The Broadway-Limited Imports HO Scale Union Pacific FEF-3 is an awesome die-cast model. Maybe the best HO Scale steam engine I own. I purchased four different road numbers. #844 which has no mars light, the three smoke stack #835, greyhound #840 with the yellow stripe and the greyhound #836 with the white stripe.
First Issue (Paint Job)
#844 has a white stripe painted along the side and unfortunately part of the paint was scraped off in shipment. There are two separate side pieces that fit onto the case but does not lock in place. These side pieces make direct contact to the side of the locomotive where the white paint strip is and scratched the paint off.
Second Issue (Steam Whistle Smoke Fan)
The main smoke unit worked fine. Nothing wrong with the chuffing feature or the amount of smoke. But the whistle steam smoke effect did not work. I don’t believe this was due to an issue with Paragon 4 and just the smoke unit fan for the whistle.
Problems with the Storage Case
The case at the rear of the locomotive behind the tender is a very tight fit. In my opinion the case dimensions aren’t designed correctly to fit this locomotive and tender. There is a lot of tension placed on the back of the tender when locking the case shut and forces the tender slightly forward. This forward pressure actually scratched the paint job on the back the tender even though there are foam pads glued to the plastic.
Warranty Request
Using BLI’s warranty request page, bliservice.com, I submitted my issue and received an RA number within 45 min instructing me what to package and where to send it. All you need is a proof of purchase and a detailed description of the problem included in the package. I did have to pay shipping expenses that were around $20 to send from NC to Florida. You do receive notification from BLI when they receive it and that they’ve started to examine your problem, which is nice.
How long did I wait for the return?
One month prior I had to send in my new Brass-Hyrid Early Challenger for repair that literally exploded within 60 sec of running the smoke unit. That one only took 1-2 weeks for BLIs to repair and return. This one took a bit longer due to the sperate requirements to get it fixed. Not only did BLI change out the entire smoke unit, but they had to disassemble the body of both the engine and the tender to replace the damaged pieces. I didn’t know if they would send it off to be repainted or not, but according to the repair notes included with the return they replaced the individual pieces of the body that needed repair.
I received my RA number on Jan 20th, it reached BLI in Florida on Jan 24th and the engine was delivered back to me on Feb 25th. I think one month is completely acceptable to have both the electronics and body repaired.
Was it completely fixed?
The body was for sure swapped from a new unit. It wasn’t repainted or touched up which is what I was worried they would try to do. Or maybe they did and it didn’t work out so they replaced the body. Who knows. It looks perfect. The tender is mint as well.
To ensure the paint wasn’t scratched on the delivery back to me. They added additional plastic wrap to the side pieces of the case. You can see the sheets taped to the case in the ‘Storage Case’ section above. The sheet that originally came with the engine and goes on the bottom and the top of the engine is 0.07mm thick. They added a 0.06mm sheet to the sides.
I’m not a fan of the newer paper slide on cases they’ve been using instead of the hard top cardboard cases like the recent die-cast Big Boy, previous die-cast Newer Challenger came in. My recently purchased Scale Trains ES44s and Athearn SD70ACu’s all use the hard cardboard box. Just a cheaper, less collectable box that’s susceptible to ripping when opening because of the extremely tight fit. The box may not be a big deal to some people but I keep all my boxes and think it makes a difference in the value.
I’m waiting on a new Digitrax DCS240 Advanced Command Station to test the new decoder and smoke unit. When my Brass-Hybrid Early Challenger exploded in early Jan, the command station began beeping and flashing. So I think the short in the locomotive shorted the command station. I’ve had trouble connecting to my JMRI instance ever since. I don’t want to run anymore trains on the faulty unit so I’ll edit this page for the test results. Which I full expect to work since BLI tested it in the shop.