K-Line Shay - mini-review

[Anonymous]

After about a year's wait, I finally received my K-Line Shay. It looks great! Magnificent detail, and the operating side-pistons and front & rear drive shafts are a wonder of mechanical engineering. But...

It runs terribly! In conventional mode, enabling cruise-control makes it surge fast and slow. In command mode it is completely unpredictable - getting it up to speed takes about 50 complete revolutions of the command dial, and even then it randomly stops or reverses direction.

Repeated resets don't help, so unfortunately it's going back to the dealer... for repair or replacement, but it's just too good-looking to give up on yet.

Have other people had such problems with the Shay? Is K-Line's quality control lousy? Or am I just unlucky?

[daan]

Do you know for sure it's not something simple as a piece of tape on a roller or something with your track?

[eZAK]

henrykautz,
I hope things work out for you.
K-line is pretty good with customer service.

I just received mine today!!

Put it on the track and it worked great!

Creeps along, Smokes good![8D]
Adjustable speed steps & Chuff rate![:D][8D]

If you are sitting on the fence about this engine, Shop around and get it!
You won't be disapointed.

[Anonymous]

Good news - the problems with TMCC were due to a faulty ground on my base unit transformer. I had never noticed this before, because the signal was still strong enough to work with my other TMCC engines.

The bad news - the cruise control was indeed defective, as verified by my dealer. K-LINE will repair it under warranty, of course.

In any case, I don't want to discourage any potential buyers - this is indeed a fascinating, one of a kind engine! (The shay Lionel came out with a couple of years ago has a quite different design.)

Up near Snoqualmie, WA (trivia: the setting for Twins Peaks) there are some old, inactive sidings where a great many shays are rusting away. There is a huge variety of designs. Does anyone know which particular engine was the prototype for K-LINE's, and/or a good illustrated book on shays?

[SPFan]

I stopped by the local train shop and they demonstrated one for me. It ran fine on their hi-rail layout with Command but when we put it on their 027 conventional layout it ran erratically. The good news is it does negotiate 027 curves.

Pete