pennytrains 1682's aint' s'posed ta have staple end trucks!
1682's aint' s'posed ta have staple end trucks!
Penny,
Do you suppose that a previous owner swapped out the trucks?
I feel sad when I think that you had to downsize your collection so drastically. Will your new dwelling place allow you to have some space to follow your hobby? At least you have photos and the amazing videos that you produced. I know that until I get a new layout up and running (tentatively named the Arrowhead Division of American Flyer Lines) I will miss the Blueboard Central Division of American Flyer Lines.
At least I have photos.
Enjoying the World's Greatest Hobby
Northwoods Flyer
The Northwoods Flyer Collection
of
American Flyer Trains
"The Toy For the Boy"
Northwoods FlyerPenny, Do you suppose that a previous owner swapped out the trucks? I feel sad when I think that you had to downsize your collection so drastically. Will your new dwelling place allow you to have some space to follow your hobby? At least you have photos and the amazing videos that you produced. I know that until I get a new layout up and running (tentatively named the Arrowhead Division of American Flyer Lines) I will miss the Blueboard Central Division of American Flyer Lines. At least I have photos.
No doubt the trucks had been swapped. If it had been done at Lionel to sell of prewar equipment after 1946, it would have had bar-end trucks. But I'm also guessing it was done at a Lionel Service Station because whoever did it, did a very good job:
Wherever I end up living I kept a lot of goodies to have fun with. I kept this little resto I did:
I kept my 259:
I'll still be running Standard Gauge:
Kept all my street lamps and these glitter trees too:
Kept this little beauty too:
But the plane, the brick viaduct and the board itself are gone.
But my own version of the "Beast of the East" remains!
And it will run under this tree around these Plasticville buildings:
So, I'm going back to my roots and I guess you could say I'll be "specializing".
Same me, different spelling!
pennytrainsBut my own version of the "Beast of the East" remains!
You saved the Blockbuster! Outstanding!
I'm still looking. Didn't find one at the last show but I DID get the Dreyfuss, so I can't complain.
Remember a number of entries back when I posted a photo of the #1679 Ives/Lionel transition box car?
I was commenting on the amount of mileage that Lionel got out of the acquisition of the Ives tinplate line. Look what happened.
It appears that I have started down a slippery slope.
1679
Another 1679, note the coupler and trucks
and here is the 2679
It always surprised me though that Lionel chose not to use the Ives stockcar. Maybe they didn't want to do the cut-outs?
As long as I posted the #2679 with the Baby Ruth herald, let me add the #2679 with the candy bar graphic.
Here they are together.
Their lineage obviously shows that they use the same Ives body with different graphics and different couplers.
I think I'm doomed.
Nothing a little duct tape won't fix.
There are a number of ways to get cars with different couplers to run together. My exclamation of doom was more a result of the realization that the number of cars that Lionel made from the Ives designed box car body seems to be endless.
I got lured into buying some additional Lionel cars that reuse Ives designed bodies, all numbered in the 26xx range.
These will go along with the examples I already have.
I know there are more out there but I am going to have to stop looking. Wish me luck.
Here are some Ives 55x cars that I recently acquired. I believe that they are from 1916 - 1922.
550
551
It looks like Bing is a tad under represented on this thread...let's do something about that.
In the pre-war period Bing chose the role of fidelity to the prototype. Their line of freight cars copied the prototype markings of the day - sometimes right down to the actual prototype car serial number.
Most of their graphics came from the 1902 AC&F car catalog. They made a total of 10 boxcars for the American/Canadian Market.
AT&SF
B&O
Canadian Pacific
Woodside
Outside Braced
CNJ
Erie
Illinois Central
NYNH&H
PRR
Prototype Picture of PRR Boxcar
P&R
Their boxcars can be found with two different roof styles - American and European. The American style is stamped to represent a catwalk on the roof whereas the European roof is just a simple arch - the pictures above have examples of each.
In addition to this all of these cars came in a range of prototype colors. All of the color variations except the very light tan are illustrated in the pictures above. As a result, if you want to have a string of solids you could assemble a string of boxcars, all from the same railroad, but with different colors (of course, they will all have the same car number).
Along with their line of boxcars Bing also turned out tank cars, reefers, hoppers, gondolas, and cabooses - all with prototype markings most of which were copied from the AC&F catalog
The only generic cars were their flat car, cattle car and side dump.
Bing Take 2
Hopper Cars
LS & MS
Penn Coal & Coke
Tank Cars
US Leather
Peerless
S.P. Cal
Generic Double Dome Tank
Generic Flat, Cattle, and Side Dump
Flat
Cattle
Side Dump
The flat car load was either lumber or bales of hay.
Bing Take 3
Reefers
Bing made a series of 5 reefers - two representing general reefer transport - Swift and Cudahy - and three beer reefers - Budweiser, Pabst, and Schlitz.
With the exception of the car serial number the Swift car is an exact copy of the Swift reefer in the AC&F catalog. The Bing Cudahy is representative of the Cudahy line and I suspect it probably represents an actual car. I have never seen a prototype picture of the exact car but Atlas has manufactured true-to-prototype Cudahy reefers whose graphics are very close to what Bing offered.
Swift
Cudahy
Atlas Model of a Cudahy Prototype Reefer
Budweiser
Pabst
Schlitz
Schlitz - censored
Schlitz Prototype Model
The second Schlitz reefer highlights a bit of U.S. history. When Prohibition started in 1920 all references to beer were prohibited. As a result, all Bing beer cars exported to the U.S. after 1920 were censored - with the word "beer" painted out.
I have only the one Atlas model of an actual Schlitz car and, as you can see it has the same ad on either side of the reefer door. It may be that Schlitz did have cars with the ad only to the left of the reefer door or it may be that Bing decided a single ad on the left was all that they wanted to do.
Bing Take 4
Gondolas and Cabooses
Bing offered three gondolas - Hocking Valley, Pennsylvania Lines, and I&GN. As with the boxcars these gondolas came in several different litho colors - tuscan red, caboose red, and dark brown.
Hocking Valley
Pennsylvania Lines
I&GN
I don't have a picture of this car
Cabooses
Bing offered cabooses for PRR, NYC, Canadian Pacific, and CM&StP. The PRR caboose was offered in litho woodside and litho steel side.
PRR woodside
PRR steel side
NYC
CM&StP
Bing Take 5 - 4 wheel cars for the American/Canadian market
Boxcars and Reefers
To the best of my knowledge all of the boxcars and the reefers which were available in 8 wheel were also made available in 4 wheel. As you can see from the illustrated examples of the 4 wheel versions the car lithography in many cases is greatly simplified when compared to the 8 wheel cars.
Example Reefer
Example Boxcar
Gondolas
The only two I've seen in 4 wheel are the Hocking Valley and the Pennsylvania Lines.
Example
I've only seen the Peerless tank car for the American/Canadian market but I do know Bing made other litho 4 wheel tank cars for the European market in the late 1920's. The European versions of which I'm aware are Dapolin (Red), Shell (Red and Yellow), Motor SHELL Spirit (Red), OLEX (Yellow), and Motor BP Spirit (Yellow).
American/Canadian
European Example
Hopper Car
Other than a generic hopper for the European market the only other 4 wheel car I've seen is the Pennsylvanian Coal and Coke
I've seen one of each of the railroads offered in 8 wheel
Generic 4 wheel Cars
Flat Car
What I've always admired about the Bing lithographed freights was their "true-to-prototype" look when compared to the competition. An additional prototypical feature of their cars are the different lengths and car heights for the various types. If you look at period pictures of the real railroads the freight consists are not uniform - differences in car length, height and to some extent width are a standard feature.
mersenne6,
Thanks for the enlightening posts on Bing. I go away for the weekend and look at what happens.
One of the reasons that Bing is under represented is because I only have one piece in my collection. I believe that this is a Bing freight station. I have worked very hard not to be drawn into adding Bing. Its about the only place I have been disciplined.
Thanks for posting.
Love the graphics on the Old Dutch boxcar. The Old Dutch Cleanser brand belonged to the Cudahy Packing Company, of Omaha. The sides were yellow, the ends and tops were an oxide red. However, one of the mosi iconic ads on toy trains, Old Dutch Cleanser apparently never made it onto the side of an actual prototype freightcar. If you can find an image, please post the link.
Old Dutch Cleanser did make it on the sides of the prototype reefers. The pictured Atlas car (above) is an exact model of a real Cudahy billboard reefer. Cudahy reefers had asymmetrical advertising on the car sides - which is to say the reefer did not have the same graphics on both sides of the car.
Here is the picture of the other side of the Atlas Cudahy reefer (#1058) shown previously.
This isn't the only style either. There are prototype photos of several of the Cudahy reefers with variations on the Old Dutch Cleanser ad on one side and an ad for Cudahy packing products on the other. Atlas has issued several of them.
The photos on which the Atlas cars are based were taken by Bob Wagner (1912-1999) who was a member of the New York Society of Model Engineers. Starting in the mid 1920's Wagner personally measured, photographed, and collected data on billboard reefers. I can't find the reference with the specific count but memory says the collection has pictures of over 400 different billboard reefers. I also don't remember where the photo/data collection is housed.
There are a few Atlas reefers which are just fantasy - the Natty Bo and the 5 cars from the mythical Penn Refrigerator Lines come to mind but they are the rare exception and not the rule.
Below is a link to a brief bio on Bob as well as some more information concerning the Atlas cars.
https://oscalekings.org/WP/o-scale0kings-hall-fame/robert-wagner/
Mr. Wagner was an interesting fellow. Nice write-up, thanks.
Annnnd, still looking for that Old Dutch prototype photo...
I kept thinking I had seen the actual picture somewhere - found it - pp. 40 and 41 in the book Billboard Refrigerator Cars - by Richard H. Hendrickson and Edward S. Kaminski. In fact, these are the pictures Atlas used.
Eureka!!! They did exist. Thank you mersenne6. Had to do a deep dive on google to glimpse them.
Now I want some...
Not a billboard car, or a toy version of the same, but the "Old Dutch Cleanser" girl even found her way on the 50th Aero Squadron's DH-4's during WW1!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50th_Attack_Squadron#/media/File:50th_Aero_Squadron.jpg
This is the book that mersenne6 is referring to in the post above.
and photos of pages 40 and 41
fife, I think a string of these cars would look great on your layout.
Enjoying the World's Greatest Layout
Northwoods FlyerThis is the book that mersenne6 is referring to in the post above.
I've got that book myself, and as a reference work on the subject it's top notch!
It's still available from the publisher, https://www.signaturepress.com/
Not cheap, but reasonable. I think it's worth it, it was to me.
By the way, the authors are real gentlemen. I e-mailed them some questions and they were very gracious and responded pretty quickly.
Northwoods - I shall try to snag a few.
There are a number of lesser known manufacturers that produced accessories for trains over the years. One of those companies was the Atlas Tool Company.
I recently purchased this station.
It was labeled as an American Flyer station, which it isn't. It is lighted, made of metal and painted with enamel, and it has plastic windows and doors. It does bare a resemblence to the Flyer station but it is clearly an Atlas Tool Co product when compared to the houses that I have that are made by Atlas.
None of the pieces are marked with an Atlas Tool Co. identifier, but having the original boxes makes their origin clear. Notice where the Atlas Tool Co. was located.
I found the third version of the Metal Residence. Its blue
I don't have the original box so I am glad I have boxes for the other two versions.
I continue to look for and add tinplate accesories to the collection. Over the years I have seen these small houses by H&H Sales and Manufacturing Co. out of Pittsburg show up on ebay and other places.
These are the 5 color variations that I have found. The lithography on each of them is identical with only the colors being different.
All 4 sides
They originally came with lights and several of the ones I have in my collection still have the wires and bulbs.
After doing some research I discovered that these houses were marketed under the "Twinkeltown Houses" name.
The original boxes have a wealth of information,
including the original names assigned to each of the houses.
In a real windfall find I found all five of the houses in their original boxes; unused and unassembled.
They all still included all of their paper wrappings and parts. This photo shows most of the contents of each box and I included an assembled example from my collection.
I have enough of these to create a whole subdivision of these under the Christmas Tree
Greg
It has been a while since I (or anyone else) posted to this thread. This year Santa brought me a very nice present because I was such a good boy. This is the 1927 Ives White Owl set #502.
According to the Ives Train Society website in 1928 the same engine came with two cars and was called the Mountain Express set #418.
Here is my vintage tinplate, a Bowman 234 live steam from the 1930's in LMS Crimson red, missing the optional tender(I am looking for one to buy...hint hint), cars are newer tinplate from ACE Trains of London. Yes she runs very well, as do most all of the Bowman engines, crude and ungainly yes, but the idea was an engine that would run and run..up to 40min sometimes depending on load and how many wicks one had lighted. The engine is more close to gauge 1 in size, but running on O gauge track. The rolling stock is very hard to find and costly, as is the original track. Bowman also made stationary steam plants and some steam boats. I have the original wooden box for the engine sans its original lid.
Silly NT's, I have Asperger's Syndrome
Bump
It has been a while since any postings were added to this thread. I found it on page 12 and had a great time re-reading the postings and looking at the photos folks have posted. I thought that it might be fun to see if there was any interest.
While I originally intended to focus on the heritage lines of tinplate there has been at least one more modern manufacturer who worked at keeping the tradition alive.
Here are some examples of the items produced by New Modern Marx.
These are some cars that can be added to the Wells Fargo Set.
Anyone else have a contribution or two?
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