I love to hate BLI. While I have not had a Paragon II yet but I have had a few.
Blue Line UP GE AC 6000 Darn near caught fire. Ulrich Models exchanged it. (great company)
Blue Line UP GE AC 6000 Lost power pick up from rear truck. Said the heck with it and sold.
Blue Line CSX GE AC 6000 Good runner and sounded great till it sucked up a spike. RIP for now
Blue Line Santa Fe RSD 15 Great Engine!
Paragon Class J (first BLI) after 3 days took it back to LHS and He exchanged it
Paragon Class J Broke the day I got it home, fixed the nut that fell off. Lasted for some time till I sold it. I give it a 7 out of 10
Paragon M1 A Broke with in 2 days, cracked the center gear. There was not a speck of lube on the gear. BLI sent me the gear for free and I did the repair. It has broken another one and I fixed it my self.
Paragon Hudson, I had to work to get it to track, but I have never opened it. I give it a 8 as well.
Paragon Heavy Mike Sound just sucks so not much rail time. Wheels came out of quarter and sent it back to BLI. Now there is no power pick up from the tender, it is on my RIP Track and main remain there. I give a 4 when it was working.
PCM Big Boy Would not track out of the box due to the draw bar. I opened the engine with in 2 days of getting it. Fixed that problem. Then a bout a month later it ate a decoder so I sent it in, they said nothing wrong with it and sent it back. Installed a sound decoder and speaker kit from Ulrich Models and it sound great! Got about 60 hours out of it, now it shorts out going around a turn. I have a good idea what is wrong and will fix my self. On appearances, I would give it a 10, Running I give it a 8.
PCM Y6 b I give it a 15 out of 10, it is what ever Steam Engine should be. Did send it in one time, put all it was is the decoder came lose. Loksound 3.5 sound is great and slow speed is unreal! I finally wore it out after around 500 hours of heavy pulling. Started shorting out going around turns (reason I am sure I can fix the Big Boy). Sent it in and BLI could not fix it. Had them send it back and I fixed it my self. Has around 800 hours on it now and is starting to make some gear noise, but I sure cannot complain.
Now, what I have left out is how many tender wires, gear's, sockets, LED's and such they have sent me for free! But, from what I have heard steam engines to require a lot of TLC, So I have dealt with it.
I would give there QC a 3 and there serves department a 10.
Cuda Ken
I hate Rust
SMassey I only have one steamer from BLI and it is my N&W Class J 611 and I have had no issues with that engine at all. Smooth slow running and great pulling. It also looks great. I cant complain. I have had this engine since 2006. Massey
I only have one steamer from BLI and it is my N&W Class J 611 and I have had no issues with that engine at all. Smooth slow running and great pulling. It also looks great. I cant complain. I have had this engine since 2006.
Massey
Old Paragon or Paragon 2? that seems to be the real issue - perhaps manufacturer related.
Strezzy
A Veteran, whether active duty, retired, national guard, or reserve, is someone who, at one point in his or her life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America" for an amount of "up to and including my life."
Lake Strezzy, and yet you kept on buying them? Why?
Strezzy, and yet you kept on buying them? Why?
Good question! Hope, most of all.
But alas I have stopped. The Mikado was the last one.
Ken G Price My N-Scale Layout
Digitrax Super Empire Builder Radio System. South Valley Texas Railroad. SVTRR
N-Scale out west. 1996-1998 or so! UP, SP, Missouri Pacific, C&NW.
For a while BLI had quite a varied selection of steamers in their Refurbhished Deals section on their website. Not these days. Either they have a new policy of fixing returns and sending them back to the customers, or they aren't having to fix much these days and post them for quick reduction sales in their Refurbished Deals.
BLI makes runs in the 2000 loco range, and I have seen a number of complaints. However, they are few, and they are always resolved. I have begun to see more complaints about MTH, especially about their customer service. I can't say much about the other HO manufacturers, but I get the strong sense that everyone his having problems, even Atlas.
I actually bought quite a few BLI's when the locos first came out--mainly because I thought the sound was 'cool--but, I've gradually sold most of them off. Not because of running problems (they all ran very well), but of dual-mode incompatability with my other DC steamers. So far, all I've kept for running on the layout is my SP AC-5, which I was able to program down to about 5 volts DC starting capacity, and my E-6 A-B-B COSF set. I've still got a couple of Pennsy M-1a's and a Santa Fe 4-8-4, but they're pretty much stored away. They run very well, though, when I unbox them. But being strictly DC, as I said, they're not much good in tandem with my other DC locos.
I've heard a lot of complaints about the quality control of newer BLI's. I'm wondering if a lot of it has to do with changing their manufacturer from Korea (mine are mostly all Korean) to China.
Tom
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
I also agree on the MTH. I have an MTH Challenger, and 3 SD70Aces, and all of them run perfectly.
Now that MTH is offering the DCC flash upgrade, to get all the functionality of a traditional decoder. Those arguments about MTH not being fully DCC featured should be a thing of the past.
Michael
CEO- Mile-HI-RailroadPrototype: D&RGW Moffat Line 1989
I've had exactly ONE (1) BLI steamer and I'll never buy another one even if it's on sale for $30. The ONLY steam loco I've had that ran worse is a Bachmann 0-6-0 that I gutted and made into a rusty steamer display. I gave the BLI away and I seem to remember the new owner made it into a dummy.
Dr. Frankendiesel aka Scott Running BearSpace Mouse for president!15 year veteran fire fighterCollector of Apple //e'sRunning Bear EnterprisesHistory Channel Club life member.beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam
I should have clarified that this is an issue with the STEAM locomotives.
I agree on MTH - I have their Berkshire and the thing is quite a looker and runs perfectly - AT ALL SPEEDS. I don't give them high marks for DCC configuration, but I will live with that and the extra cost. For those who complain about the drawbar distance, I would consider the lurching more toy-like than that!! What good is a locomtive that never resides in your collection because it is constantly in the shop for repairs!
I've had BLI Paragon 2 Brass Hybrid Hudson and it was the best looking model I've ever had. Detailed, very good cosmetic quality. Unfortunately, it did not run smoothly at low speed, and there was some other issue I don't remember now - but it ruined the whole experience. I sent it to BLI for repair, and they swapped out the drive train chassis, it came back to me - and basically same hesitation at low speed. Someone on Youtube had same exact problem, you can look it up. Meanwhile, everyone and their mom on this board was putting down MTH for their toy like tender distance, limited DCC, support of their DCS system etc etc. I bought MTH Hudson and never looked back. I take it back, I looked back when I sold my BLI Hudson on eBay :)
I later modified MTH drawbar and tender for short gap. It was hard, delicate work (I managed to modify drawbar without disconnecting it from the engine) - but it was well worth it and MTH model looks awesome.
I have had no such problems with any BLI Paragon 2 locomotives. My only problem with one has been a burned out ditch light bulb on an ES4400AC diesel engine, and I'm not going to attempt opening it up to change the bulb after all the problems I ran into trying to access the bulbs in an older Blue Line engine.
I have somewhat similar posts, but I want see if others have had the quality issues I have.
I have now had five BLI Steam engines: Paragon 2 Mikado (2011), Paragon 2 Reading T1, Paragon 2 Unlettered T1, Paragon 2 Hudson, and an older Paragon Hudson.
Every one of the Paragon 2 locos has jerked sometimes violently enough to shake the 20 cars behind it. Every one of them also grinds in reverse to the point that it nearly overpowers the DCC sound. The brand new Mikado I just received does a little of the same. Slightly better this time, but still a slight hint of jerky (I guess I’ll tolerate it).
Except for the tolerable Mikado, I have returned every Paragon 2 at least once for service, a couple have gone back twice, and 2 have never been adequately repaired where thankfully, I received a refund. In the meantime, you could spend up to 6 months with no product depending on how many times you have to return it because it takes 12 weeks for the first repair job. I have read the posts where people tend to defend the manufacturer and then go on to talk about how they had to fix the problem themselves by tweaking springs for the drivers, filing down bearings, etc.
The old Paragon Hudson I have exhibits none of these problems. What is wrong with the paragon 2 series? Is it the a new manufacturer (e.g. China)? Is it the proprietary DCC circuit?
To me, with a 0% success rate on Paragon 2, these products appear to be garbage. Are others experienceing this too?