Bruce: Data point..........NYC 1959 $53.00 Hope this helps!
servoguyJack, What year did you get the set? Your comment about your dad making $49 a week is a data point for me. I am trying to develop a small data set of what salaries were in the past. Thanks Bruce Baker
You might add this to your data base.
Union "Elevator Constructors", one of the elite and best paid of the "Building Trades", received 75 cents an hour for a 44 hour week in the mid 1930s (Great Depression). They install, modernize, and maintain elevators and escalators for the Manufacturers. Pay varies from city to city based on what other local Building Trades receive. This is in New England. This is considered a "dangerous occupation".
After World War II, 1940s, the pay for a Journeyman Mechanic rose to $1 an hour again for 44 hours. When I entered the business in 1955 a Mechanic received $2.92 an hour for a 40 hour week. By the early 1960 it was about $3.50 but a Medical Plan and Vacations were finally added. In the 1970s runaway inflation caused sharp pay raises and was followed by a deep Recession, as bad as now. The construction "boom" of the 1980s and 90s plus the switch to microprocessor controls again built an elite work force with hansom pay to match. Today we pay our Mechanics around $44 an hour for a 40 hour week.
That 700E / 5344 Hudson for $75 in the 1937 catalog, if Lionel matched wage inflation, would cost $4,350 today. China labor helps to contain costs.
Don U. TCA 73-5735
Bruce,
That was me not Jack. The year was 1953, and that was with OT that week. I checked with my Mom this morning and she said that he spent the normal paycheck, but he made $10 extra with OT and worked Sunday cutting trees to make up the money he spent on the set. She said that he took home between $37 and $39 a week back then. He was a lineman with NJ Bell Telephone.
Hope that this helps,
John
Based on the freight cars I have, a couple of accesories, and the 1033 90 watt transformer I have, I must surmise he bought the 1473WS set in 1950 which was the only year that particular set was offered, and before I was born. Mom was pregnant with me and he must have read some tea leaves or had some power of positive thinking thing going and expected a boy. There were no fetus sex tests way back then.
My 2046 bias is purely sentimental. But I know my Dad was proud of how well I took care of the trains, even at a very young age. Amazing how well parenting and guidance can work!
I am certain many of the guys on the forum got their first trains in fairly much the same fashion as I did. "It's for the children!!!!" Wind up trains were the poor man's train......and if you had children, continuously winding those suckers up with your parental thumb must have gotten old real fast producing prodigious blisters in the process.
I believe this was the dawn of the "But honey, our boy needs a real electric train" excuse reason that caused the postwar uptick in the sale of AF and Lionel trains, even when money was still pretty tight. I know my family was skating on thin ice financially back then; but somehow my dad, working 6.5 days a week, squirreled the money away.....no credit cards back then either.
Jack
IF IT WON'T COME LOOSE BY TAPPING ON IT, DON'T TRY TO FORCE IT. USE A BIGGER HAMMER.
I could live without a Berk if Bob Nelson would sell me his scale 773 Husdon for what he stole picked it up for.
Isn't it wonderful how toy trains can capture your imagination and set you to dreaming of make-believe experiences in a world of model railroading fantasy?
Bob Nelson
lionelsoni Isn't it wonderful how toy trains can capture your imagination and set you to dreaming of make-believe experiences in a world of model railroading fantasy?
I take this to mean you won't be gifting it me to any time soon.
That's right--no soup Hudson for you!
(Maybe a Husdon if I come across one!...;-)
Bob.....the scale Hudson Nazi.
How about if I just borrow yours to make sure that I would like one. You wouldn't want me to make a regrettable mistake and get stuck with a 773, would you?
Here's a Hudson for you:
(My first car was a 1956 Hudson just like this one, with a 5-liter straight-6 engine. Check out the 4-tone paint.)
The decision: Thanks for all your advice.
that is one fine looking engine!
That is a beautiful 2046 and 2046W. They still have that smokey black appearance which is hard to find.
Traindaddy......sweet! The shell condition of both the steamer and the tender are great. Paint, handrails, cab, boilerplate lights, driverods clean. Someone took good care of them. Where did you finally find them?
Jack.
Jack: (Don't tell anyone. It was "E-Bay")
From the picture, I can't tell if yours is the 3 window cab version (1950-1951) or the 4 window version (1953).
Jack: It's the 1953 four window with die-cast trailing truck. (I know that the three window earlier version is, perhaps, more desireable but this one was well within this "older" guy's budget and super fine for my purpose)
Traindaddy.....Fabulous condition!
I don't own a 736, but I do own two 2046 locos from 1950. Both are excellent pullers, very reliable and run like champs. I hope to buy a 736 some day, as nothing beats the 4 drive wheels per side and the side rods. I do own two of the newer, smaller Berks. I have an NKP and a C&O. Those locos are also good runners, although not as massive as a 736.
Cobrabob.
Toy Trains, they are not just an adventure, they are a way of life !
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