Besides myself? That would my C-D scale (pre-WWII S scale) permabuilt Pennsy reefer kit, it will forever remain an unbuilt shelf queen, the wood has hardened over the decades to the point that it can't be glued or worked!
I have a few HO items that qualify
A small sample of some 60's production items:
2 Tenshodo factory painted Big Boys, the infamous ones with the incorrect smokebox color.
The pride of my fleet, United D&RGW L-131 2-8-8-2, overhauled in the eighties, it should last for a hundred more years or so!
Dave
I do have some old still still on the layout. But that's not much of a story.
My situation is old stuff I haven't gotten around to putting on the layout yet. Prime case, an unpainted Fleischmann N scale F-3 set I haven't gotten around to painting yet or installing working couplers....
The oldest locomoitives on my roster are a number of MDC Roundhouse units, I have a 2-6-0 and a 2-8-0 and a 4-4-0. These date from 1975. These are the all metal kits. All have the open frame electrical motot.
Rolling stock would be a few dozen Rivarossi passenger coaches. These were the upper end of the quality class for 1975 with metal wheels, lighting, interior finish. With the exception of replacing the couplers and the metal wheels they are stock. They track well and I have no wish to replace them with new replacements.
This old 1950s Athearn metal box car is one of my favorites running on my layout. Seperate ladders and grab irons made this a fine model for the day, and even today. Wonder if it has lead base paint on it?
This is a great topic! Here's a few shots of some of my old stuff.
This Varney B&O Docksider is my first locomotive - from about 1958. It still runs, although a bit lumpy and is missing a pilot step and corner of the roof since it took the big dive to the garage floor a few times. These kids are so careless.... The tank car is also from a Varney kit of about 1959 or 1960 that my dad built for me. I added Kadee couplers many years later.
This building is a Tyco freight station from the early '60's. It's been pretty beat up but I dropped in this spot on the layout about a dozen years ago.
Here's some old vehicles also from the early 60's. The roller, dump truck, compressor truck and the camping trailer and car that is pulling it are die-cast Matchbox vehicles. I have others but these are the closest to scale - actually, the trailer and car are a bit big.
I have some other items too. I am one of those who never throw anything out!
George V.
Sadly, the oldest items on my layout are from 2000 when I started my latest layout. All of my motive power and rolling stock from my involvement in the hobby from the 1980s disappeared when my ex-wife and I separated.
Marlon
See pictures of the Clinton-Golden Valley RR
Here's another old item of mine. A PEMCO (Precision Engineered Model Company) Southern Crescent Mogul from the early 80's. The drive is in the tender and it merely pushes the loco around the layout. The drive mechanism is similar to that used by Tyco for it's 2-8-0 but is much more robust than the Tyco unit. The loco is a smoker though I have no idea if the smoke unit still works. I wouldn't use the smoke unit anyway as the residue from the smoke oil leaves a film on everything it touches. The loco still runs quite well though it tends to stall on turnouts as the pickup is from the loco wheels only.
Dr. Frankendiesel aka Scott Running BearSpace Mouse for president!15 year veteran fire fighterCollector of Apple //e'sRunning Bear EnterprisesHistory Channel Club life member.beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam
The old NYC Hudson is a Tenshodo model which was packed in nice wood box by the manufacturer. My Dad brought it home to me from Japan over 55 years ago. The NYC F9's are also Tenshodo and are almost as old as the Hudson. I restored the Hudson to nearly new condition about 6 or 7 years ago. The Hudson and the F9's run well for their age, but I keep them on display shelves over my worktable.
GARRY
HEARTLAND DIVISION, CB&Q RR
EVERYWHERE LOST; WE HUSTLE OUR CABOOSE FOR YOU
Heartland Division CB&Q
That's a great-looking scene, and I especially like the mix of paint schemes on those passenger cars. That was something often seen but is seldom modelled.
Wayne
Thanks for all the responses and great photos. Sorry to say all my train stuff was given away or sold by my parents when I was away in Nam. Guess they thought I was too old for trains or something. Only one model survived and it was a Mantua 0-4-0 shifter with the old "Mantua loop-hook couplers" and a rhinestone jewel for the head light. Again, thanks for the memories !
An up-close examination of my layout reveals that the oldest thing present is D.U.S.T.
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet
The oldest things on my layout are probably my old Atlas locomotives and my Athearn FP45 (supposed to be an Amtrak SDP40F).
The Atlas SD24s date back to about 1983. The Atlas SD35 and GP38s date to about a year or two afterwards or so, I think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o0YFF44HuY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBHBvHgeLEA
The Athearn Amtrak unit dates to about that same timeframe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnHPPiKY7Kc
Kevin
http://chatanuga.org/RailPage.html
http://chatanuga.org/WLMR.html
jeffrey-wimberly Here's another old item of mine. A PEMCO (Precision Engineered Model Company) Southern Crescent Mogul from the early 80's. The drive is in the tender and it merely pushes the loco around the layout. The drive mechanism is similar to that used by Tyco for it's 2-8-0 but is much more robust than the Tyco unit. The loco is a smoker though I have no idea if the smoke unit still works. I wouldn't use the smoke unit anyway as the residue from the smoke oil leaves a film on everything it touches. The loco still runs quite well though it tends to stall on turnouts as the pickup is from the loco wheels only. ..snip
..snip
Jeffrey,
Great shot of your Mogul. What's always fascinating to me is how long the molds and dies for these locomotives are in use, and how the models can go through upgrades and enhancements while the basic structure stays the same. In the case of your Pemco Mogul, I think it evolved into the IHC Mogul. Take a look at the IHC-Hobby website. http://www.ihc-hobby.com/product/Mmogul
It's a smaller picture but the dome style and placement, bell, headlight, stack, cylinders with a slight inward slope all make it look like the same loco even though the drive is in the boiler for the IHC version.
georgev Jeffrey, Great shot of your Mogul. What's always fascinating to me is how long the molds and dies for these locomotives are in use, and how the models can go through upgrades and enhancements while the basic structure stays the same. In the case of your Pemco Mogul, I think it evolved into the IHC Mogul. Take a look at the IHC-Hobby website. http://www.ihc-hobby.com/product/Mmogul
It is the same one. IHC was relaly just a resurrection of AHM after bankruptcy, and while most people associate Rivarossi with AHM, AHM did import products made by others. As companies merged or were aquired or failed in Europe, the dies often changed hands, so a model once seen as one company might reappear as another. The same thing happened here, over the history of model railroading.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
AltonFan Eriediamond: Ok, this may be crazy, but does anyone remember the wooden milled roadbed from the 40's?- 50's that you hand laid rail into and does anyone still have it. On second thought how far back does things go that are on your layout? Sounds like Tru-Scale track. I believe the product was still being manufactured as late as the 1980s. I thought I read on another post that it is no longer being made although somebody might still have some stock available.
Eriediamond: Ok, this may be crazy, but does anyone remember the wooden milled roadbed from the 40's?- 50's that you hand laid rail into and does anyone still have it. On second thought how far back does things go that are on your layout?
Ok, this may be crazy, but does anyone remember the wooden milled roadbed from the 40's?- 50's that you hand laid rail into and does anyone still have it. On second thought how far back does things go that are on your layout?
Sounds like Tru-Scale track. I believe the product was still being manufactured as late as the 1980s. I thought I read on another post that it is no longer being made although somebody might still have some stock available.
I dunno about the ORIGINAL inventor - the original inventor was killed in an automobile accident in the early 40's or so, it was even announced in MR at the time. He was very young at the time. Augie Kniff is the man most associated with True-Scale, but he was not the founder, nor the inventor. I don't think he was even the second owner, but rather the third.
I have some paper sided reefers from the late 30s, early 40s that still look nice enough to run on the layout. Somewhere I have the old Picard wood body kits but i doubt if I will ever assemble them-- they date back to the mid 1930s (I am old but not THAT old -- but if you started going to train sales and swap meets in the early 1960s, folks were selling 30 year old stuff back then just like they do today).
Even before TruScale track and roadbed, there was Midlin track -- which had a sort of back to back rail, with the lower rail fitting into slots milled into the roadbed ties. A neat idea which eliminated the need for track spikes. Some guys reversed the rail and milled their own grooves -- and that lower rail was the first smaller than Code 100 in HO.
Dave Nelson
I built this Ambroid 1 of 5000 kit caboose kit back in 1963. It was an all wood kit, just a bundle of strip wood, a few pot metal castings, and instructions. It was illuminated originally, but the lights are out now, and there is no way to change them short of demolishing the model.
It is lettered for a free lance road I was going to build back then. Roof is a Kleenix laid over the wood roof and painted black. She still looks good enough to run on my current layout with models the B&M (with a good deal of modeler's license). Don't ask me what happened to the smoke jack, I just don't remember. One of these days I will start ballasting the track.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
I think I have all of you beat! I don't recall the brand (Maybe varney, but that doesn't sound right) but I recall the year - I have a 1954 Soo Line flatcar bouncing around on lovely sprung trucks, as well as a gondola from 56. I don't know when the power packs we use were made, but they're definitely from the 50s! One of them recently gave out under the smell of burning, but the other one is still working, and I've replaced the first one with a power cab, technology a full 60 years more advanced!
Go here for my rail shots! http://www.railpictures.net/showphotos.php?userid=9296
Building the CPR Kootenay division in N scale, blog here: http://kootenaymodelrailway.wordpress.com/
A small shot, but the only one I have on the PC, It is a Triang Minic Dockside switcher. My first locomotive from I am guessing around 1968. The pizza cutter wheels have to be seen to be believed. It still runs, though I have it on display more than on the track.
Simon Modelling CB&Q and Wabash See my slowly evolving layout on my picturetrail site http://www.picturetrail.com/simontrains and our videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/MrCrispybake?feature=mhum
I remember that Tru Scale roadbed, but it was way beyond my budget at the time, the 60's. The oldest piece on my layout is this Ulrich, metal, operating hopper. DJ.
rrebell Funny thing about that stuff is it came as just roadbed and with track also.
Funny thing about that stuff is it came as just roadbed and with track also.
TruScale came three ways: pure wood roadbed in a variety of radius curves; roadbed with milled ties -- a good way to learn how to handlay track; and complete track, by which I mean, rail and roadbed and ties. They had a line of turnouts to go with it.
That was considered deluxe stuff at the time.
I like this thread; it just took me a bit to get a photo taken to share. There is also a rather current thread on the "Bay Window Work Caboose" from Tru-Scale, which would qualify for this really old stuff column.
My entry is all that I have remaining from my first train set. This is a Revell caboose. Clearly modeled after a Union Pacific C-series, I re-lettered it for my railroad years ago. The original set consisted of a UP SW9 with a rubber-band clutch drive, a NYC gondola, and a PFE reefer. I received this Revell HO train set for Christmas, 1959. I think that my Dad glued the brakeman on the back step, and he's been swinging aboard this caboose ever since.
Bill
I am still running the original Soo line box car that I got from Labelle in 1961. I have tons of rolling stock from the 50's and 60's. Most of my locomotives are 60's and 70's light brass steam.
see ya
Bob
There's never time to do it right, but always time to do it over.....
Gidday, Interesting thread seeing things I've only read about in older magazines. Not sure of the time line and having only ever seen three assembled Silver Streak freight cars before, when this appeared on a sales table at the local train show I figured that it was for me. When assembled it , I suspect, will be the oldest thing on my layout.
Cheers,the Bear.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
Hi Bear -- I have built several Silver Streak kits over the years, including back when that was normal off the shelf stuff. Some of the techniques now seem a bit old fashioned -- eg, the stamped metal ribs for the roof that you bend under the roof overhang, which in turn tends to leave visible gaps. There is an easy way to minimize this with a bit of filing into the wood but the instructions are silent on this. The veteran builders learned to do a really nice job with those roof ribs.
The wood grain on the roof piece is very obvious and the way to deal with it -- applications of sanding sealer followed by fine sandpaper followed by another application of sanding sealer followed by another sanding down -- is something that strikes you only once the car is finished and sitting on the layout. Ditto if you want to capture the look of canvas or sealing paint that the prototype used. Think about that before detailing and installing the roof pieces and instead do it when it is a raw piece of wood.
The one thing I really regretted with my first ever Silver Streak kit is not going even further with detailed airbrake piping and the like. I was in a hurry and figured nobody would ever notice.
In one or two spots the assembly really called for a product which, if it even existed, was not as widely known or used back then: ACC.
With careful thought you might be able to improve the kit right from the start. For example the separate grab irons are a nice feature but the ones with the kit are oversized. What I do not know is if any of the finer ones now available fit into both the predrilled holes. The roof walk is undetailed and there are some nice ones now from Red Caboose and other makes -- don't be afraid to introduce some plastic into the assembly.
In my experience with these kits you tend to do a great job -- when building the third one! But they are worth the bother for the unusual paint and lettering schemes and basic sound construction. Indeed should you ever decide to scratch built a wood box car or reefer you could do far worse than to mimic the basic construction process of the Silver Streak kit: a basic box of wood upon which the more detailed end and side parts are applied.
Bear and Dave.
Great conversation. These are the sorts of kits that teach a modeler to scratch built.
Bear...... the box lid that you show in the photo above is from the 1950's series. The kits from the 40's came in a black box with silver lettering and end label.
Dave........... my solution to the wood grain issue on the roof is / was to put down a layer of Kleenex first. Put a layer of what ever color you are going to paint the roof and stick the Kleenex into the wet paint and then put down another coat over it to glue it down. Then put the roof ribs on after and paint again.
Separate grab irons are a super idea. Here is a link to a "how to" story I wrote and submitted to Labelle Woodworking for their web site. It's about making a jig for drilling straight grab iron holes.
https://www.labellemodels.com/manuals/Grab%20Irons.pdf?osCsid=hrqhlc20jsfqmdgunobgrj2v27
Gidday Dave and Bob, appreciate your replies.
Dave. "In my experience with these kits you tend to do a great job--when building the third one!" Yeah, that has been on the back of my mind as I have only one, and would to extremely surprised to find another one, so will take my time and document the steps I take, even (and hopefully not) the wrong ones.
The club I belong to has a fairly good library and for years due to family and work commitments the only "model railroading time" I had was reading an article or two In the Model Railroader or the RMC before I nodded off. I've really been fascinated by, and admired the guys who took the time to write, the "Dollar Car" type projects, and incidentally have speculated how many people built items from those articles, and have thought that one day when I have time would like to have a crack at some of them.
As for this particular kit I am inclined to build it "as is",oversize grab irons and all, to "celebrate where the hobby was back then but incorporating both your ideas regarding the roof finishing and use of modern adhesives.
Bob, have bookmarked your grab iron articles for future reference.
Once again gents thanks for your tips and information.
Cheers, the Bear