Interesting. I coined a similar word to John's. I call it Zamacitis and discuss it on my site. Rivarossi (along with other early N scale manufacturers) had quite a problem with it in the early days and I have seen some E8 and C-Liner shells cracked from frame swelling. Most repairable, though. Doug
Bill.... That is surely one of those oddities that really makes you scratch your head. Will be interesting to find out the cause. Makes me wonder if the lubrication used broke down over time...changing it chemically into something that attacked the metal that way...hmmmmm.
I just looked at the Atlas site under the Master series locos. The loco is still listed and available. Then I went to parts and again under the Master line the frame halves for that loco are listed and body shell components. So the parts are there if you want to do your own work. However I would give Atlas that call and see if they will take it back and examine/rebuild/ or replace it gratis.
This is really a very old problem too. Lionel used Zamac castings in some of their models back in the thirties and forties and the same thing happened to a lot of them. I remember seeing an advertisement in an old Model Railroader from a company that made reproduction passenger car skirting castings to replace the warped originals. There was a picture in the ad showing the original vs. new castings. The disintegration of cast Zamac drivers in old trains is well known. It does seem a bit odd that this happened in newer castings as I have never seen it in more recent locomotives since about the late seventies. However, it can happen anytime care isn't taken to be sure the metal formulation isn't contaminated. Doug
I have a hard time navigating through the photos after I posted them, but they should be in: Rail Images>>Member Galleries>>Railtwister Also should be showing in: Model Railroads>>Scale Specific>>N Scale Bill in FtL
Actually, this is an issue again now with China production. There has been plenty of issues regarding Weaver, MTH, K-Line and other O gauge modern production having this zinc pest issue. Its anything from tenders disintegrating, to truck frames and couplers crumbling. The latest issue is Weaver troop car frames expanding so much that the bodies warp, the ends break off or the shell splits. Contaminants are getting into the metal casting material from lax production or inspection standards. Since this is metal casting issue and not a storage issue, it is likely that there was a bunch of frames that have this problem. Zinc pest is usually not an isolated problem to a single model. There could be many frames that are showing this issue but the loco still runs or its sitting on a shelf somewhere. Peter
Well, I have to agree or assert that moving train production over to China is proving to be a bad idea partially caused by this country's despicable deterants for small businesses to prosper. There are just so many negatives having production way over there and no real control of American companies. Doug
Trouble with this problem is that it doesn't show up until much later in the loco life. If it happened withing the 1st year of production something could be done about it to correct the issue. This issue though occurs usually long after the loco has been out of production and the responsible party probably can't even be traced down to be held accountable. A company who outsources some or all of their products has placed a certain amount of trust to that source to deliver quality materials and workmanship. When a company finds itself faced with issues in both quality of material and quality workmanship time and time again, or the inability to bring a project in on time, it is time to rethink where to outsource the next project to, or even to think about bringing the production back to these shores rather than half a world away where one cannot adequately keep an eye and a hand on the production.
Zamac Rot. Wait until you run into Plastic Rot. Chinese. I have bags and boxes and boxes of disintegrated plastic parts. They shatter.....looks like Obsidian at the break (not a stress fracture). Trucks, motor block housings, block covers, coupler mounts, driveline components. I save it all for a reason. Someday them baXtards will threaten to sue me again, and I have 15 years of proof positive. Zamac issues, yes,. old Lionel, even the 700E's. In Half 0, heck, Mantua, Athearn, Varney..they all had it. I have to make a new tender floor for one of my Varney 2-8-0's that swelled so much it pushed the back wall of the tender out a bit. I've got crumbled drivers, my John A. English 0-4-0 Yardbird crumbled side and main rods. I put a NOS Athearn NYC boxcar kit together last year. Never out of the box, early 50's metal and wood. ALL the Zamac parts were swelled and broken, mostly underframe air brake components, brake wheel and gearbox. Really odd, as most manufacturers got away from Zamac in the 80's, if I recall. I guess the Chinese re-invented it. Dave
I have been warning folks for over 20 years about Chinese manufacturing. This is a pattern that keeps recycling and expecting it to change borders on foolishness. The reality is, it is the demand of driving costs down that lead to this. Sad part is that there are the facilities in the US that can match the cost of manufacturing with the Chinese and still be profitable. It is a shame none of the US manufacturers thought about talking to some of these companies.
Just looked at the pictures, looks like the poor thing was in a fire! I hope you get this problem resolved fairly.
You were not alone. Why folks did not and still do not comprehend that once outside our boundaries, under that style of government and 'economic' scheme, they'd have NO control... :angry:
Date on the metal frame casting is 2000. First runs of the B23-7 and Trainmaster were made in the same year, so it might be worth checking examples of those models to see it they exhibit the same defect.
I would send Atlas the frame pictures, never seen that happen, bad casting material I would guess. If they won't do anything you can always purchase new frames.
Suppose you tell us why it is the customer's responsibility to solve the problem. Zamac deterioration is an old and well-known problem. Manufacturers have the responsibility. You may defend China but problems with production over there are many and recurring. Doug
WOW!! I would have figured that these metal issues would have been solved a long time ago. I hope atlas helps you out.
I thought the same thing. I really haven't seen much zinc pest in the past 30 years, though it was still fairly common in drive components of Korean made brass locos, as well as some stuff from other importers like Bachmann, ConCor and Rivarossi during the 1970's and early 1980's. Now I'm reading that there seems to be quite a bit of it showing up again in modern model train production runs, in many scales from many importers, and the common denominator seems to be Chinese manufactured items, but it could be because not that much isn't made in China nowadays. There have been issues with materials QC on many things coming out of China like Drywall, Baby Formula, and Pet Food (to name a few), but fortunately so far, at least we haven't heard of any deaths caused by defective N scale trains. I recall reading the culprit in Zinc pest was contaminants in the alloy, frequently traces of lead. Makes some sense if you consider what are the metals used in a car battery... Bill in FtL
