Two-Year old chucked Life-Like Santa Fe on floor

[Anonymous]

Hey folks:

I am building a train layout in HO for myself and my five-year old. Went to look for my pile of HO engines from Tyco from the 80's and realized I gave them away. Bought a Life-Like Santa Fe engine from Toy's R US. The model diesel purred until my two-year old threw it on the wood floor. She managed to bust the snap-fit off of the four-wheeled power pickup thing that runs on the rails. On a real train it would be the steel wheels powered by electric motors. She broke the one off the back. Where can I get a new one to soder on? Does Life Like have a replacement parts contact number or site? Where can I get inexpensive HO equipment for a 5 year old that is still probably gonna break a few couplers and cars? Sorry for my basic questions. It's been twenty years since I glued a fake tree. *** that Thomas the Train show![:D]

[Darth Santa Fe]

Life-Like has very good customer service. If you tell them what broke, they'll send you a new part. I lost the brush from one of their less expensive GP38s, which has the same drive as the engine you mentioned, and they sent me a new motor right away![:D] The thing runs surprisingly well for a $20 cheapo-engine.[:D]

Bachmann's more recent standard HO engines and cars are both less expensive (depending on what engine you get, some are the FT, GP40 and GP50) and more durable then the Life-Like standard stuff, so you may want to take a look at Bachmann's products.[:D]

bachmanntrains.com

[dave9999]

Honestly.... if you purchased the Life-Like loco from Toys r Us then you already had inexpensive
HO equipment. I wasn't aware that Toys r Us sold individual locos. I know that the sell trains sets,
which come with the "toy" quality locos.

I would try to find some toy locos for the five year old and some higher quality locos for yourself... and
keep them out of the kids reach until they get a little older. Good luck and welcome to forum. Dave

[Walter Clot]

When my two oldest boys were 5 & 6 (they are in their early 40's now), they received some used HO trains from my aunt. When I finally got around to nailing some track down for them on a 4x5, it took about 5 minutes for them to break the coupleres on about 3 or 4 cars. After visiting a hobby shop (it wasn't local) (about 70 miles away), I got interested and the kids lost interest and I was in the mrr business! They never showed much interest, but their kids sure do and are much better operators than their dads.

[fievel]

Send your Two-Year Old Terror over to my house. I've got four Life-Like
locos she can bust,because they were junk straight from the box ! [}:)][;)][:)]

[Anonymous]

Yes, i would say that i would trust lifelike "cheapies" with last ing for years. just don't try to pull more than 3 wagons with them, they are weak as.

[MisterBeasley]

Life-Like was purchased by Walthers last year. Fortunately, Walthers is a solid, reputable company whose only business is model railroading. So far, though, they are still "digesting" the acquisition and parts may not be readily available, although the parts that I have on order for my Life-Like engines are supposed to be shipped in a couple of weeks. Their web site is www.walthers.com and they will respond to e-mails about parts.

I assume you've got one of the engines with a front and rear truck, and the rear one came off. If your engine is like mine, there are several snap-fit parts which hold the assembly together and attached to the locomotive. It's quite likely that one of these has simply come apart, but it's not broken. Take the shell off the engine, and compare the front and rear. You may find you don't need a part at all.

[Anonymous]

Swamp,

Kids! LOL! Hopefully your kids will stay interested in trains. Mine only wanted the train around at Christmas Time and had no real use for it at any other time. Now my GRAND SON on the other hand, lives eats and I think dreams of Trains. At 2 years old, HE KNOWS the difference between the looks of a Steam Train and a Diesel and has his own little preferences as to what he likes.

He is VERY good around the layout downstairs. I purposely do not take him down to run trains every time he's over. That is "SPECIAL" time for him and I and I try to always have something fresh for him to see and experience when we are down there. Needless to say this keeps his enthusiasm up.

On the subject of cheaper engines....I have had good success with the Bachman Engines. I have a few of the FT Diesel units and the look pretty good on the layout and seem to run well.

I had converted to DCC on my 4x8 layout and went through the pain of installing a DCC encoder into an HO Thomas the Tank Engine. After doing that I added a DPDT switch so I could go back to DC operations to run his Bachman FT units and some of the newer Thomas Engines. If your kids like the Thomas Engines, the "HENRY" engine seems to run very well and looks very very nice. He can pull three of the larger coaches that can be purchased from Bachmann and even with their length seem to negotiate or tolerate small curve diameters well.

I hope this helps!

Chris

[beegle55]

Life like engines are cheap, so just go and by a replacement. Keep them out of reach of little wondering hands and then you will be fine.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Life like engines are cheap, so just go and by a replacement

[#ditto]

If you want quality engines that are durable I'd reccommend Athearn kits (BB). No, they might not withstand being thrown to the floor but they're pretty darn though. They beat LL by having a large motor with dual flywheels and all wheel drive. Of course, if you think your engines will keep getting thrown to the floor, you might want to stick with LL for a while.
LLs are $30 at hobbylinc.com and Athearn BB can be found for $20-$35 at many hobby shops. BB will easily outlast LL. My LL GP38 died after 7 years and it wasn't ran much durning that time but my BB GP38-2 is 12 years old and going strong.

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by dave9999

Honestly.... if you purchased the Life-Like loco from Toys r Us then you already had inexpensive
HO equipment.

A good point!

I wasn't aware that Toys r Us sold individual locos. I know that the sell trains sets,
which come with the "toy" quality locos.

Believe it or not when he mentioned the 1980s this took me back about 12 or more years (Im in my twenties). When I was around 5 Toys R Us had Tyco, and Life-like items galore! You could buy buildings (Kits), signage, people, trees, layouts, cars, and engines!

It was cool cause the one near me used to sell already constructed layouts that hung from the celing.

Any ways back to the inexpensive locomotive subject. Bachmann would be the best bet. You could even go with some IHC locomotives. As mentioned by others store some of the moderatly priced ones for awhile, once you notice less wrecks, and a shorter list of repairs.

I had and built my first Athearn Blue Box when I was around 9 or 10. Bought with my own money and built it. I really learned my lesson when I made it go through a curve at a scale speed of 100 MPH and could only watch in agony as it hit the floor. It ran after my dad fixed it though :).

Thank you for my childhood memories post about Toys R Us, and my suggestion.

DON

P.S. I worked for about a week at Toys R Us for Xmas last year, but never got to open a box with life-like trainsets in it.

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