BEAUSABRE And if you think the rest of the world doesn't consider us weird, .....
I find the whole thrust of the question to be snobbisly offensive. In essense, what it is saying is, "What's wrong with those wierdoes? They LIKE Tyco!" Folks, we're the wierdoes. We are a subset of the people on the planet who like trains, we're a subset of that who are interested in models of the same, and a subset of that who communicate in English, a subset of that who communicate via the Internet and a subset of that who use this site. And if you think the rest of the world doesn't consider us weird, ask someone from Britain about "Anoraks" and "Train Spotting".
Metro Red Line Definitely a nostaliga thing. But I will say that I'd MUCH rather see TYCO trains sitting in a display box than running on a layout.
Definitely a nostaliga thing. But I will say that I'd MUCH rather see TYCO trains sitting in a display box than running on a layout.
Yeah, I guess nostalgia must be strong with some. I never had any affinity for Tyco as I got older. But one mans trash is another mans treasure so they say.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
I am a casual collector. I buy things that appeal to me.
I have a real fondness for Tyco since I started with that, Atlas track, and Atlas buildings in 1971. MDC "old timers", Central Valley, and LaBelle rolling stock kits soon followed. I buy these at train shows as I find them in good condition, good price, and they appeal to me.
Paul
John-NYBWThere are two types of collectors, those that do it as a financial investment
No, I was speaking of the other type of collector. Those who find something "interesting" for some reason or another. Somehow I got interested in the Polar Express and have collected all the Lionel "Scale" trains for that. Go figure.
It was actually Consolidated Foods-whose logo was on the brown/gold Tyco boxes in the 70s. The mid 70s is when Tyco turned into "ToyCo"...away went the steam loco kits, and in came those abominable large tank cars and things like the Chattanooga Choo-Choo.
There are two types of collectors, those that do it as a financial investment and those that do it for sentimental reasons. People collect things like stamps, rare coins, baseball cards etc. both because they have an interest in them but also because they have the potential to grow in value as demand increases. That is risky business if demand drops and the bottom falls out of the market.
Then there is the sentimental collector. They collect things from their past that they have good feelings about. I've done a little of that, buying board games that I enjoyed when I was young but are no longer made. Ebay is a great source for those kind of items. I still have the original Model Power loco from the set I bought when I got back into the hobby as a young adult in 1976. It was just a circle of track with 4 or 5 cars including the caboose. The loco is a blue Rock Island switcher which looks oversized and I would bet does not have a prototype. I also have the caboose. It's one thing to hang on to something for sentimental reasons or get something that replaces it, but I have a hard time understanding collecting it. I would never consider collecting vintage Model Power equipment and I have a hard time why someone would actively collect Tyco unless it is the same models one had from the past. I can't believe these could have any financial potential but maybe I'm wrong.
I could not allow a 17 year-old thread on Tyco products to pass by without chiming in. I have no idea why some people like to collect certain items. They feel that it has some value to them. But it was a Tyco train set that got me into the hobby. My parents bought me the "Spirit of 76" train set back during Christmas of 1975. I still have a few of the cars from that set and some others that I bought after that time. They admittedly look quite toy like compared to what I prefer now, but I would have trouble letting them go.
It was great to see Mister Beasley as the first reply to the original post and to see him chime in the other day.
Modeling the B&M Railroad during the transition era in Lowell, MA
John-NYBWI'm as puzzled as the OP was when he started this thread in 2005 as to why anyone would collect TYCO. It makes no more sense to me today than it did back then.
Something doesn't have to fit into ones value system to not be in someone else's. I don't need to understand why many people do many things.
Thinking about it. I would love to have a perfect example in a mint condition box of everything TYCO ever made. It would make a great museum exhibit.
John-NYBW From the things I have heard, the Mantua name is still held in fairly high regard. TYCO not so much. I'm as puzzled as the OP was when he started this thread in 2005 as to why anyone would collect TYCO. It makes no more sense to me today than it did back then. You got me curious as to the history and I found this very informative website: Mantua/Tyco Trains (tcawestern.org) According to this, the Tylers sold Tyco to General Foods in 1970 and two years later, the Mantua name was retired although existing stock continued to be sold with the Mantua name. Some of the Mantua line was rebranded as Tyco. 1972 was also the year John Tyler died. I wonder if he is any relation to our tenth president who amazingly still has a living grandson who is in his nineties now. Until a few years ago, he had a living brother as well. He was featured on 60 Minutes about a year ago. Fact or Fiction: President John Tyler has a living grandson? (10news.com)
From the things I have heard, the Mantua name is still held in fairly high regard. TYCO not so much. I'm as puzzled as the OP was when he started this thread in 2005 as to why anyone would collect TYCO. It makes no more sense to me today than it did back then.
You got me curious as to the history and I found this very informative website:
Mantua/Tyco Trains (tcawestern.org)
According to this, the Tylers sold Tyco to General Foods in 1970 and two years later, the Mantua name was retired although existing stock continued to be sold with the Mantua name. Some of the Mantua line was rebranded as Tyco. 1972 was also the year John Tyler died. I wonder if he is any relation to our tenth president who amazingly still has a living grandson who is in his nineties now. Until a few years ago, he had a living brother as well. He was featured on 60 Minutes about a year ago.
Fact or Fiction: President John Tyler has a living grandson? (10news.com)
Wikipedia has even more details about the corporate dance with this company.
Here is the thing people seem to miss, prior to 1970, a Mantua kit and the TYCO RTR version of any given product were identical. The products were good quality in terms of how they were made, and how they ran,, but not in terms of detail or accuracy.
It took a few years, but General Foods turned it into junk.
When the Tylers regained control and brought it back as Mantua, it was still largely the pre 1970 product with some improvements and new pieces.
The steam locomotives were great starting points for kit bashing and super detailing, as were sone of the other pieces.
But based on what we expect today, the whole line was just good quality toys, not scale models.
Even in their day, not considered as good as Athearn blue/yellow box products.
Sheldon
Tyco started out as Mantua's ready to run line, Mantua was still kits (esp the steam locos). In the early 60s, everything was rebranded under the Tyco brand (the official name of the company was still Mantua Metal Products until the late 60s)
And the "TY" in TYCO was for the Tylers, who owned the company.
I love when these Zombie threads get revived.
When I first got back into the hobby in the late 1970s, I bought a lot of Tyco simply because I didn't know any better. I knew I wanted to model the UP but that's about all I knew. No concept of era or locale so I just bought just about anything I could find that was lettered for the UP. I remember I had a Tyco F-7 that didn't come close to matching UP's Armour Yellow. I also picked up several Tyco Amtrak cars which were lighted and had the silhouetted passengers in the window. I thought that was very cool. My favorite was a string of bright yellow hopper cars with red lettering (all same road number of course) that I filled with Life-Like coal. I thought it looked so realistic. What did I know. I discovered I still have one of the Amtrak cars in a storage box. I have no idea what I did with all the other Tyco stuff.
I have a fuzzy memory about Tyco being a low end line for Mantua but I am not positive about that.
I'm surprised that I'd not seen this thread when it was first posted. My first trains, in the mid-'50s were mostly Varney (plastic and/or metal), Authenticast (cast metal), Roundhouse (cast metal), Athearn (stamped metal), Silver Streak (wood/cardstock/and cast metal), along with an A-B-B-A set of Globe F-7s (only one with a power truck). I also had a John English Pacific and a Tyco cast metal 0-6-0 side-tank switcher.I still have all of them, mostly updated and/or with some better details.
A few years ago, I saw a thread showing how to create a reasonably good model of a particular CNR prototype gondola, using cheap plastic gondolas.
Not too long after that, I was visiting a friend in Pennsylvania and we went to a train show. I wandered around checking out what was available, and found a guy selling Tyco gondolas. As I recalled, those were the cars needed to replicate the CNR prototypes, so I bought all eight that he had, for just a buck each.
When I returned home, I looked-up that thread and discovered that the cars needed were from Model Power.
Undeterred, I decided to skip the CNR prototypes and simply upgrade those 8 cars with some better details and some body-mounted couplers...
I kept the plastic trucks, but modified them as screw-mounted, rather than clip-ins...
...and also added body-mounted Kadees. I then added some very basic brake gear, and scraped-off the mould-on grabirons, and plastic stirrup steps, replacing them with metal parts. Some paint and lettering made them into useful cars (not quite as nice as similar ones from Accurail, due to their oversize rivets), but in a train, not too objectional at all...
I had also bought, off the "used" table at a nearby hobby shop (now long gone) some Tyco wood-sheathed reefers. I had stripped-off the paint and lettering and and added some free-standing metal grabirons and sill steps, plus new paint and lettering on three of these...
...and one like this...
I later noticed that all four cars had sagging underbodies, so decided to upgrade them a bit more. Here's the condensed version of that...
Another old-time line was from Varney, which later became LifeLike (the Proto-no-thousand version).I picked-up three of these, stripped the paint, added some details and new paint and lettering, and ended-up with three ice service cars - used for shipping ice to various on-layout dealers and also servicing passenger equipment with ice-activated air conditioning...
I was pretty happy with them, but eventually realised that the ice hatches and platforms were unnecessary, as the cars didn't need ice bunkers, since the entire car would be used for block-ice.I decided to re-do the roofs...
...then re-lettered the cars...
I've also upgraded some other Varney cars, including a metal boxcar and a couple of plastic hoppers. I wouldn't consider them comparable to current-day offerings, but simply "good enough", since they date from my first layout, in 1956...purely sentimental value.
...and some rivets the size of HO scale cannonballs...
Wayne
SeeYou190 Little Timmy I find that some of the Tyco stuff can be re-worked into beautiful stuff. Most notably, their gondolas. -Photographs by Kevin Parson -Kevin
Little Timmy I find that some of the Tyco stuff can be re-worked into beautiful stuff. Most notably, their gondolas.
-Photographs by Kevin Parson
-Kevin
New brakewheel? New grabs? What? Come on, spill!!
Mark P.
Website: http://www.thecbandqinwyoming.comVideos: https://www.youtube.com/user/mabrunton
Wow.... A ressurected necro thread of a ressurected necro thread. Gotta be a record.
Some stuff from all brands can be useful. Be it repainted and detailed, or "as-is" and used for testing purposes. (Weathering, painting, decaling, etc...)
I just recently converted an old Con-Cor passenger car to body mounted KD's and metal wheelsets. (The thing had X2F Talgo mounted couplers!) Add some weight, detailing, and it's a pretty good stand in for the prototype.
Ricky W.
HO scale Proto-freelancer.
My Railroad rules:
1: It's my railroad, my rules.
2: It's for having fun and enjoyment.
3: Any objections, consult above rules.
Little TimmyI find that some of the Tyco stuff can be re-worked into beautiful stuff. Most notably, their gondolas.
So true.
Living the dream.
Ok, so it's a "necro-thread" I'll bite.
I find that some of the Tyco stuff can be re-worked into beautiful stuff. Most notably, their gondolas.
But, I L O V E their building kits !!!!!!
I can't get enough of those !
Rust...... It's a good thing !
Yeah, I'll be 75 in a couple of weeks, and still have a number of Tyco/Mantua cars that I love. They've been cleaned up and weathered, and the old plastic Talgo trucks have been replaced and body-mounted Kadees installed.
My coal hoppers are the ancient clamshell door variety. I still have an old flood loader that actually loaded coal in cars, and I can dump the coal with the pass-over actuator into a box below. I almost bought another hopper because it came with another actuator. If I see it again I might get it.
I have a set of old streamlined passenger cars with real aluminum bodies. I picked up a couple of extras to complement the passenger consist, particularly a boat-end observation car. I removed the inappropriate Santa Fe decals and gave each car new numbers, a new maroon stripe and even a comical name.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
It is good to see someone else that can see the positive in using an old TYCOs. I have a variety of trains manufactured by different companies, but I enjoy repairing and modifying my old TYCO trains. I just started model railroading again after many years and my old TYCOs that I have not touched since the 70's were the beginning. I was able to repair all but a few of the cars and four of my locomotives. I have subsequently purchased higher end more detailed trains, but I still like my old TYCOs and am starting to work on building some with DCC and sound.
Jim
I just picked up a Tyco 40 foot covered gondola car. I never saw one before.
I do not know how old it is, but guessing from the "TYCO" font, I would say the mid-1960s.
This is going to look neat once it is all detailed up and added to the the freight car fleet.
Doh! Got me with a necro'd topic!
Actually I have an old Tyco piggyback unloader that I picked up on eBay for about $8. I plan to modify it with magnets to handle more modern containers.
Joe Staten Island West
SeeYou190 to the forums!
The downside of adding on to a very old thread is that original participants are long gone and photos posted are no longer available.
Steve Otte will let you start a new thread at no extra charge.
Some of us find a large block of text, with no spaces, hard to read. Please break up your posts with line breaks here and there, even if not absolutely gramatically needed.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
HO-Scale-ModelRailroader I'm one of those "off the bubble by 5 degrees" model and toy railroading enthusiasts.
You should fit in quite well here!
HO-Scale-ModelRailroaderLOL I will admit, I'm one of those "off the bubble by 5 degrees" model and toy railroading enthusiasts
.
to the forums!
Your fist few posts will be delayed by the moderators, but please stick through that period and join into the conversation here.
I would love to see pictures of this two sided layout you described.
LOL I will admit, I'm one of those "off the bubble by 5 degrees" model and toy railroading enthusiasts. HO and S/O, O-27 and G (with a little "Live Steam" tossed in). I grew up in the late 60s/70s with Tyco. Not a fan of all their stuff, just the pieces I enjoyed until I ventured into HO rivet counting and O Scale High Railing. I have 2 sets of Tyco/Mantua ... one set replicates what I had exactly as a kid and every bit as cheap and toyish. The other set is identical ... except I customized and upgraded it. I love to tinker with gadgets and make things do what they were not originally designed by the manufacturer to do, so the second set of Tyco has been equipped with Digitrax, Tsunami digital sound for the type of engine, gravel/coal/timber unloaders "imagineered" (to steal a phrase from Disney) to use tortoise slow switch machines to dump their contents into bins that feed the loading system accessories. Anything that operated by crank like the Clementine Gold Mine was belt driven to run the conveyors. I replaced the push button air operating assessories with other tortoise machines to load those culvert pipes into dump cars. And that's the beauty of this hobby. If you love to tinker, make things operate better, enjoy engineering ... anything's essentially possible. And yep, everything from the lit Tyco buildings to operation is computer controlled. My 4x8 layout, largest I can have for HO in my location, is diagonally split backdrop. One side is the prototypical side with Broadway Limited, Proto 2000, some KATO, Campbell Works Craftsman kits, Woodland Scenics ... total rivet counting. Go through the tunnels and hidden siding, you end up in the land of Tyco, Mantua, Bachmann, Life-Like which I tweaked up. Hate to say it, kids and adults alike like the Tyco side more. They're not so interested in the hours I took making resin fast moving water look realistic with depth. Nope, they like the push button (converted to switch machine) timber unloader when the tyco logs (stained dowel rods) miss the bin and roll off into the layout and end up in the Life-Like McDonalds parking lot. (Yeah, I paid through the nose to get one still shrink wrapped even though the kit IS really junk). It's all in how you approach the hobby and what you get out of it. I like tinplate toy trains as much as I like live steam engines.