Oldies but Goodies. The Old Stuff.

toptrain1

Well-Known Member
Now to be only lucky enough to find somewhere the locomotive that goes with these passenger cars to complete the set.
I know that is what collecting trains is all about. Knowing you wont find that elusive train, but always truly wishing you will.
 

zathros

*****SENIOR ADMINISTRATOR*****
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
* I really miss Bill Nelsons postings. I know he's here somewhere. I go back alot to those in this topic on pages 10 and 11 to read through them again, time and time again. I've even edited some to put things in that I should have back then. Here he showed his old stuff from 40 to 50 years ago. His narrow gauge trains that he shown and spoke of are wonderful. He converted many standard locos and cars to narrow gauge. He speaks to us of fellow modelers Steve, Tim, and Pete, of his club, and shows us a lot of different classes of narrow gauge logger locos and equipment. Lots of history to. I had to add that last short sentence because the railroads he models are real one. His equipment painted, detail to match the real ones.


"Bill Nelson's" postings are awesome, indeed!! So are yours! :)
 

swampdaddy41

Active Member
Somewhere around 1957 as a teenager I decided to tackle my first 'craftsman type kit' in HO. I was an Ulrich kit of a CNW cattle car that stared back at me from the dealer's shelf as it had been reduced in price. The roof and underfloor are wood, end panels were some early plastic, slats on the side are some sort of fiberboard and the bracing is metal. Nameplates and lettering are card stock. Roof ribs were stamped metal you had to wrap around the wood roof. It had been in storage since the basement flood, at first outside in a PODs container freezing and thawing each day. Then inside but in it's original box for the next 8.5 years. I gently got it out of the box to photo it for this thread and it looked pretty good. The next day I got the camera out for the photo and noticed one end panel had fallen off. Over the next few days other parts became "unglued" too. So much for DuPont's claim their Ducolux glue was permanent. I have noticed other brands of general purpose glues have done the same thing over the years. I will resurrect this car after I get some of the parts unwarped. Not meaning to compare this to TopTrain1's super excellent work. But, it is an oldie. Most kits those days came "less trucks and couplers" so you could choose your own brands. These are Varney sprung trucks with the emerging NMRA hook horn couplers.
Ulrich cattle car crs.jpg

More later on if some other oldies have not suffered a similar fate.

Have fun modeling, Swamp Daddy
 
Last edited:

toptrain1

Well-Known Member
Collectable, Rare Old



Toptrain; These names all ring a bell for me as I have been modeling for some 60 years. I now am in the process of thinning out some of my collection with a great portion being gone by now. I still have a few pieces, parts, etc. that I plan on selling.
If you looking for anything of special interest please let me know and I'll see if by chance I have some of them on hand.
Thanks...Ike...
Have you any HObbyline as that is now what I am looking for. FM H12-44 C&O, UP, and ATSF. In their FA-1 UP and B&O. Passenger cars WP streamline Zephyr cars, and heavyweight LV and B&O. frank
 

toptrain1

Well-Known Member
Swampdaddy C&NW stock car seems to be a well-produced one for I have a similar one. I found a photo of it. It even has the same recording number. This is in much
better condition missing all that old patina that shows the years of ownership and play involved in perfectly creating it. Must be made by the same company for even the trucks are identical. old wood stock car CNW 22877.jpg
frank
 
Last edited:

Bill Nelson

Well-Known Member
I'm still here. was posting photos off my phone, and that no longer works. could find no maximum size file info after the platform change, so a lot of error and trial to get my camera settings to work.

also been preparing for retirement and a move, so the RR will be coming down, just as it was getting operable after my last rebuild. I'dd think I had wasted some 9 years of work, but I learned stuff that will make the next layout more functional.
 

toptrain1

Well-Known Member
Well bill once you retire and join us old folks where every day is saturday, you'll find you have a lot of time to work on that train layout and do neat things with it.
frank
 

toptrain1

Well-Known Member
Back to old trains.
At a train show last sunday in New Hope Pa. I came upon this old Marx HO set. I say it was a set because everything from the little box it was placed in were item that came in the set. The Black New Haven diesel switcher, Santa Fe box car, Sinclair tank car, C&O Gondola, and black New Haven caboose were the HO cars in the box. There was a Marx Power supply and some Marx HO track. All came in the Marx HO set # 16522.

DSCF9400 S.JPG
 
Last edited:

toptrain1

Well-Known Member
Some other Marx Ho of Interest are these 5 Mars HO Diesel switchers. black New haven #1621 a loco I had for awile till the set came and made this one a spare. The Green #10 which goes well with the green Western Pacific bay window caboose.The Blue #10 another diesel seen in some sets. The colorful Mc' Ginnis New Haven 1621 switcher. and last the Rock island diesel switcher.
frankIMG_5215.JPG
 

zathros

*****SENIOR ADMINISTRATOR*****
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
I'm still here. was posting photos off my phone, and that no longer works. could find no maximum size file info after the platform change, so a lot of error and trial to get my camera settings to work.

also been preparing for retirement and a move, so the RR will be coming down, just as it was getting operable after my last rebuild. I'dd think I had wasted some 9 years of work, but I learned stuff that will make the next layout more functional.


You shouldn't have any problem with 1024 x 768 size photos. ;)
 

toptrain1

Well-Known Member
Well here I am, 74 years old now, New One 0-4-0t saddle tankers New Haven #60, and B&O #62 are still the only ones I have ever seen on line or everywhere else. To me they are one of a kinds, there are no others. Mine are the only ones that exist. Anywhere I have gone and all the questions, I have asked have never been responded to. If any others exist their owners are not saying anything.
Currently I have been trying to acquire the remaining ready to run HObbyline items not in my collection. I have no interest in getting any of the Car kits released in 1957. The quality of the kit cars is just to low. There are only a few items left to get. The B&O Twin FA-1's, three B&O daycoaches, the Two different FM H12-44 diesels the C&O and ATSF. Three other passenger cars to make up the Lehigh Valley Wall Street set, the LV combine and 2 day coaches, of which I had already but they were in horrible condition and I threw them away keeping only the H12-44 LV locomotive, and a few other parts. None of these are very rare for I keep seeing them on auctions that had closed. They never went at a high price. I am just waiting for the train shows to return. Having in the past seen these items just at that time not something I was looking for. I know they will show up sooner or latter. What was difficult to get is the ready to run cars that have the lettering silk screened on them. Some do have stickers used for the RR logo, Like the New Haven, Great Northern, Seaboard, TP&W, and B&M but all letters and numbers are silk screened. The other box cars, Southern Pacific, Southern, DL&W, ACL, Erie, NKP, Western Maryland, GATX, HObbyline, and Frisco are completely silk screened. This is about the 16 different box cars I have found that are ready to run.
I got to stop someplace.
 
Last edited:

toptrain1

Well-Known Member
Being 74 95% of my trains are oldies. In the last 4 years, I have been pursuing HObbyline trains more than anything else. The last thing I have ordered on eBay is, cast metal bodies for a little modeled EMC FT A and B diesel locomotives. It is so early a design that it has no box-shaped roof ventilator just 4 pipes like stacks passing through the roof. I don't remember ever seeing this before. These early FT locos were made by James M. Cambron and not his only work. Cambron Locomotive Castings.

Theo Trains 8 - Copy.jpgTheo Trains 4 F3b.jpgTheo Trains 4 F2a -.jpg
 
Last edited:

toptrain1

Well-Known Member
I hope I don't get boos for this next one. Mantua in 1990, maybe,(the date not the product) brought out 4-4-2 locomotives again. One was a midwestern road I think, it is seen in the Mantua catalogs in HOseeker. Another was the Pennsy E2 class 4-4-2 #7002. It is the Pennsy speeder that on June 11 1905 was assigned to be an engine change for the first run of the revived "Pennsylvania Special". It was late in arriving and after coupling up to the head end of the line of spankin' new consist of Pullmans set out on this second leg of the Chicago to New York run of this great train. The engineer's instruction was only to make up time, and that he did. That E2 Atlantic was flying. Lots of press were onboard and dignitaries of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Many knew what was happening and many stopwatches were used to record times between mileposts. There were many and in the hands of highly experienced Engineers, and writers who knew how to use them. The conductor was keeping his official time as instructed by the company in his log. With many speeds recorded in excess of 100 mph, one section was noted. It was the three-mile run from the AY tower mile-post to the Elida Ohio mile-post. Through these three miles, the train averaged 127.5 miles an hour. Speeds in excess of this had to be made to arrive at this average. This was the locomotive John Tyler's old model train company Mantua made for release to the model railroaders everywhere. It was seen in most catalogs through the 1990s.
At a past train show, I was lucky enough to pick up this model in its original box, still, vacuum-sealed as it is today. This explains the shaded look of the photo. It has been 5 or 6 years and I still haven't opened it yet. I guess I am waiting to find another one.

Here is my model. Sorry about the plastic covering. Frank.

4-4-2 7002 3.JPG
 

toptrain1

Well-Known Member
Mantua released another E2. This was E2 class #460 I have only seen it in the 1996 catalog. This is a noted loco assigned to a special train from Washington to New York. It was assigned to wait for the delivery of an unprocessed film of a newsreel taken at the Paris landing field of the landing of Charles Lindbergh after his first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. The film arrived and was put on this train which immediately left for New York City. #460 was pulling a light consist of a baggage car, and a coach or two. The baggage car was set up as a dark room for the processing and copying of the film. A number of complete films were necessary to provide for the many theater locations, for the imidate showing of this newsreel of this historic event. Speed records were most likely broken to get these films out for distribution throughout the New York City area. As noted in history this method of using a high-speed train for this purpose beat all other means by over an hour.
I have just received a Mantua model of this locomotive PRR E2 class #460 with its display stand and here are some photos.IMG_1848 M.JPGIMG_1855 M.JPG
 
Last edited:

zathros

*****SENIOR ADMINISTRATOR*****
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Those last trains would be so nice to see run. They look great as deccorations only too. The rails call to them! :)
 

toptrain1

Well-Known Member
Zathros, Hello! Good to hear from you again. I don't have a running layout right now so I can't do what you would like to see. I have 2 locomotives I want to get running first and then tackle that problem.
frank
 
Top