I picked up my sets yesterday and am highly impressed. MTH really has improved on each subway run. I paired up my R-34's with my R-32 original premier sets and noticed that the R-11/34's ride noticeably closer to their trucks. The R-32's ride slightly higher and have a "gap" between the truck and the body. I've never noticed that until now. The finish on the R-11/34s is also the best yet for MTH and the interiors lack glue smudges where the windows attach on the interior as in prior models.

After operating each set for over an hour, I opened up the motor cars and installed BCR-2 battery replacements (I don't want to deal with batteries down the road). After inspecting the interior, I noticed that on one of the motor cars, a roof light was not seated properly and had slightly melted the inner shell just below the light. As such, I repositioned all lights and placed small strips of reflective tape on the semicircle "seat" just below the light. I also noticed that the reflective "heat shield" placed on the roof of the motor car was very thin and had visible warping at some of the light points. I do not trust that this will protect the roof from melting over the long-term, so I installed additional strips of reflective tape on the roof as an added cushion. Having had 2 prior models suffer roof bubbles from the heat of the bulbs, I strongly recommend you do this to your model. On one set I also noticed that the red wire connecting to the truck below the motor car had become frayed and was exposing the wire. It seemed to be rubbing against the lower metal body frame when turning on my 0-54 track. I fixed this with some electrical tape but recommend that you inspect your sets for this as well. My R-40 suffered a similar failure after 1000 hours of operation. It looked like this model would have failed considerably earlier.

Thanks for the heads up Strap. I'll have to further inspect my cars. I didn't run for long, but while running I did keep checking the temperature of the roofs. When I opened it I did see at least it had some refelective tape, but guess it may be a good idea to add some more.

Only minor problem I had so far was with the R34. It had no headlights - note they are separate headlights than on the R11. I took the shell off, and the lights were fine. Put it back on and nothing. Pulled the shell off again, and lights were fine. Put it back on, and now I had light on one side. Took a little playing, but the rubber gasket that slides over the bulbs was sticking out a little too far and was getting pinched closed by the shell. A little maneuvering and wiggling of the shell and now I have fully operational headlights.

Hey Chris, here's a suggestion for preventing your R-34 problem - Stop removing the shell! Seriously, remove it one more time, add the additional reflective tape plus a new BCR-2 and never open it up again.

Funny...mine actually came that way. I thought I had no headlights on the 34. At first I thought it might be a design flaw since the light config was different from the 11s. Luckily it was just a minor issue that was relatively easily fixed.

Watch those third rail shoes if you are using DZ-1000 switch motors BOOOM!!

Ben,

quote:

Watch those third rail shoes if you are using DZ-1000 switch motors BOOOM!!

I have a few motors where I need to bevel the trackside screw holes. Otherwise, the longer-than-other-subways 3rd rail shoe smacks them pretty good.

Barry
The record for biggest third rail shoe before were the BMT Standards but I think the R11 has them beat. Somebody ran one at the club on the freight section and we heard a loud bang on the first loop. Woo boy did it hit hard. The subway section has Atlas switches so there wouldn't be a problem but we have third rail installed that we used an R1 for clearances. I had to break off the third rail shoes on the Standards to make it so I guess the R11's are going to get the same adjustment

Suckers!
Same old QUALITY & DESIGN ISSUES.

Steve
I think the shoes are actually more realistic than any others with scale dimensions Its just that everything else was undersized So if you used one of those undersizes for tight clearance measurements you are up the creek without a third rail shoe

quote:

Originally posted by bluelinec4:
Steve
I think the shoes are actually more realistic than any others with scale dimensions Its just that everything else was undersized So if you used one of those undersizes for tight clearance measurements you are up the creek without a third rail shoe

So much for THE SUBWAY TECH.

The trucks do look better than the others.
I installed and re-did my 3rd rail using old clown shoes - Yellow Lo V AND LIRR RS-3 with SNOW PLOW attached.
Also checked clearances using an old Lionel NW-2 switcher.

More poor Quality -
I went through 2 1/2 sets of crossing gates and ITADS due to poor quality issues. I can tell you horror stories about this.
One new gate was missing a screw and had the wrong type screw in it. Also glue or clear Loctite all over it.
The 2nd set of used replacement gates from MTH,I had to re-solder the circuit boards due to no or poor solder connections.
Another 2 were sent back and replaced.
Every time you screw down the gates to the bench, they did crazy things.
I lost 2 months of time and $ 20.00 in shipping costs due to MTH.
I had to disconnect the crappy 2nd set of ITADS and buy the Z-STUFF Relay to make everything work correctly.
Also bought extra gates as spares.
Oh yeah,there was glue on the MTH replacement ITAD window too.

No more MTH products for me unless I see a big change in Quality and design.
They need to hire CQE engineers.

Hope the plating doesn't flake off next week, LOL!

Good luck.

You're just hurting yourself Steve. Time to let it go. All the co's have issues - at least MTH is making sets for us. You're missing out on two gorgeous sets. Quite possibly the two best MTH has ever done.

Did you see my Lionel M7 set? I still can't run it because the freakin' wheel on the powered car fell off when I took it out of the box...and I can't get parts because they are moving the dept and it's something like a couple months late in re-opening. How many people have had major problems with the doors, the tethers and lights on the Lionel R27? Some guys have been lucky to have 3 operational cars out of 6 at any one time. Almost as bad as the Acela.

Steve
I can atest to the MTH ITADs being junk I think the stupidest thing I have seen is that the coil common is tied together with the relay sensor. So the relay really is not isolated from the coil. Then they are very erratic depending on the light conditions

Chris
My R27's are still error free All doors are working And they got real workouts at the open houses

quote:

Originally posted by Strap Hanger:
I also noticed that the reflective "heat shield" placed on the roof of the motor car was very thin and had visible warping at some of the light points. I do not trust that this will protect the roof from melting over the long-term,......

I run all my trains w/DCS at just under 17 volts to the tracks. I do this to extend bulb life. Don't know if the slight reduction in voltage will prevent heat damage but I assume it helps.

Appreciate the recommendation on adding additional tape; I sure don't want to damage my set.