Is this counterfeit? Manufacturing defect? V1? Either way it doesn&#39

[legoman666]

The one on bottom works great, the one on top causes my trains to derail.

[Spitfire2865]

What part of this derails the train? Is it the points, the frog, or something else?

[legoman666]

The little guide on the right. On the top point, it's perfectly straight, on the bottom, it has a small angle in it to grab the wheels. The top track derails my locomotives that have a 6 wheel bogie about 50% of the time.

[Front]

Is it not just from a new mould that has been perfected a bit to accomodate more kind of trains running smooth ?

[Spitfire2865]

It looks as if the flange guide from the bottom switch is deformed a little. Certainly not counterfeit. And could the derailments be avoided by using less speed through the points?

[zephyr1934]

The one on top is probably authentic, the shape of the guard rails are similar to the 9v and at least early RC track, as well as the photo in the US S@H. BTW, look closely and you will see that the lego photo has 9v points on RC track, something I THINK they did until the 9v parts were exhausted. I would guess that lego redesigned the part and the lower one is newer. Check the part number and see if it changed, and if it is the same number, did they change the style of or location where it was imprinted?

[legoman666]

The one on top is probably authentic, the shape of the guard rails are similar to the 9v and at least early RC track, as well as the photo in the US S@H. BTW, look closely and you will see that the lego photo has 9v points on RC track, something I THINK they did until the 9v parts were exhausted. I would guess that lego redesigned the part and the lower one is newer. Check the part number and see if it changed, and if it is the same number, did they change the style of or location where it was imprinted?

You must be right. The part numbers are indeed the same, as is the style and location in which it's embossed. There are additional small differences between the two version if you look more closely.

[Brickthus]

This should not have been done by TLG. The practice of changing a piece in this way and keeping the same design ID is poor quality. This could be raised with LEGO ambassadors. I wonder if the two pieces have the same 7-digit number as well? That is the unique ID that should have been changed in the point specification.

As TLG exhausted the supplies of the old 9V point moving parts it looks like they supplied the same part but without the metal rail attached to it. Someone did not realise that the lack of metal rail would derail trains. Perhaps it was tested with typical out-of-the-box trains and found to be OK.

Perhaps the change to the guide in the lower photo is a "because we can" change. I have had some issues with long wheelbase locos with EN wheels clashing with these, even with flangeless centre wheels. It's not easy to make a coupled 6-wheel set articulate and it was not possible to move the flangeless set to the end because the coupling overhang would be too great.

Other industries have big problems when a supplier changes the specification of a part without notice. Looks like LEGO is no exception!

Mark

[Duq]

Just checked my (limited) stock and found I have 9V switches with the straight guide and RC/PF ones with the bent one.

I wouldn't mind bringing this up in the ambassador forum but what exactly is the problem? This looks like an improvement to me. It doesn't break anything. We can always create an a and b version on Bricklink if necessary.

[AndyC]

Other industries have big problems when a supplier changes the specification of a part without notice. Looks like LEGO is no exception!

There are countless examples of this in the past, I believe TLG do it when they consider the part a drop-in replacement for the existing piece when the change in design shouldn't have an impact on current designs using it, presumably because it simplifies the process of slowly phasing out the older mold. Of course the fact it shouldn't have an impact doesn't always mean it won't....

[legoman666]

I wouldn't mind bringing this up in the ambassador forum but what exactly is the problem? This looks like an improvement to me. It doesn't break anything. We can always create an a and b version on Bricklink if necessary.

Correct. The old ones have the straight guide, the new ones are bent. The old ones cause my triple axle bogies to derail, the new ones work perfectly. I made the thread to figure out why there were two versions. I didn't realize that the old 9V switches are also straight.

[BrickSlasher]

The ones with the 9v rail area cause the train to derail at higher speeds because they don't have an indent in the track and the train sometimes wants to go straight when the track is switched. I have noticed that the older versions of the PF switches were only included with the green cargo train deluxe rc version.