Connie drive gear

[StanAmes]

Well, I have to say I am now getting real dis-appointed.

I started this thread requesting information on the pending availability of the Consolidation replacement axle and gear back on July 10th of this year.
My next post with some tone of dis-satisfaction came on October 4th, almost 3 months later. On October 5th the Yardmaster posts with a name and phone number inside the usual 800 system.  A call to that party resulted in being told the 'parts are on the water', and should be here in 4 to 8 weeks.  I cordially requested that she please keep us informed here on the forum.
Here we are, January 1st of a brand new year, and I do believe there never will be any new parts. As has been said by others, they have our money for the defective units, why should they care? I am to a point I will fix what I have and will not purchase any new motive power from Bachmann.  It is truly a shame that the American manufacturer (if such really exists) has so little regard for their customers.

RIP Bachmann.

Best to call the parts department directly.  I understand they have a few or will shortly have a few in stock for customers who are having problems and more on the way in a container.

I have found that often they get enough parts for customers who need them but not enough to post the parts on-line for general sale.  The reason is simple.  A lot of people (me included) purchase a lot more than they need at the moment and when a part is in short supply it sometimes is best to keep them on hand for those that really need them now.

Stan

[armorsmith]

Stan,

I have no interest in calling parts or service at this juncture.  Both have either not answered queries (phone and email), or just plain lied to me.  Give me a real good reason I should believe anything they tell me?  In case you didn't follow the whole thread, I already got sold a bill of goods by the very person recommended by a Bachmann forum representative - even included a phone number around the 800 system.  I generally have a rather long patience with manufacturers as I understand their difficulties in supply chain.  However I am tired of being lied to so they think they can keep a customer.  They are quickly driving this one away.

I stated above all I wanted was honesty and communication.  Honesty - If you have an answer, publicize it.  If you don't have an answer, SAY SO.  Communication - Keep the purchasing public informed, not it the dark.  I have received neither honesty or communication. If you really want a positive response from me, have Bachmann post here, and COMMIT TO A SCHEDULE, when the parts will arrive and when they will be available. As far as I am concerned, with out a PUBLIC COMMITMENT, it will all remain in the smoke and mirrors category.

In case you don't keep up with other manufacturers, this very same pattern of hollow promises and deception is precisely the path Aristo Craft followed before they left the market place.  Doesn't exactly instill trust in the this party of the purchasing pubic.

As a side note, all but 3 pieces of motive power on my roster are Bachmann (4 - 10 wheelers, 1 - 36 ton shay, 1- first run climax, 1 - heisler, and 1 - k27).  3 of the 4 10 wheelers have drive issues of one nature or another, last show out the shay started getting nervous and jerky, and the K27 has fried a circuit board from a derailment on a 10 foot diameter curve (larger than minimum spec).  The heisler and climax have not seen much run time so for now the jury is still out.  Overall I can't call this reliability record stellar.  I can tell you that on a professional level (I am a mechanical designer) I would NEVER purchase product with the history Bachmann has.

[grayfitz]

Regards to STAN AMES comments,,How do you become a customer who needs parts so that BACHMANN have me on their list ??I only need one axel and brass gear assy,,there is no way to pre order parts..(GRAHAM) australia

[StanAmes]

Stan,

I have no interest in calling parts or service at this juncture.  Both have either not answered queries (phone and email), or just plain lied to me.  Give me a real good reason I should believe anything they tell me? 

You likely got the best information they had at the time.  I contacted them as well on this part last fall and I believe they honestly believed it would have been here long ago.  If you have not noticed a lot of product delivery dates  has been pushed back lately so I am not surprised in the delay for this part.

As with all manufacturers, I have had the best results by calling them and then calling them back about the time they say the part will be in to get the latest information.

I have several new NWSL 2-8-0 gears I can sell you at 1/2 price plus shipping but I prefer the brass ones and calling them is the best way to get one.

Hopefully they will get enough soon to sell them on their WWW site.

Hope that helps

Stan

[Loco Bill Canelos]

I got thru to Rodney today and sadly have bad news to report.   Rodney was frustrated that they do not have the parts and apologized for any high hopes some of you may have had trying to get the gears, and offered the following information.

When the initial order for the brass gears came in, they sold out in less than 4 months even though Bachmann put a limit on how many a single customer could buy when they saw that people and hobby shops were ordering large numbers.  The gears were distributed to to other Bachmann distributors in other countries as well. Bachamnn USA is just one point in the distribution chain for parts.   A quantity of the gears were retained for warranty repairs after the old style plastic gears were used up. All the gears retained for warranty repairs have been used up.  There are NO MORE replacement gears either plastic or brass.   An order had been placed for more of the gears, but so far they have received no indication as to when they might come in, if ever.  Since the locomotive is long out of production there is a possibility that the China Headquarters office will not produce and send any further gears.   This is the case with many of the older locomotives that have been out of production for a long time.  Since I did not have any issues with my Connies at the time the gears were available, I never thought of the idea that I should try to buy any gears to keep in the event of future problems.

The bottom line is that the Bachmann Service Department CANNOT repair any Connie's with gear problems, and has NO real idea if they will ever receive any more even though they did order more.  There is currently NO real expectation that the gears will be available in the future.  There are no plans to return the Connie to production which would mean parts might again become available.  

So my advice to send the loco in for repair is BAD advice, and you should not do so.  So what do you do?

Try to contact a hobby shop which does repairs to Bachamnn G Scale locomotives and see if they have any brass gears you could buy. Here is a link to some which may do G Scale, but not all do.  http://www.railmodeling.com/repairs/NORTH_AMERICA/

MY BEST ADVICE FOR NOW

My new advice is to order a Northwest Shortline NWSL 2226-6  delrin Fn3  2-8-0 axle gear.

This is the URL for NWSL specific page for the gear needed:

http://shop.osorail.com/searchquick-submit.sc?keywords=2226-6

The current price is 12.95 not including shipping.

Here is a great set of instructions courtesy of the Ashpit.com on how to replace the gear.

http://www.the-ashpit.com/mik/gear.html

I have used this gear and have found it to work perfectly in my connie.  It should be reasonably cheap to order the gear if you are down under and shipping should be low cost as well.  NWSL has a great reputation for making quality custom replacement gears for out of production trains as long as I can remember.  

If anyone finds a source for the metal gears at a local hobby repair shop please post the info on the forum.

If I hear more I will post more.

Cheers & Beers

LOCO BILL

[Loco Bill Canelos]

Just a thought!

Here is some possible insight on why the gears may be failing.   Bachmann found that many of the gears that failed were subjected to conditions where the locos were subject to situations where the temperatures fluctuated a a lot causing uneven expansion/contraction of both the plastic gears and metal axles.  The more frequent the temperature variation the more likely the failure would occur. This could have occurred in a container at sea, a dealers warehouse, or in a customers basement or other normally unheated space which is subject to temperature variation.

Hmmmmm, My trains sit in an unheated metal barn which does have high fluctuation in temperatures. (today it is 2 below zero) One of my connies is usually parked on a spur which is in my heated shop while the other is on the layout out in the unheated area. The spur comes thru a tunnel in into the shop and a insulated piece of foam is fitted to the tunnel to keep the heat or AC in the shop.  The connie on the layout is the one which failed.  The inside one shows no sign of failure and they were bought back in 2001 when they first came out. 

The 2-8-0 Connie's have been out of production for about 7 or eight years now, and I expect parts of any kind will be harder and harder to get.

I will never know for sure if that is why it failed, but it couldn't hurt to store your trains in a climate controlled place if you can!!!

As I said it seems to make sense, just a thought for what it is worth.

[armorsmith]

Bill, et al,

I am not sure of how many, or if any of the folks on this forum are aware, but Allen Bupp aka Mik passed back in October.  His web site http://www.the-ashpit.com/mik/gear.html may not be around long, so I would recommend printing any information you are interested in as quickly as possible.

This was posted here http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/20050/sad-news on another large scale forum.

[Loco Bill Canelos]

Ouch!  That hurts, may Allen R.I.P.

Sad to see another great Large scale follower and contributor go to the "Big Rock Candy Mountain"

[grayfitz]

 Many thanks to LOCO BILL for giving us an update on this large problem that BACHMANN have with supply,,Why couldnt  they have let us know this thru their own forum?  Also why havnt they used the resources of NWSL to keep us their customers and future purchasers of their products on track, I also have a K27 and what future episodes will I have with it? How many CONNIES (all over the world) are patiently waiting for their CREATOR to give a new lease of life?  GRAHAM (australia)

[Bucksco]

This thread has run it's course. Contrary to what has been stated previously in the thread Bachmann does care about it's customers and products. We have more of the gears coming this week and the original poster will be contacted by our service manager in case he is still interested in the part. We do our best to make everyone happy but sometimes we have to wait too. It is sometimes difficult to obtain individual parts when you are not doing a full production run of a particular product.