Hello, upon a few days ago I ordered my first HO Rosko item from Japan, I found the listing in North America on a popular online bidding site (Where the set was located originally I'm not certian) the set which is a New Haven Train Set is going to be a fun project to get back up an running, I Believe Rosko have made stuff for marx in the past as I recognize the style of the track which is identical to Marx HO brand except the pins are larger, I'm wondering how you restore one of these units, what tools or matirials, even componets should be handy near by on the table. I've seen some tin ones that were rubber band drive, is there a way to improve the mechimism if it is rubber band drive? I'm clueless as I have Never Really owned one of these before... it would be appriciated, thank you!
Happy New Year!
-Max
Can't help but for anyone like me who didn't know, this is the item in question.
Definitely not Kadee couplers on that set.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
The set looks like a cheap department store train set from the 1950s, which appear on auction sites quite often, marked vintage or rare. These sets are vintage, because they are old and they are rare, because most of them ended up in the trash can when they broke down. Old and rare does not necessarily make them valuable, though.
If the set is still in a good condition, just try to get it running, but don´t try to improve it. Any change to the original condition would destroy any value it may have, if any.
Happy times!
Ulrich (aka The Tin Man)
"You´re never too old for a happy childhood!"
Yeah that would be my identical one from the listing on ebay that I bought, didn't take a good enough look at it however
Also I did notice when I blew up one of the pictures on word and printed it out... I noticed a revmovable screw that was perfectly centered in the rear of the F unit that was in the listing, so it may just mean the loco may need a longer screw to allow for a kadee... and a few doides as well as well as a fresh TV surpressure for preserving signals from older radios which I have an example of one from the 70s which I enjoy using when I run trains
That's actually not too far out of being proportional -- more so, in my opinion, than contemporary Lionel in much larger scale costing much more money. They seem to have done fairly well approximating the feel of 'Blomberg' trucks, for example.
I wonder what the 'automatic' couplers will look like. But 'Talgo' style freight trucks with typical horn-hook pockets would fit, and equipping those with Kadees would not be too difficult... not sure what that arrangement on the locomotive is.
Probably 6VDC with some kind of cheap wirewound pot for the speed control - you might even be able to hook this up to USB power and run it at reasonable speed.
Yes, I think this would be 'fun' to set up and run.
USB powered Train Set? ok I'm interested, tell me more. probably won't use something too cheap but it is a nice idea, I may use an apple battery pack for the new system (Suggestions on Circut Breakers for controllers like that are welcomed) Maybe something that is 5 volts DC
The frieght trucks by Rosko were probably had insperation from Tri-ang, very much like Lone Stars stuff also inspired from Tri-ang Railways models just smaller (actually pretty decent copies) , dunno why they (Rosko) were never caught as tri-ang still produced models with those styles of trucks even into the 70s for their transcontinental market so they could have filed a law suit against Rosko... as the trucks were a more than likely a Tri-ang Deisgn
Back in those days, corporations were far less "trigger happy" when someone copied their usually unprotected design. Why should they go through the expense of sueing a business in Japan, when the outcome would have been likely in favor of Rosko as a local entrepreneur?
Anyway, Tri-Ang played in a slightly more up-market league than the cheap Rosko train sets. For Tri-Ang´s home market Britain, Rosko was never a competitor.
Makes sense, thanks for the clarification on that regards
Safety ValveUSB powered Train Set? ok I'm interested, tell me more.
"Standard" USB power (as from generations of various kinds of cell-phone charger) is nominal 5V at about 1A.
The power for the Rosko set is four batteries, probably carbon-zinc at 1.5V apiece, probably in series to give 6V nominal. I'd be surprised if the train draws a full 10W of power from that battery pack; in any case the amperage draw will be determined by the train (and you could find that out easily with an ammeter in one leg of the power connection from the battery box to the track)
If you connect the 'power' wires from an old cell-phone charging cable to the appropriate battery contacts in the box, you can use the existing speed control to run the train (at 5/6 top speed, likely a trivial reduction in practice). If you don't want to disassemble, solder, or clip anything, cut a couple of lengths of stock to fit in between the battery clips and notch them for contacts for the two wires -- observe polarity.
If you want control with just one lever, that 'potentiometer' control on the battery box would be made so that it is 'off', with a dead space, in the center, and wired to give correct polarity for increasing reverse in one direction and increasing forward in the other. There may be a separate switch for reversing polarity and a 'full throw' pot to give a bit finer speed control.
That certainly helps (ALOT!) those will be bought with my next purchase, trust me (a cheap apple controller would help) considering what crazy pricess people are selling for new train controllers! not quite within my budget but would love them, but the apple controllers will do
Also in lines with the Rosko/Tri-ang lawsuite, yeah, just got a bit curious because of the lawsuit Lone Star went through (when I'm assuming, tried to sell their buisness to Tri-ang, but assuming went south for copyright infirgment) I think it probably would have been very interesting to see what Tri-ang would have done with the company if they accepted the offer