Loco Damage

Well I guess it had to happen sometime . . . .

Bit of another long story this one. Back in May 2022 Christian Kotz from Australia sent in a recently purchased used Flying Scotsman for repair. The loco was in poor condition with a broken cylinder. To cut a long story short it took a long while, two different used cylinder blocks and lots of other bits and work to get it running again.

It also ended up as expensive at £291.83. This included £51.83 shipping plus a further £22.50 for insurance cover for £400.

The loco was eventually returned on 23rd October 2023. As Christian didn’t contact me I naturally assumed all was well until 16th January 2024, over 12 weeks after sending the loco I received this email.

Hello Chris,I’m emailing as I’ve only just had the chance to open my Double Tender Flying Scotsman. I was sure part of the advertised servicing discussed returning in custom secured packaging along the lines of foam cut out. I was surprised to find kitchen paper, 4 wraps of bubble wrap resting on long deflated “air plus” and 3 stacked sheets of foil backed foam as a lid. The result being I’ve unwrapped a damaged locomotive in very poor condition. The roof and wall of the cab are smashed and a corner missing. The cast pony is broken and the wheel loose plus the black paint on cylinders wasn’t touched up which was discussed 24 April 2022 and made to understand that I’d lose the pin striping. I am pretty sure the tender link bar has also been reinstalled upside down and bent in transit as it now lifts the tail of the tender when sat on rolling road.I’m rather disappointed after a long wait and an expensive repair. I was intending to return it back to its original box for display but certainly not able to in this condition.Is there a time frame on shipping insurance or has that lapsed? I’d appreciate your advice and assistance to rectify the matter.Regards,Christian

I contacted Christian and informed him that I would investigate what options were avaialble to resolve the problem.

I contacted the shipping company who identified that there is only a two week window to report damage so after 12 weeks this is not an option.

I then received a second email from Christian

Hello Chris,

I can’t imagine many people would have liked for their locomotive to return to them like this. Does the club come by Flying Scotsman bodies? I’ll need a replacement for mine. Can you recommend a suitable heat safe black paint so that I touch up the cylinders? That would be what I consider the best solution to address the majority of my concerns and restore it to how it was. I think I’d previously ordered the clubs brass pony as a spare part so might be okay to replace the original cast one.  

Conclusion

The unpainted cylinder is a mistake on my part. Previous attempts had been made to re-fix the broken cylinder leaving it in an unuseable condition. I eventually fitted a replacement from one of the locos from donated following Maurice's passing and once Nick shipped me the gloss black painted the cylinder block and fitted it to the loco. Sadly this one also turned out to be faulty and later I replaced this with one I sourced from EBay.

Unfortunately in my head I had done the paint job and so basically forgot to paint the second cylinder block.

I returned the loco in the same packaging that it arrived in. I had some waht felt like really good air plus packing to hand from a delivery to me and thought it would be a good idea to re-use it to protect the loco. With hindsight this was a bad plan as when it deflated it created space in the box which allowed the loco to be bashed about

The broken pony truck is a known problem with the A3 but will also have been caused by the insecure packaging.

The poor packaging is down to me and would warrant a replacement

The failure to report the problem within 14 day window is down to Christian and resulted in the club having no chance of recovering any money to fund a replacement loco.

Although we could take the stance that as the issue was not reported in time for a claim I am not in favour of alienation of a club member.

As Christian has indicated that replacement body will resolve the problem and that as we, rather fortunately, have just collected a few A3 bodies from Hornby I feel that sending him a replacement body will be the best way way to resolve this issue.