Large Scale Street Car

Since we missed the big train show event a couple of weeks ago, I decided to do some eBay shopping to see if I could find one or two of the items I had planned to search for at the train show.  One of these items was a large scale street car.  I prefer finding these items at shows so I can inspect the item closely rather than just looking at a few photos on eBay.  

It turns out that I found what I was looking for very quickly.  It was listed as being in "Excellent" condition and the price was appropriate for a used item in excellent condition so I purchased it.  There were less expensive street cars available but I chose to purchase this particular one because it was listed as "Excellent".  This street car was delivered yesterday.  

The trolley was packaged well and it was delivered to me in about three days so that was good.  I appeared to be in very good condition so that was good too.  

After unpacking it from its shipping box, I immediately placed it on my LGB G-scale track so I could test it.  It jerked a bit and then stopped.  I knew right away that it probably had a gear problem which resulted in the gears being jammed.  I've seen this before on other model trains.  At this point, as one might expect, I wasn't too thrilled with the claim of it being in "Excellent" condition.  Clearly, it is not.

I pulled out some tools and placed the street car upside down on a towel so I could open up the gearbox.  I removed the six screws securing the cover of the gearbox and found that it had been packed with grease.  This is often done to hide the fact that there is a problem with gears.  I started removing grease so I could inspect the gears.  Once I removed enough of the grease, I immediately saw that one of the main driving gears was split.  

Here's the thing though...  This street car is in very good cosmetic condition.  It really looks very good for its age.  That is rare.  I know I can fix this gearing problem but it will require me putting more money into this model trolley.  I figured it would be best to keep the model and purchase the parts myself so I immediately ordered the appropriate parts from the manufacturer (Bachmann Trains).  

After thinking about how to word my contact with the seller, I have contacted the seller and I am still waiting on a response.  I was kind and started my contact by mentioning the fast shipping and excellent packing.  Then I informed him that this street car which was listed as being in "Excellent" condition is not in excellent condition nor is it even in running condition.  I explained that I found that the gears inside the gearbox are split and that I had ordered the necessary parts from the manufacturer.  I also included photos of the problem gears as well as the invoice of the parts I had ordered from the manufacturer.

I explained that if he had shown a photo of the split gears and had listed it at an appropriately lower price, I probably would have purchased this street car anyway.  The price I paid, however, is a fair market value for an "Excellent" model in running condition.  This is not in running condition though.  I told him what I thought it was worth and included photos of the split gears as well as a screenshot of my order confirmation showing the cost of the parts required to get it running again.  I asked him to refund me the cost of parts.  As I said, I'm still waiting on a response.  

Of course, he could always tell me to go pound sand but then he would risk getting a bad rating in eBay.  He currently has a good rating and has thousands of transactions so it would be wise for him to want to keep that good rating.  I think I was fair in my offer of how to resolve this issue.  I could have packaged it up and sent it back to him and gotten a full refund but I didn't.  I simply think it would be fair to refund me for the cost of parts.  We'll see how it goes.

Again, if I had purchased this street car at a much reduced price and the gear problem was disclosed in the eBay ad, I still would have purchased it but it would have been an honest ad and a fair purchase.  If this was the case, I would have known of the problem and I would gladly pay the extra money to fix it myself at my own cost.  Unfortunately, the gear problem was not disclosed in the eBay ad and it was sold at a price on the high end of fair market value as well as being advertised in "Excellent" condition.  Consequently, I believe it would be fair for the seller to pay for the necessary parts.

Anyway, this street car is an Fn3 scale street car (1:20.3 scale) which is definitely a "large scale".  In this photo, below, you can see that this street car is next to what appears to be a tiny street car.  That "tiny" street car is actually an O scale street car which is the common Lionel size.  O scale is pretty large (1:48 scale) but this new-to-me street car is more than double the size of O scale model trains.  

Below is a side view of this street car with the O scale trolley right behind it, to the left.  As you can see, the body of this street car is in very good condition.  Well, it needs some cleaning but it is in very good cosmetic condition and the lights work just fine.  

You can clearly see one of the split gears in the photo below.  I had to remove a lot of white grease to see this gear!

Here is the other side of the gearbox gunked up with far too much white grease.  All this extra grease will leak out and mess up all the electrical contacts as well as the wheels which is why it is bad to pack in more grease than is necessary.

So I already ordered the replacement parts to repair this nice looking model.  Hopefully I'll have the parts in hand by the end of the week.  In the meantime, I also hope to get a partial refund from the seller to cover the cost of these parts...