Hi-rail in the 20's to the 50's?

[Lionel 773 hudson]

    We have it good today, easily half of a catalog is filled with scale trains.  But what did you do if you wanted to model the N.Y.C., SOO, U.P., or any other RR's in the 20's to the 50's in O scale did you "super dental" a 736 or 773... or did you hope to find a 700E at a hobby shop?  Likewise in S scale.

Thanks!

[fredswain]

While I wasn't around back then, I do have a few old pieces. 

As today there were companies that specialized in more scale models such as Lobaugh and Pearce among others. Typically those interested in a more realistic approach modelled in outside 3rd rail. I have an old Lobaugh catalog from 1936 that shows some neat detail parts and different options in trackwork. They offered raw rail in 3 sizes, none of which are common anymore, ties, spikes, plates, and many other things. Many of them we can't get anymore and others we can but made by different companies.

I actually like the detailing back then better than many modern items. There are always exceptions though. I have an old Lobaugh Brass ATSF Caboose and 2 old outside 3rd rail brass steam engines. The couplers are aluminum and are very realistic looking. Kadees are a huge disappointment by comparison in the looks department. Even the cut levers on my pieces work. There are no cast on details on the steam engines as everything is separately applied and the caboose has full rivet detail. Many of these old kits did get kitbashed and super detailed by the builder. It's hard to compare them to todays works of art from Sunset/3rd Rail and a few others but for 75 years ago, many of these pieces make many pieces made today look cheap but the advent of plastics made that true in many ways.

Not all old pieces were this nice though. I also have an old Western Pacific reefer that appears to have been an old Athearn kit. The body is made from thick cardstock. The frame is very rough cast aluminum and so are the hatches on the roof. Detail parts are thin sheet metal with steps made from what appear to be staples. It does have the same nice aluminum couplers as my other pieces though and again the cut levers work but lack visual detail. The other thing that this car and the caboose have in common is the wheels and trucks. They are cast and are equalized so they will move freely over rough track as opposed to most rigid trucks sold today. There is writing detail cast into the faces of the wheels and even the backs of the the wheels have accurate detailing as opposed to being flat.

DCC definitely wasn't around back then but don't think that AC was the only power source. Some engines could run on either AC or DC. Typically the outside 3rd railers had their choice but many of them went DC. Frank Ellison's Delta Lines was an outside 3rd rail layout run on DC battery power with old passenger car batteries. He had blocks wired where a rheostat could be connected in and a local operator could switch a certain area independently of others in differing blocks. These could be unplugged and moved to the next block if necessary. It was crude by todays standards but took care of multiple train running with multiple operators.

As with today, many of them were very creative. Many early modellers from this era were also the pioneers that much of today's modelling techniques have evolved from.

Fred