This is really weird, after a long time today i have chosen a MILW GP-38 (DCC) from the showcase to run a consist.
I have three of them 2 DCC and one DC, plus others 2 C&W and SOO.
The 2 MILW DCCed always had problems, very slow and not running good i never understood the problem,
also in DC they did not run good.
This time the movement was even worst than I remembered, I opened the loco and saw something strange,
the chassis was deformed on one side and just touching it a little to move the decoder it literally crumbled apart, I mean
the grey chassis...
Quite shocked I took the second DCCed GP-38 and it has the same deformation on one side of the chassis,
same weird crumbling effect of the chassis.
The DC one did not move at all and guess what exactly the same deformation, this time I did not
touch it to take a picture but one of the hook for the board fallen apart anyway.
I think in one of the pic it is visible also a sort of deformation on the length axis of the loco, like slightly curved.
The effect of what I am calling crumbling is similar to when rubber become hard losing its flexibility and
falls apart just with small pressure of the fingers.
The C&NW and the SOO are running good and I don't dare to open them.
The loco in the foreground of the 3rd pic show the side with the deformation.
The only difference is that the MILW locos and the other two were in different showcase and I did not uses them for a long time
due to their bad running. Beside the bad perfomance I did not notice any deformation when I bought them, for sure they
did not crumble apart since I manipulated them enough to position the DCC board. I wonder now if maybe they already had something wrong.
What do you think, is it possible some sort of deterioration of the material of the chassis?
Anyone experienced something similar before?
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I just pulled my 3 non dec out to run. They have been in storage since I bought them when they first came out .Well surprise surprise they look like the ones in the pictures.