My Tyco rolling stock goes back to the 1960s. A tank car, a few box cars, and a parade of those operating clamshell hopper cars which I've carried around through 30 years of moves. Slowly, I removed the horn-hooks and the coupler brackets from the Talgo trucks, and drilled and tapped the frames for new Kadees. Later on, the Talgos disappeared, to be replaced with new trucks and Intermountain metal wheelsets. The old rolling stock now runs better than ever.
No, I don't hate my Tycos at all. They are, by now, old friends of 60 years. Blessed with today's trackwork and the patience of an old man like me to get it right, these are not junk at all, but smooth-running and attractive models that are actually a credit to my layout.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
(I like it when someone dredges up these old, old threads.)
I think Mr. Beasley said it very, very well and I quote....
"They are, by now, old friends.". Flawless statement!
Put me down as, in opposition to the haters of TyCo. To whom, in the truest sportsman-like competition..... I wave the Tyco Flag....
IN YOUR FACE!
Clear Ahead
PMR
BigDaddy Tyco is to poor detail as Rapido is to good detail. There. I have saved you from reading 3 pages of posts from 15 years ago.
Tyco is to poor detail as Rapido is to good detail.
There.
I have saved you from reading 3 pages of posts from 15 years ago.
But it does remind me of that great Bob Seger song, Like a Rock.
20 years now, where'd they go?20 years, I don't knowI sit and I wonder sometimesWhere they've gone
Rich
Alton Junction
Made me think of Conway Twitty's "Fifteen Years Ago"....
"Fifteen years ago, and I still feel the same...."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB5V7AUYIkw&t=11s
It’s only make believe.
Since somebody has decided to resurrect this zombie thread, I'll throw in my two cents. As people get more experienced in the hobby, they become more knowledgeable about quality. Generally speaking, trainsets are at the bottom of the totem pole in terms of quality because they are entry level designed to get people into the hobby. Tyco and Model Power were mostly of that quality. I had a Tyco Amtrak set with about 3 or four cars pulled by an F-7. The paint scheme was non prototypical and the lighted cars had sillouhetted passengers. My also bought about a dozen Tyco UP hopper cars with yellow plastic bodies with red lettering. I had no idea at the time how unprototypical those were. Eventually I become more discerning about things such as this.
The Tyco brand name was bought and sold several times and the quality of the brand suffered as a result. When I entered the hobby in the late 1970s, it was pretty much entry level stuff. Nothing a serious modeler would be interested in.
John-NYBW Since somebody has decided to resurrect this zombie thread, I'll throw in my two cents. As people get more experienced in the hobby, they become more knowledgeable about quality. Generally speaking, trainsets are at the bottom of the totem pole in terms of quality because they are entry level designed to get people into the hobby. Tyco and Model Power were mostly of that quality. I had a Tyco Amtrak set with about 3 or four cars pulled by an F-7. The paint scheme was non prototypical and the lighted cars had sillouhetted passengers. My also bought about a dozen Tyco UP hopper cars with yellow plastic bodies with red lettering. I had no idea at the time how unprototypical those were. Eventually I become more discerning about things such as this. The Tyco brand name was bought and sold several times and the quality of the brand suffered as a result. When I entered the hobby in the late 1970s, it was pretty much entry level stuff. Nothing a serious modeler would be interested in.
In both cases (Tyco and Model Power), it really depends on the product. As mentioned by others, when Tyco took over Mantua, there were some good loco kits offered. The problem is that quality just went downhill from the early 70s on, including the engine kits inherited from Mantua, and the company targetted the low-end youth market. Contrary to Life-Like and Bachmann, Tyco never changed its marketing strategy and died when most kids lost interest in trains.
Model Power was a different beast. They imported from various manufacturers, some good, some bad, some very good. Their N scale 4-4-0 and 2-6-0 were made in Korea, and were excellent. In the early 70s, they imported locos made by Roco, again excellent engines (but low in detail). But they also imported toy-quality engines that were only half a notch above Tyco.
Simon
TYCO (TYler CO.)was a decent brand when it was owned by the Tyler family that also owned Mantua- TYCO in the 60s was basically assembled Mantua product. The printing was mediocre, the detail was bare minimum, but they ran well. It changed when the Tylers sold TYCO to Consolidated Foods (the brown box era), who were more interested in selling them as multi-colored, mass-market toys. This began the era of the mega-sized tank cars that would derail at sharp curves, the gaudy paint jobs, and crappy electric motors and drives.
AHM and Model Power were basically importers of model train equipment under their own packaging. AHM seem to have better overseas manufacturers-Rivarossi and Lima and Pocher from Italy, Pola from Germany. Model Power's stuff wasn't as good-mostly imports from Mehano in Yugoslavia and Frateschi in Brazil. Both had more Asian made replacements by the late 70s/80s when importing from Europe was increasingly expensive.
OK John we get it.
But when you say "quality" to me, my first thought is build quality, are the wheels round?, do the parts fit together and work as designed and expected?, does the engine run reasonably smooth?, is it reasonably durable for the intended use?
As train sets of that era go, TYCO was good quality.
Prototype accuracy is not "quality", that is a feature.
A model can be perfectly "accurate" and run like cr....., that is not quality.
And then you go and use that dreaded phrase, "serious modeler". What exactly makes someone a serious modeler?
Am I not a serious modeler because I still run Athearn blue box equipment? Or because I will not replace all my old models with "better stuff"? I will go one better, I still run Athearn metal cars, and Varney metal cars from the 50's. Guess I need to turn in my "serious modeler" card because I am not replacing all that stuff with high end stuff made for me by little china girls.
I have no dog in this fight, I don't really have any old Mantua/Tyco stuff.
But in its day, it had its place in the market, and it was one of the better products in that entry level part of the market.
Sheldon
maxman It’s only make believe.
No.1 song on the Billboard pop/rock charts the week I was born, before Conway 'went country' in the sixties.
My memory re Mantua / Tyco matches what Azrail said - Mantua was an earlier model railroad company, mainly making kits (John Allen's G&D included a Mantua 2-8-2) and I guess pre-Kadee many modellers used their couplers. Tyco came later as RTR versions of the Mantua steam loco kits. Over time they stopped using the Mantua name, and Tyco devolved into toy train HO stuff.
The Mantua name resurfaced in the 1980s, and some of the stuff from the 1980s-90s, like the 4-4-2, were really pretty nice - especially when they switched to Sagami can motors.
I too had a handful of Tyco as a youth, would have been late-60s early 70s vintage. Later, when I had kids of my own, I bought a small set off eBay to see if they would be interested. I'm glad I did - not because my kids had any interest, but because it brought me back into the hobby. The set was headed by Mantua-Tyco C-630, a solid runner.
Although I no longer run much HO (yes, I still have the set and a small layout), what I most enjoyed about Tyco was the operating accessories - Post Office car, etc. Great stuff and they were affordable and FUN. Trains weren't so prototypical and finely detailed but neither was Lionel through the '40s, so there!
Cheap but fun - what more do you REALLY need?
It's a shame that Tyco got such a bad name later on, the Tyco/ Mantua trains were actually very well made. They ran well. Not scale models, but they very closely followed the example of Lionel, and American Flyer even down to the artwork on the box. They were somewhat like a smaller version of these. And the operating accessories. I had a very positive experience in the '60's.
I like 'em!
Paul
I have a "mixed bag" of feelings towards Tyco.
My first exposure to Tyco was in 1975. I got the Bicentennial train set.for Christmas. I do not remember all the cars that came with it. But, I do remember it came with a flat car loaded with concrete pipe. I later got the operating un-loading dock, and a few more flat cars full of pipe.
They were FUN !
I then found Athern cars in a local hobby shop, and started adding them to the layout ( along with a handful of Tyco buildings : Miracle furniture, Honest Sam's used car lot, Standard Electric, gruesome casket, ect.)
After about 2 years, the engine gave out , by then I had found Athern and Roundhouse locomotives.
It was then that I realized ... Tyco was Toylike. I pretty much got rid of most of my Tyco stuff by 1981.
HOWEVER: I kept the Tyco gondolas. With a little work, they can be very accurate, and run well.
Their flatcars required more work to make them look right, and I never bothered. Better kits were available to me by then.
I wish I had kept the buildings.
You can still find some of them, now labeled as Wathers Cornerstone series.
Overall, I can't really say Tyco was garbage.
But, I can't give them "kudos" for being accurate.
Rust...... It's a good thing !
Tyco is back like that box under the table at the trains show that will not go away..... I started as a kid in the brown box era with a tyco trainset. We had to send the Loco back once for replacement when it was still under warranty which was only 90 days I think. The transformer fared slightly better lasting a couple of years before going up in a puff of smoke that made the whole house smell like burning tires for a day and a half. (Got in trouble for that somehow) The neighbor kid did have the earlier old west Tyco which was of better quality and lasted longer. One swap meet (Enid OK???) had a Tyco toss for several years. In retrospect one of Tycos biggest issues was their open gearing that was prone to cracking and over lubrication that attracted carpet fibers and dirt. Saw a couple brought in to the hobby dept I worked in in high school and college that you could pull a whole Persian cat out of.
Little TimmyI kept the Tyco gondolas. With a little work, they can be very accurate, and run well.
Yes... absolutely.
-Photograph by Kevin Parson
Little TimmyI wish I had kept the buildings. You can still find some of them, now labeled as Wathers Cornerstone series.
Not Cornerstone, Walthers Trainline.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Ah, yes.
I stand corrected.
Walthers Trainline.
( sorry about that.... 50 years of glue fumes will do that ...)
Little TimmyWalthers Trainline.
This example is interesting, to me anyway...
The classic Tyco version is wood with a wooden dock, but the Walthers Trainline version is brick with a concrete dock.
Oher than the building material represented, the buildings look identical.
The freight house had been offered in a brick before as well as the wood. Some of these kits passed through so many hands. I think it might have been AHM that first offered these in brick?? AHM offered some of these roughly at the same time as Tyco and kept them going after they exited.
Some threads ought to just die off. Why did anyone bother to respond or generate discussion. Never had Tyco but refuse to waste time/money on replacing horn-hook couplers, etc. IMHO, such cars are not RTR.
You have to go back to the Mantua era with Tyco to get the better stuff. There was a huge difference in quality. The later stuff doesn't stay running for very long....
You have to go back to 1960's production.....
kasskabooseWhy did anyone bother to respond or generate discussion.
Because the topic is still valid.
Some people hate Tyco, and some people have fond memories. Some people want to recreate them, only in a better running version. Some people want to forget about them.
I like my Tyco cars with Kadee trucks and couplers.
With just a bit of work, you can run a memory with reliability.
I like to have fun with my model trains, and sometimes it is fun to pretend to be a kid again.
kasskaboose Some threads ought to just die off. Why did anyone bother to respond or generate discussion. Never had Tyco but refuse to waste time/money on replacing horn-hook couplers, etc. IMHO, such cars are not RTR.
SeeYou190 kasskaboose Why did anyone bother to respond or generate discussion. Because the topic is still valid. Some people hate Tyco, and some people have fond memories. Some people want to recreate them, only in a better running version. Some people want to forget about them. I like my Tyco cars with Kadee trucks and couplers. -Photograph by Kevin Parson With just a bit of work, you can run a memory with reliability. -Photograph by Kevin Parson I like to have fun with my model trains, and sometimes it is fun to pretend to be a kid again. -Kevin
kasskaboose Why did anyone bother to respond or generate discussion.
I have 2 large cardboard boxes of old trains I am trying to work in, here or there....
My dad traded in his well worn, actually worn out, Lionel train set to Lewis K. English Sr. at English's Model RR Supply (now Bowser) in 1972 or 1973. He got me the Mantua Tyco Santa Fe freight set with the red and silver C430 (painted in the scheme of the actual U28CG units). The Lionel train set went into Mr. English's ultimately $1,000,000+ collection. That HO set got me hooked on HO trains. So far as Tyco dying--maybe the Power Torque crappy drives only lasted a year or two--but with proper maintenance, we got 10 to 15 really good years out of the Mantua Tyco locos made in Woodbury Heights, NJ (not to be confused with the Power Torque later Tyco crap from Hong Kong). In fact only one power truck ever actually died, after two or three replacement sets of brushes. All the other Mantua Tyco diesels and steam power were still operable when I was in my 20's (actually even after many years of storage, the surviving steamers were still operable recently). They all ran ok as long as they were run fairly often. They ran basically fine after nearly 30 years of storage at Dad's house.
I have so many good memories of playing with those trains with Dad and my sister.
Later on I moved into Athearn, then Atlas, Stewart, and Kato diesels. In my 20's I either gave away or threw away the Mantua Tyco diesels (I had done some not so good paint jobs into NYS&W yellow and black, and I didn't want to remember them that way). All the steam engines had been well played with; we got our money's worth out of all those trains.
The memories are better in my mind than the cosmetic condition of some of the steam engines after nearly 50 years, so I just retained the one trolley to remember my childhood trains.
To this day whenever I see Illinois Central Gulf orange and white diesels in photos or as models, it takes me right back to my childhood and specifically the time period from about Christmas, 1975, to 1983 or so when I was really into Illinois Central Gulf trains, before I got into more prototypical railroad modeling.
In hindsight I never should have gone the "more prototypical" route of this hobby, because I was absolutely the happiest with the ICG and Santa Fe trains of my youth, before I knew that Alcos didn't actually do so well for Class 1 railroads and before I tried to fit Alcos into rosters where they most certainly didn't fit in real life. Now I've gone back to Illinois Central but with the correct locos that they did have, including also the late black Deathstar diesel paint scheme.
The intervening years from 1983 or so to 2023 were quite a railroad journey, and I am thankful to the folks in Woodbury Heights, NJ, for the Mantua Tyco trains that started it all. I don't hate them; they served their time quite well. I just have some better IC/ICG stuff now such that I wouldn't buy Tyco off ebay.
I literally spent so much time with the train layout that Dad built with a little help from Susan and me that I have a complete photographic memory of it in my head that can be replayed whenever I wish to see it. Those were good years.
The freight house was first issued as an Atlas product...It was made in Germany by Pola, who had a version under its label.
The Pola kits went under a number of importers....Atlas, Life Like, Tyco, AHM, and now Walthers!
In my opinion, it's because some people need to feel superior to others. Totally forgetting two things 1) "Model Railroading Is Fun" - Al Kalmbach 1) "The are nine and sixty ways of contructing tribal lays - and every single one is right" - Rudyard Kipling. If it's not your way of doing things, so what? The point is for each of us to enjoy the hobby in his own way.
I never owned any Tyco equipment, but still own some 1960's vintage AHM cars that came with truck mounted X2f couplers and oversized flanges. I was a teenager, it's what I could afford. So I saved my money to buy replacement trucks and Kadees added weight to NMRA standards and some kind older members of the club I was a junior member of showed me how to turn down the flanges on my two locomotives (IHB 0-8-0 and B&O 2-10-2) and add front couplers so they met club standards. I've repowered them with can motors and added DCC since then, but they still are AHM equipment from the Sixties in terms of detail. And guess what? I still enjoy operating them and my freight cars.
BEAUSABREIn my opinion, it's because some people need to feel superior to others. Totally forgetting two things 1) "Model Railroading Is Fun"
In the 5th grade I bought a Tyco train set which came with a flashy red and silver Santa Fe F7. Imagine my disappointment when it wouldn't run. It went back for a refund. That wasn't much fun. My only other Tyco set was one that came with a little switcher as an engine that didn't run great. Well, that wasn't much fun either. That was my experience, but I'll make no judgement calls because heaven forbid someone accuse me of needing to feel superior. Cheers.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
riogrande5761 BEAUSABRE In my opinion, it's because some people need to feel superior to others. Totally forgetting two things 1) "Model Railroading Is Fun" In the 5th grade I bought a Tyco train set which came with a flashy red and silver Santa Fe F7. Imagine my disappointment when it wouldn't run. It went back for a refund. That wasn't much fun. My only other Tyco set was one that came with a little switcher as an engine that didn't run great. Well, that wasn't much fun either. That was my experience, but I'll make no judgement calls because heaven forbid someone accuse me of needing to feel superior. Cheers.
BEAUSABRE In my opinion, it's because some people need to feel superior to others. Totally forgetting two things 1) "Model Railroading Is Fun"
I suspect you were in the era when Tyco quality was at its lowest. And yes, at that point it was pretty bad.
The problem I have with some of these manufacturer bashing or praising threads is that people tend to over simplify situations and histories that don't fit into a "sound bite".
And they judge the entire history of a company on one bad product they purchased.
Tyco is a company who's best efforts over their whole history were very good, for the part of the market they were meant for. And their worst efforts, while owned by a big conglomerate, were very poor.
Then the heirs of the original owners bought it back, and offered some nice items for a decade or so.
Now that tooling belongs to LIONEL, a company that has repeatedly failed in the HO market.
I think I may have commented in this thread before. Without checking, here's probably the same thing written again.
When I was a teenager from about 11 to 13, I first owned TYCO, AHM, and Life Like products. They were fine because that was all I knew. Then at about age 14 I discovered Athearn blue box kits, and their rolling quality and paint jobs were just so much better. I never bought another TYCO product again.
It was the trucks and couplers that made the big difference...detail not so much.
Funny, even as a teenager, once I find something better I quit playing with the old stuff. I'm 60 and I still do that.
- Douglas
SeeYou190 Little Timmy Walthers Trainline. This example is interesting, to me anyway... The classic Tyco version is wood with a wooden dock, but the Walthers Trainline version is brick with a concrete dock. Oher than the building material represented, the buildings look identical. -Kevin
Little Timmy Walthers Trainline.
I think the actual first version of this kit was in brick, and the better known wood siding kit was a later copy. Speculation: somebody issued it with wood siding to avoid a copyright issue (or visa versa)?