Hello All,
snjroy1) A bunch of us got into this hobby thanks to these toys... Bonus, we can still run them on today's DCC layouts with minor changes! 2) They are still available (at) low cost, so they are GREAT fodder to hone down your skills in terms of painting, weathering, modifying, etc. They also provide parts that can be reused on other equipment or scenery details. 3) They are cheap, which is important for those getting into the hobby when pockets are less deep. That was my (sic) cases when I had a young family... That still holds today thanks to the shows and the Internet.
All great points.
If it hadn't been for the inexpensive Tyco starter sets I doubt that my parents could have afforded to get me into this great hobby.
On the back cover of the September MR magazine, Bachmann is advertising an N scale Tomas The Tank Engine for $125.00 and rolling stock between $26.00 - $29.00.
Without going down the "This Hobby Is So Expensive" rabbit hole, the price for these "toys" might dissuade parents from buying them.
For what it was- -and is- -Tyco put a lot of trains in the hands of kids, and adults, in the 1970s that might not have had the opportunity to afford other avenues into this hobby.
Hope this helps.
"Uhh...I didn’t know it was 'impossible' I just made it work...sorry"
Low end train set cars, Tyco, Bachmann, and others can be made into fine freight cars. If needed convert from truck mount couplers to body mount. The Kadee coupler box just needs a single 2-56 machine screw to hold it in place, and perhaps some styrene shims to level it. An coat of DullCote will flatten the bright toy trainset colors and kill the plastic gloss. Paint the trucks rust red and the wheel faces grimy black for friction bearing trucks and tan mud color for roller bearing trucks. Paint the entire undercarriage with rattle can dark gray auto primer. Add weight to bring the car up to NMRA standard.
If the stirrups are too thick, replace them with wire ones. With care you can shave off the molded on grab irons with an Xacto chisel blade without dinging the paint job. Then replace them with wire ones. A drop of thin CA (superglue) on the inside will bond the wire grab to the styrene car sides.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
I'm not instinctively against Tyco and Mantua.
I've got a few of various types in my fleet. I used to have more until I purged most of my "funny" cars with fantasy billboard designs.
I think I have as many (or more) IHC cars that were formerly Tyco tooling but IHC released them with more realistic paint. Especially the ribbed side covered hoppers.
I like cheap railroading and Athearn BB is my midpoint for the level of detail and accuracy I like. if I find a good Tyco car for a couple bucks I'll buy it, but since I've narrowed my era mostly to 1980 and after, there isn't much in the Tyco for me anymore. It helps also that I've been able to find plenty of BB and BB'ish rolling stock in the $5-10 (up to $15 if I really want it) range. When patience yeilds $5 BB's, there's not much reason to hunt down Tyco.
I'm also phasing out almost all of my traction-tire-operated locos so that will move out my Tyco motive power.
Visit the Chicago Valley Railroad for Chicago Trainspotting and Budget Model Railroading.
jjdamnit On the back cover of the September MR magazine, Bachmann is advertising an N scale Tomas The Tank Engine for $125.00 and rolling stock between $26.00 - $29.00. Without going down the "This Hobby Is So Expensive" rabbit hole, the price for these "toys" might dissuade parents from buying them.
Have you ever looked at the prices of the Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway stuff? A couple inches of dowel rod, six plastic wheels, and two magnets are $17.
NittanyLion jjdamnit On the back cover of the September MR magazine, Bachmann is advertising an N scale Tomas The Tank Engine for $125.00 and rolling stock between $26.00 - $29.00. Without going down the "This Hobby Is So Expensive" rabbit hole, the price for these "toys" might dissuade parents from buying them. Have you ever looked at the prices of the Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway stuff? A couple inches of dowel rod, six plastic wheels, and two magnets are $17.
Bachmann trains sell at deep discounts, sometimes approaching 50% (or more).
Wooden trains other than Thomas are available for much less. One option would be to buy a Thomas engine and then other much less expensive wooden trains.
Paul
IRONROOSTERBachmann trains sell at deep discounts, sometimes approaching 50% (or more).
Paul, Bachmann's DCC ready,DCC on board or DCC/Sound Value locomotives are fairly nice engines for the price. I bought a DCC/Sound Alco S-4 when they was first releaed and its still going strong.
I will also mention in the silent mode its runs as smooth as a Atlas/Roco S4.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
dknelson (...) I know of two such club layouts that always try to run Thomas at shows. Dave Nelson
(...) I know of two such club layouts that always try to run Thomas at shows.
Yes, I have a few Thomas locos in HO exactly for that reason. They are always a hit during open-door events at the club.
Simon
snjroyYes, I have a few Thomas locos in HO exactly for that reason. They are always a hit during open-door events at the club.
The public loves to see neat things at train shows.
The Bat-Train is always a hit at the Tampa area train shows.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
What's a train show? oh yeah...
The Timonium show has a cool big module with Hogwarts Castle and train station. That layout usually has alot of cool trains running too. Hope things settle down enough for the Feb show but some party pooper said don't count on it.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
kasskaboose Never had them but do people keep them for nostalgia or reliability?
Never had them but do people keep them for nostalgia or reliability?
Niether.
I buy the Tyco, Bachmann, and IHC "Civil War" cars as cheap and quick bodies for my 1900 era layout. Most of these cars are actually more representative of 1870s -1890s prototypes. With replacement of the gross details with finer stuff - brake wheels, grab irons, ladders, brake components, possibly roof walks, etc - and new trucks and couplers, they make pretty decent models. Especially if I can find them in a reasonable paint scheme or as a kit. At worst, I strip the body and repaint for my home road. The decals, details, trucks, and couplers do drive the price up.
It's a nice change of pace from Labelle and similar wood kits.
Fred W
....modeling foggy coastal Oregon, where it's always 1900....
riogrande5761The Timonium show has a cool big module with Hogwarts Castle and train station.
That sounds pretty neat. Modules give you the chance to build something you would never include on your home layout, like this dragon and castle on the Athens Bend Track modular layout.
I am going back half a century of memory here, but my recollection of my Tyco rolling stock was that is was generally my most reliable. This was probably from the very things I ended up getting rid of, theTalgo trucks and the large-flanged pizza cutter wheels. Most of them had metal floors, too, leading to a low center of gravity. As a young modeller, my trackwork left something to be desired, so I appreciated a stable of cars that would stay on less than perfect track.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
There's TWO worlds of Tyco:
The one built in New Jersey with metal wheelsets and metal floors and sometimes metal freight car trucks, all prior to about 1975, when Tyco split out of the Mantua-Tyco name and moved production to Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong engines (nearly the same bodies) had crappy motors, crappy drive mechanisms ("Power Torque" drive that had neither power nor torque and was as noisy as heck), did not last very well. The freight cars went to cheap all plastic floors, plastic trucks and plastic wheelsets. Unless one is collecting them for the paint schemes, they are pretty much all crap, period. Stuff that had to be reworked to run decently and stay on the rails. You had to replace most wheelsets with metal.
The "good" stuff, prior to and including the 1975 blowouts "Limited Offer--Special Value" engine with caboose sets, would indeed run and last. Heck, even the earlier couplers lasted longer than the crappy later ones. You sometimes had to drill out a metal rivet to change a broken coupler but they worked pretty well and held up to reasonable amounts of punishment from the neighborhood children.
As Tyco split and went to Hong Kong, Mantua continued making much of the steam engine product line in Woodbury Heights, New Jersey, to much higher standards than the Hong Kong crap. Some engines eventually got much better gearboxes and can motors (the 2-6-6-2 for instance).
The 1975 "Limited Offer - Special Value" packed Mantua-Tyco last version C-430/caboose sets and other sets were made in large quantities and could readily be found in train store inventories into the 1980's. This is part of the reason why people get confused on what happened just when. The amount of Mantua-Tyco two tone brown box stuff in dealer inventories was quite extensive and lasted well into the 1980's. The older red box Tyco stuff from the 1960's was easily found too.
I was a little kid in 1975, but had bugged my dad for an IC or ICG C-430 for Christmas, and that's how I vividly remember when they actually came out on the market with the "Limited Offer - Special Value" packaging, as I did receive my wish. Little did we know at that time how quickly the decently good name Tyco was about to be trashed!
There are some people that collect and stick to "the red box" Tyco period, which basically ended in the late '60's though products were available for many years afterwards. The red box stuff definitely had metal floors, trucks and wheelsets.
By 1979 and 1980, Athearn's much improved drive mechanism had already done a world of hurt to the Tyco sales. I was 12 then and kinda remember Athearn sales (and Model Die Casting) really taking off. Maybe it's just that I was looking for a little bit better product quality, but...they sold a whole lot of Athearn/MDC stuff and that old Tyco stuff just lingered in inventory for many more years.
John
PRR8259By 1979 and 1980, Athearn's much improved drive mechanism had already done a world of hurt to the Tyco sales.
Athearn "New and improved all gear drive with 8 wheel pickup" of the 60s was a vast improvement over other drives of that time. IIRC this drive lacked flywheels and had a black motor.
PRR8259 Unless one is collecting them for the paint schemes, they are pretty much all crap, period. Stuff that had to be reworked to run decently and stay on the rails. By 1979 and 1980, Athearn's much improved drive mechanism had already done a world of hurt to the Tyco sales. I was 12 then and kinda remember Athearn sales (and Model Die Casting) really taking off. Maybe it's just that I was looking for a little bit better product quality, but...they sold a whole lot of Athearn/MDC stuff and that old Tyco stuff just lingered in inventory for many more years. John
Unless one is collecting them for the paint schemes, they are pretty much all crap, period. Stuff that had to be reworked to run decently and stay on the rails.
Agreed. As mentioned, when I was about 13 in 1976 I bought my first Athearn BB 40 foot boxcar kit. After it rolled so smoothly and tracked so well, I added more BB and MDC cars until the Tycos were relegated to the box.
My first BB loco was an F7 "super geared" in UP paint. Ran awesome. I still have that loco and it remains a very competitive runner with modern locos.
A few months before buying that loco, I received the TYCO Chattanooga Choo Choo for christmas. I thought the smoke feature might be cool. Even at about age 13 or 14, I was immediately disappointed to find out that TYCO put the motor and drive in the tender, and it pushed the 2-8-0 which was basically a dummy unit with a smoke generator...and a poor one at that. I ran it a few times but it quickly gave way to the BB F7.
- Douglas
Doughless I was immediately disappointed to find out that TYCO put the motor and drive in the tender,
I remember the Christmas I received the Tyco Chataooga Choo Choo set. Mine ran really good, at least during the time my family was together for Christmas.
My father and my Uncle Roger were both completely amazed at the tender drive and how that "solved" all the engineering problems with a steam locomotive model.
I have quite a few TYCOS and AHM leftover from childhood. I will prob upgrade some to run on current stuff. I recently started collecting the cars I wanted as a kid. I am still searching out that doritos box car my brother would not let me buy in 1977 at TG&Y . I have bought silly things like MR peanut covered hopper etc etc, Dutch clenser, Boraxo etc.
Hobby lobby had some cheap proto 1000 box cars that were decorated in Popcicle ads. I bought the whole set on clearance , ( like $1 a car) They have metal wheelsets and Knuckle coulplers on them. The popcicle train was always a hit at the train show.
I'm very happy with my ancient Tyco aluminum streamlined passenger cars. I had a coach, diner and baggage car left over from half a century ago. I found another coach and a boat tail observation car on eBay. I put lights in them, including red tail lights in the observation gar, and converted the horn hooks to Kadees. Eventually, I stripped off the old decals and added red stripes lengthwise, and finally gave them fanciful names, like Hillary Rodham Manson, Montgomery C. Burns, Governor William LePetomane and Alferd G. Packer. They look great behind my red Pennsylvania GG-1.
SeeYou190My father and my Uncle Roger were both completely amazed at the tender drive
I got the General set for Christmas of '59 when I was 11; I wanted more AF. I thought the three coaches and two 28-foot box cars looked nice but the axles had so much friction the 4-4-0 would not pull all five. Fast forward to the '90s. I put a Kaydee coupler on one end of a modern car then hooked up 12 more with acetal axles. The General took off with them and no wheel slippage.
Jock Ellis Cumming, GA US of A Georgia Association of Railroad Passengers
I never had a Tyco power pack that looked like this one.
All mine were junk. This one looks pretty good.
SeeYou190 I never had a Tyco power pack that looked like this one. All mine were junk. This one looks pretty good. -Kevin
I'm like 86 percent sure that's just a rebranded mrc
A lot of love/hate with Mantua/Tyco units has to do with how much work you want to do with them. I have a whole fleet of Tyco caboose that I have converted and they are a backbone of my fleet. I basically throw the trucks away, plug the holes and replace them with Athearn caboose trucks with couplers mounted in Walthers extended couplers pockets.
I also have a whole fleet of Mantua/Tyco GP20 shells that I have riding on Athearn drives.
A lot of times with using that type of equipment is that you can get the pieces as budgets permit.
I have no Tyco models, but I have seen them in the UK. I can well understand the nostalgia associated with them. I was watching one of 'Pat's Train Vids' on the Tube last night and spaced between the run-by's were some of these
"It's the South Shore Line, Jim - but not as we know it".