.
It is a penny question! 
The availablity of other replacementparts is good but we are not waiting to buy almost half-a-locomotive for just one pee-wee little gear.

At the moment I have three Bachmann On30 gear locomotives because of it on the scrap-track...

John Baron
Netherlands.

[El Loco]

I would like to sell my Climax but I cant even give it away with the gear issue.  Deemed worth less to the sellers market  My Shay and Climax are now "Cute Little shelf queens". Both still run well  "Knock on wood" But  I am reluctant to run them they might go Toes up with no fix.

[Jim Banner]

I am not sure that bags full of replacement gears would help if they were the same as the originals.  It is a lot like the old car part adds that said "replace only with original ***** parts" to which my mind always added "the kind that failed in the first place."  So what would help?

To figure out what would help requires understanding why the gears split in the first place.  Splitting gears is nothing new.  But what they seem to have in common is that they are moulded gears and typically made out of a hard plastic.  With moulded gears, it is hard to make and keep the bore (axle hole) at an exact size.  If the plastic is a little too hot when the part is ejected from the mould, excess shrinkage causes the bores to go under size.  Waiting for them to cool longer in the mould slows production, increasing costs.  Inferior moulds or excessive use of even good moulds will wear down the pin that forms the bore, causing it to get smaller as more and more gears are produced.  If the bore is a little under size, the gear sits too tight on its shaft and may crack.  If the gear and shaft are exposed to cold in shipping, the plastic becomes more brittle and combined with it shrinking faster than the metal shaft, makes splitting much more likely.  One solution is to mould the gears out of a softer plastic so that they can accommodate a greater mismatch in size.  But this means using a tougher plastic so that the gears do not wear out too quickly, which generally means using something like the acetal/Delrin/nylon family.  These plastics cost more and are slower to mould because they require longer heating and cooling cycles, further increasing costs.  Another solution is to cut the gears out of metal, which is an even more expensive solution.

The above consideration are obviously  outside the control of us modellers.  But there are small gear manufacturers who can help.  One that leaps to mind is Northwest Short Line.  When there is enough demand for a particular gear, they may undertake to manufacture them.  Alternately, they may custom cut gears for a setup charge plus a unit cost.  I suspect that either case would be cheaper than just continuing to buy locomotives that your experience has shown are going to fail for you anyway.

This still leaves unanswered the question of why geared locomotives are failing for some people and not for others.  The fellow who some time ago asked how much voltage he had to use to make his Shay run as fast as his other locomotives is obviously setting himself up to be disappointed by the early demise of his Shay.  But I am not convinced that keeping your Shay below a prototypical maximum speed of about 15 miles per hour will give you complete protection against split gears either.

Jim 

[NarrowMinded]

Just my two cents here,
With as many posts I see here concerning this matter, I would have to think any production cost savings is being eaten up by the cost of warranty repairs. I would imagine the gears produced are so inexpensive that the cost of one loco returned/replaced and all the effort involved eats up the savings of maybe hundreds of plastic gears, not to mention the damage to reputation.  

With modern CNC machines making these out of metal or even machining out of plastics is very cheap, there are other options such as sintered metal as well.

Years back I worked with a guy that had worked at a well known tool manufacturing company, this company made very good tools and has a no questions asked replacement warranty.  A number of years ago some "Genius" decided it was more profitable to make the tools cheaper and replace the broken ones that came back, they had discovered that a high percentage of their tools sold sit in tool boxes and are never used. this is fine for the back yard mechanic, but for the person using the tools everyday it is a problem. Because I use my tools everyday I was very disappointed by the failure rate and no longer buy those tools. I hope Bachmann does not have one of these "Genius'"working at their offices.

OK its my five cents...

NM

[mabloodhound]

I just read on another forum that NWSL is very close to the production stage of replacement gears.   Keep checking their website.

[Broken Shay]

I don't believe it, but

Talked with Bachmann and they do have a revised set of gears and they are sending me a set.  I will hold off judgement untill I get them, I will get a full report to everyone as soon as I have more info. 

Hang in there, there might be hope

John

[railtwister]

I don't believe it, but

Talked with Bachmann and they do have a revised set of gears and they are sending me a set.  I will hold off judgement untill I get them, I will get a full report to everyone as soon as I have more info. 

Hang in there, there might be hope

John

Hi John,

Man, I really hope this is true. I have two On30 shays, two HO shays, an On30 Climax plus an On30 railtruck, and all are well documented as being prone to suffering from this problem, yet up til now Bachmann has claimed ignorance of any problem.

As a result of Bachmann's head-in-the-sand attitude about this I haven't bought any more Bachmann loco's, and don't plan to (even though I would really like an On30 articulated), unless they do something positive to address this problem. Even if they fix the problem with the On30 Shays, there's still the other loco's that need to be addressed.

I know it doesn't really help, but you're not alone. We all have good reason to be angry about this. Let's hope Bachmann has finally woken up to the problem

Regards,
Bill

[Broken Shay]

I have a box from Bachmann with two shafts and gears,  No plastic clips as promised, but got new gears.  Didn't have much time to look at them, but they are different than the originals.

will expand later.

John