A chat with the LHS guy and TYCO

[cwclark]

I needed to restock on some paint, glue, and a few decal sheets, so i went to the Houston Roundhouse to see my old pal, Wayne, who has been in the LHS business for years...I was telling him about how TYCO has been a dirty word here on the forum for most of us, and he had a story he related to me about TYCO....He was once at a manufacterer's convention when he had first started in the business and went to the TYCO display looking for new stuff to restock his new hobby shop and after checking out the TYCO display told the guy behind the counter that he thought the stuff was cheaply made...the guy at the booth said that he must be one of those "train nuts" and then called over the company engineer to explain why TYCO was built like they were...he went on to tell Wayne that TYCO locomotives were engineered (on purpose) to run for 40 hours and no more because that was the magic number where as parent's that bought a TYCO train set for their kids were not likely to return it to the store for malfunctioning..I chuckled a bit when i heard this story and now know...the rest of the story...something to think about when you purchase your next locomotive or get all sentimental over that train set you remembered as a kid....Chuck[:D]

[Big_Boy_4005]

That story would be funny, if it wasn't so sad. The truth hurts, and I totally believe it. 25 years ago, Life Like wasn't much better. When I worked in the hobby store, we called it Life Less. One day they woke up and came to their senses, and decided to make a quality product. Two train manufacturers running in opposite directions.

[mustanggt]

No wonder they're dead......... Makes me think differently of my chatanooga choo choo set.....

[Anonymous]

No suprise, If I was this wayne fellow I would have spread the word of that to others.

[Anonymous]

Makes for a funny story. I wonder if it is true.

Wayne

[Anonymous]

Athearn saved my hobby. I had too much tyco junk to have a good attitude towards the hobby. I was taught how to build athearn kits with the new kaydee (to me at the time) and they were MUCH better than the tycos.

Tycos = trash and later for workbench painting scrap stuff

After high school I looked to more quality hobby stuff. Build em right and they will come. Build em to be trash and replaced again at the store does not cut it.

[dave9999]

Wouldn't it be something if Tyco all of a sudden came out with a product that compared to
say P2K or Atlas?

Are they even still in business? Dave

[Anonymous]

I heard something similar re Horby of England engines. A friend has a grandson who was crazy about the Thomas the Tank Engine TV show, so he searched and found a Thomas engine in HO made by Hornby. I don't know where he found out, but somewhere Hornby did indicate that the engine was good for up to 50 hours of running. This completely turned off my friend, as he and his grandson would run their trains for hours each day. This is the only other time that I heard of a designed in time limit.

Bob Boudreau

[Anonymous]

Have to say this sounds like Hornby underestimating their locos - I suspect they mean that it'll run for 50 hours without servicing, then you may need to replace motor brushes, etc. I have a few Hornby locos that must have clocked up over 50 hours and still run superbly - one of them (a HST of unknown but probably high runtime, bought used and given a good clean) performs better than brand new examples!

The Hornby OO Thomas would be perfectly safe to buy from a longetivity viewpoint - If I remember rightly the motor in this loco is designed to have the brushes replaced (easy to get hold of from spare parts dealers), or in the worst case scenario a new motor wouldn't be that expensive or hard to get hold of - it shares the chassis with a number of their other 0-6-0 steamers.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Railroading_Brit

Have to say this sounds like Hornby underestimating their locos - I suspect they mean that it'll run for 50 hours without servicing, then you may need to replace motor brushes, etc.

I assumed that's what they meant, and it might be OK if you are inclined to and able to do the maintenance. Then there is the availability of such repair parts if you are not in the U.K. Here in the Colonies parts could be a problem.[V]

Bob Boudreau

[Anonymous]

Back in the 60's we were in the hobby business and decided to run a Mantua/Tyco 0-6-0 from Holloween 'til it quit. We made a contest out of it and let customers guess when it would stop. We replaced brushes, as needed, and lubed it every day. It ran from 9:00 AM until 6:00 PM six days a week. In Febuary we finally called it quits and gave the prize away. I still run that loco on my layout.

That was a "little" over 40 hours.

Bob

[Big_Boy_4005]

From all accounts, Mantua, Tyco's predecessor, produced some quality trains for that time. It was sometime after the name change that they came up with that hairbrained scheme to produce rail trash.

[rrinker]

The OLD Tyco stuff from the 50's and 60's was pretty well made. I still have some pieces that belongs to my Dad and they run great. They were used constantly on our layout when I was a kid, then sat in storage for many years. When I pulled them out and added a touch of grease to the gears they still ran fine. On the rolling stock - the X2f couplers still, after all these years, are strongly sprung - better quality plastic. Now, the stuff from the 70's.. forget it. Not only was the quality horrible, but the models themselves were a farce. A GG1 on a 4-axle diesel chassis? And don't forget the version fo the Chattanooga Choo-Choo that lost the front pilot wheels and became an 0-8-0!

--Randy

[nfmisso]

Tyco's quality went into the _______ in the mid to late 1970's.

A late '60's F unit from Tycao has brass bushing for the axles, the truck frame is cast metal, with a stamped steel bottom plate. The motor brushes are accessable.

A decade later, the is truck all plastic (not very good plastic at that), except for the steel and copper in the motor and for electrical pick up. The motor brushes and bearing are impossible to get at.......

[asdelan]

well aperently my tyco has pased the 40 hour limit, how do i make it a dummy?

[2-8-8-0]

This is a 3 year old thread hehe, but in any event, making a dummy is relatively simple. Pop the hood off the engine (assuming its a diesel here) and inside should be some fun guts, namely a motor and a couple sets of driveshafts ending in gears over each truck, meshing with gears inside each truck. Remove the motor and driveshafts, including the worm gear at each truck, and thats about all there is to it (ps...this is for Athearn engines, i believe tycos use a similar drive system)

No matter what the drive system, should be pretty self explanatory when you get the model opened up. Just remove or disconnect the motor, and remove whatever runs from it to drive the trucks.

[csmith9474]

Wouldn't it be something if Tyco all of a sudden came out with a product that compared to
say P2K or Atlas?

Are they even still in business? Dave

There is a lot associated with the name, so it would take a while for a new Tyco product to gain credibility I would think. It is sort of like when Life Like started the P2K line, I still associated the Life Like name with an inferior product (same with Bachmann when they started the "Spectrum" line).

[loathar]

This is a 3 year old thread hehe, but in any event, making a dummy is relatively simple. Pop the hood off the engine (assuming its a diesel here) and inside should be some fun guts, namely a motor and a couple sets of driveshafts ending in gears over each truck, meshing with gears inside each truck. Remove the motor and driveshafts, including the worm gear at each truck, and thats about all there is to it (ps...this is for Athearn engines, i believe tycos use a similar drive system)

No matter what the drive system, should be pretty self explanatory when you get the model opened up. Just remove or disconnect the motor, and remove whatever runs from it to drive the trucks.

Umm...Have you ever seen a Tyco drive?? COMPLETELY different.

Take the power truck cover off(3 phillips screws on the bottom) and pry the large black plastic gear off the side of the truck. Also remove the smaller black plastic idler gear. Reassemble.

 

[2-8-8-0]

That would be the part where i said "this is for an Athearn"

So, in response, no, i havent. My apologies for any confusion my error may have caused, and my thanks to Loathar for politely pointing the error out.

[loathar]

Now you can see why they only lasted about 40 hours.

[2-8-8-0]

That is an...odd design. Reveals why Tyco has the reputation they have for low quality.

[Autobus Prime]

That is an...odd design. Reveals why Tyco has the reputation they have for low quality.

2880:

It's weird, yes, but not too untypical for its day. Everybody was into pancakes for a while.  Some of them actually don't work all that badly.  For a trainset engine, the LL pancake does its job pretty well.  It won't displace any Athearns from revenue service, but to throw in a set that sells for $40 at Christmas, it works.

If you strip the dummy truck of everything and weather it, it makes a nice flatcar load.  Big heavy nondescript casting of some sort.

Honestly, the 40 hour design isn't as bad as it sounds.  Parents are going to return something if it quits working while the kid is still playing with it.  If forty hours of running on carpet, eating fluff and cat hair, is what that requires, then that's its design life, and if that's the design life somebody gives me, that's what I'm going to design for.  These were really inexpensive toys.

I think they would run longer in hobby service, too.  B17s didn't last too long in war service, but those that didn't see much action could fly for years in fire service.  Remember, playroom duty is combat duty, where toys are concerned.  The fact that these remained available from 1972 to 1990, at which point video games were booming and taking business away from all sorts of toys, does tell me that however bad they were from a hobbyist's perspective, they did do what they set out to do.  Really bad products seldom last that long.

(I can't believe I'm defending the Powertorque drive...)

(Maybe it's just that superstitious thing about speaking ill of the dead.  VAMPIRE TRUCKS VILL SUCK YOUR BLOOD. BLAH!)

[loathar]

Can't imagine why they called them Vampire trucks??You wouldn't believe the carpet fiber I picked out of this one. (still runs pretty good though.)

 

[basementdweller]

My brother just dug out his Hornby loco from 40 years ago. We all ran the daylights out of it as kids and then it has sat in a box for the last 30 years. New brushes, and what have you and it is running again for his son.

[don7]

Wouldn't it be something if Tyco all of a sudden came out with a product that compared to
say P2K or Atlas?

Are they even still in business? Dave

There is a lot associated with the name, so it would take a while for a new Tyco product to gain credibility I would think. It is sort of like when Life Like started the P2K line, I still associated the Life Like name with an inferior product (same with Bachmann when they started the "Spectrum" line).

Tyco was originally Mantua, became Tyco later and then came back as Mantua. Lifelike has re-issued the Mantua Classics such as the 2-6-6-2 in both the logging version as a tenderless version and also the tender version.

[asdelan]

Mabye i have a weird tyco, but i don't have the screws that where described, the cover just has clips that you remove. I got the power truck open and the wheels came out, but the motor itself is the problem.

[3railguy]

The new throw-away economy of 1970 forced both Lionel and Tyco along with a number of toy manufacturers into the hands of conglomerates who cheapened the product to make it sell-able to the masses. Parents would no longer spend beyond pocket change for a trainset like they did in the 50's. Another philosphy manufacturers keep with cheapo sets is they are a good experiment to see if a kid likes a train well enough for the parent to invest in the good stuff.

70's Tyco is fun to collect for display because it is cheap, toyish, high on colorful graphic art, and looks realistic enough.

[loathar]

70's Tyco is fun to collect for display because it is cheap, toyish, high on colorful graphic art, and looks realistic enough.

Some of those old bill board cars are going for $15-$20 on E-Bay these days. I wish I still had all my old ones from when I was a kid. I'd like to start collecting them again just to keep in a display.

[3railguy]

70's Tyco is fun to collect for display because it is cheap, toyish, high on colorful graphic art, and looks realistic enough.

Some of those old bill board cars are going for $15-$20 on E-Bay these days. I wish I still had all my old ones from when I was a kid. I'd like to start collecting them again just to keep in a display.

A guy could make a living buying Tyco on ebay during the summer and selling it during the holiday season. Come December, the bid wars blow my mind.

[Tilden]

  To be the devil's advocate.... When you think of it, most train sets are purchased for Christmas.  The kids are home for a couple of weeks.  The set gets set up on the floor and run hard for two or three days.  Then, it's taken up and moved to the bedroom and played with, on and off for the rest of Christmas break.  After that, it's put up to "clean up the mess" and go back to school.  Considering the attention span of kids, that's about all you can expect.  In light of that, forty hours or so of running time is just about right.  As mentioned, so long as it doesn't break down during Christmas break, it's done it's primary job and the parents aren't put, out so they don't care.

  So the company has cut it's costs, maximized profit and sold a bunch.  As far as they're concerned, the marketing was good.

And loathar, seek professional help for that urge to become a "Tyco Collector".

Tilden