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Oh my there Darth Santa Fe; you sure did bring tears to my eyes. I put one of those together in 1968 when I was stationed in Southern California - took part of a reenlistment bonus to buy one - I took the other part of the reenlistment bonus and bought a Volkswagen Bus - as anyone who has ever owned a Volkswagen can tell you the Hobbytown was, by far, the better buy. Anyway, I bought an identical one in 1974. The 1968 one - and I would guess the 1974 one also - took me about 27 hours to build. Lot of filing - lot of sanding - lot of drilling - but when it was done it sure looked nice. And pull???? Today we talk about adding weight to a body to increase pulling power; in those days you didn't need to add any weight, it was there. The motor in your photograph looks like a Mashima - mine from almost 40 years ago were (open-framed) Pittmans, a little anachronistic, perhaps, but they had once been the standard for the age and were still being used extensively by Hobbytown of Boston, Bowser, and others. In 1980 when I was getting into N-Scale I sold them, and all of my other HO stuff, off at a swap meet - I ask - and got - fairly good money for them too. At Railfair here about two years ago I was observing an HO modular layout and a couple of RSDs came by lugging fifty to sixty cars. They were my old units and the guy that now owns them came up to me and ask if I recognized them. He's owned them now for over 25 years, he had to replace the wheels on the trucks - they just wore out - but, he told me, they still have the same Pittman motors in them with no indication they are going to need replacing any time soon. I owned a number of Hobbytown units across the years and never regretted having purchased a one of them. I also owned a number of Cary boilers on Mantua/Tyco mechanisms and a couple of Penn Line/Bowser types, mainly NYC K-11s. By the time I decided to get some Varney Northerns and Berkshires they were out of production and could not be had anywhere. All of these companies had excellent quality control mechanisms in place and were some of the most respected - and reliable - businesses in the hobby. A few years ago there was a company called Arbour - and another called, I believe, The Locomotive Company - which tried to resurrect die-cast locomotives without too much success, mainly, I am led to believe, because they lacked that very quality control feature. As far as I'm concerned die-cast is really the only way to go. And Powderpuff - these are locomotives; you, Athearn and Volkswagens are paperweights.
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