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Three years ago I bought a used Santa Fe F-3 Diesel 70-2013-1 made in 2005 or 2007. Since I've owned it, many plastic parts have developed hairline fractures and then broken off. Most of them I could repair by gluing. At first, it was the small parts like stairs. Then those plastic pillars that screws screw into began falling off. Then the cowcatcher. It got to the point where I could only screw in half of the screws that hold the body shell to the frame. Today though was worse. I had to remove the body shell to get to a broken protosound unit that I was going to send to Ray for testing. As I gently removed the body shell, the frame cracked completely in two and the front truck fell off! This engine has never been mistreated while I owned it. I always keep it inside while not in use. It's almost as if the plastic has some sort of plastic cancer. Who knows what the previous owner did to it, if anything. Here's my question. Do you guys think this is from some sort of mistreatment (outside storage damage from sun or temperature), old age, or is this just the nature of the plastic used? If it is caused from old age, then I'd imagine that everybody who has an old MTH locomotive would see the same plastic rot on their old locomotives. Have any of you seen this on your old (circa 2005 or 2007) MTH locos? Thanks! John