Shoddy Research

[Anonymous]

I thought I had to share this with you!

This evening, I was browsing a bookstore. In the Antiques/Collectables section, I came across a book called "Boys' Toys". It was a hardcover book about the size of a pocket novel with lots of fancy colours, etc., but it wasn't very detailed or extensive as far as content went. I picked it up to see if there was anything on trains. There turned out to be an entire section on trains. It was divided into: Lionel, Marx, American Flyer, Tyco, Kits, Foreign Imports and Accessories. Each of these only took up a single page. Overall, I absolutely shocked at how awful it was! Here's what each consisted of:

Lionel: An acceptable history, considering the length. However, it says that Lionel's first train was made in 1902, not 1901. The train that they picked to show on that page was a cheap modern Safari set! Couldn't they have gotten a picture of some better model to show?

Marx: The start and end years for Marx trains are both wrong. It states that Marx first began making trains in 1938. Marx acquired the Joy Line tooling from Girard Model Works in 1934 (they had marketed the trains since 1928) and that same year came out with their Commodore Vanderbilt 6-inch sets and M-10,000 sets. The book also says that when Quaker Oats bought out Marx in 1972, they stopped making trains. It's true that changes occured at Marx with Quaker taking over, but train production continued until they went bankrupt in 1976. The train shown is a late 60's/early 70's clockwork train with a plastic 401 steamer, 6-inch UP tender coupled backwards and a 6-inch Seaboard gondola car.

American Flyer: The history is okay, but again there is a wrong year. It says that AF trains were last made in 1961. There's also a major typo in a sidebar. It says that American Flyer was known for incompatibility with other brands, as before the war it came out with O gauge toy train when Lionel's HO were more popular and then S gauge after the war, which other companies didn't make. O and HO were obviously meant to be the other way around. It is true that AF did make HO trains before the war, but it wasn't as radical as the book makes it seem. Smaller trains were getting popular and Lionel got on the band wagon, too, with OO. Worst of all, however, is the picture, which isn't even of an AF train, but another Marx one! It consists of a battered 994 steam engine, 6-inch NYC wedge tender and 6-inch B&O gondola car. Even if readers don't know about trains, they'd probably notice that the 6-inch cars are the same in both pictures.

Tyco: No problems with the written work, but the picture is again of a different brand. It shows a Model Power Santa Fe F unit (made with old Marx tooling).

Kits: Talked about Revell and simmilar brands. I'm not up on these, so I'm not sure what errors there were.

Foreign Imports: Gave a brief correct history of Hornby accompanied by an image of a Hornby Dublo Flying Scotsman.

Accessories: This section took up two pages and talked about Plasticville, Atlas and Marx. No errors in the text and there was a nice picture of a Plasticville city station with platforms and telephone poles. There were also pictures of Atlas and Bachmann diesels (I thought this was about their accessories, not their trains). The Atlas was a Chessie Alco Century (which I'm sure was from another brand). It had a lot of scratches and its handrails were bent out of shape and partially missing. The Bachmann (a Warbonnet F9) was even worse! It was severely scratched and scuffed, had its front coupler missing and also had part of its pilot broken off!

I can only imagine what the rest of the book must be like and collectors of other toys must think of it! The book was obviously put together in a big hurry!

Has anyone else encountered published work on toy trains that is this inaccurate and poorly done?

[IRONROOSTER]

Since this was a survey book, the author(s) probably relied on only one source for each page or possibly only one other book for the whole train section. You might want to write a letter to the publisher pointing out the errors. If there is a second edition (not likely with this kind of book) they might correct them. I personally stay away from survey type books regardless of subject because of the kind of problems you describe.
Enjoy
Paul