New Athearn RTR tunnel motor, pieces breaking off


NYSW F45

NYSW F45

Active Member
I just opened up the box for the new NYSW tunnel motor I bought last friday. As soon as I opened it and took the plastic off, plastic pieces started to fall off onto my keyboard table. The antenna fell off, the antenna plate on the roof is half broken, the long hood and shot hood hand rails are broken and/or fell off completely and paint is chipping.

What do i do? Athearn made a limited run and has alread discontinued 1 road #. Im afraid if i try to return it the store wont have anymore in stock to get. Do I call athearn and complain or just try to find metal ones and replace them?
 
Are the pieces broken, can you reattach them to the model? Might be the fastest, easiest way to keep the model that you want.
 
I'd suggest emailing, or calling Athearn and explaining what happened, and see if they'll just send out some replacement parts.
 
I would contact Athearn first. If they don't have what is needed to fix it, then look into fixing it yourself. If you try to fix it first, Athearn won't help you at all.

Though Bob is right about fixing it yourself being faster!
 
The pieces broke off at the bends or part's where it meets the railings. I had one handrail on the rear that broke and left the lil tab inside the hole.
 
Email Athearn and you'll be surprised by what they'll do for you. They will more than likely send you replacement parts for the unit. You might have to take some pics and send with the email.
 
Did you buy it off the net or at a local hobby shop? If it came off the net, the first thing I'd do id contact the seller (assuming it wasn't Athearn/Horizon) and tell them about the damage. It sounds like the unit wasn't packaged very well. If it was a LHS, I'd take it back to them and see if they can work with you to get parts from Athearn. They should have done some minimal quality check on the product when it came in and it sounds like they missed this one.
 
i bought it from hudson shoes hobby shop, a very reputable shop in this area. I'll see if they're open tomorrow and bring it with me and see what they say. Maybe they'll have metal handrails from the older tunnel motors in stock. And if so, then i'll order the lower intake grills from the sd45 tunnel motor so i can complete the tunnel motor i've been working on.
 
brokensunshade.png

brokenrearhandrail.png

brokenhandrails.png


going to email athearn with these pics showing them whats wrong.
 
Are you sure that engine was actually new when you bought it? Some of the damage looks like it was from a fall. Assuming that sunshade was already installed when you bought the model, it has either been severely warped by heat or installed by someone who doesn't know how to install sunshades correctly. It's also completely the wrong color. I'm asking if you're sure it was new because very few models come with the sunshades already installed.
 
UP2CSX said:
Are you sure that engine was actually new when you bought it? Some of the damage looks like it was from a fall. Assuming that sunshade was already installed when you bought the model, it has either been severely warped by heat or installed by someone who doesn't know how to install sunshades correctly. It's also completely the wrong color. I'm asking if you're sure it was new because very few models come with the sunshades already installed.
Click to expand...
I think some of the new ones come with the shades installed. The discoloring should be the fact that is molded in the color not painted.
 
well either way i emailed athearn with those pics. hopefully i'll get a response back tomorrow and i'll let everyone know what the outcome is.
 
well the email got bounced back to me overnight so I resent it to athearn. Went back up to the shop to see if my caboose came in and they called athearn for me and had a hard time explaining it to CS, so I had to which didn't help much till the CS guy got a set of the parts list and was able to see what I was talking about. So they are sending me the DRGW ones since the NYSW are out of stock and sending me the SP antenna base plate, dont stock any for NYSW. So we'll see how it works out.
 
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