The use of aspestos plaster for fire saftey. I have a couple scenery books fro the period of tbe 60s to 80s. That have that in it. The fibers were also suposed to keep it from cracking. And hold shape better. This one hits all three in the title
A pessimist sees a dark tunnel
An optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel
A realist sees a frieght train
An engineer sees three idiots standing on the tracks stairing blankly in space
Would the "Olfactory Airs" layout scents from Mikros around the mid/late '80s be in the running for either silliest and/or lamest?I guess it was the peak of the Scratch & Sniff era after all...
I still have some.of those. I figire at some time in the future it will probably be back. It looks like a loco, sounds like it, now it smells like it too
The "train set" military cars that shot missles, until consumer produce safety comcerns realized that kids could be injured by fast flying objects
(Olfactory Airs was my first choice, but chutton01 beat me too it; some environmental health concers there as well)
George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch
Who can forget Lionels train sets marketed for girls, with pink steam engines and such!
Bob Boudreau
CANADA
Visit my model railroad photography website: http://sites.google.com/site/railphotog/
Railphotog Who can forget Lionels train sets marketed for girls, with pink steam engines and such!
They didn't learn:
http://www.walmart.com/ip/39603781?wmlspartner=wlpa&adid=22222222227028866761&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=c&wl3=48328967672&wl4=&wl5=pla&wl6=97577312192&veh=sem
What's great about this one is the cars it comes with. I like how it references animals, but there are no stock cars. I guess the gondola is for the horse manure?
Julian
Modeling Pre-WP merger UP (1974-81)
Tyco's Chattanooga Choo-Choo with the tender drive and the front of the engine just going along for the ride. One of the magazines gave it a sterling revue!!!
Rick J
Rule 1: This is my railroad.
Rule 2: I make the rules.
Rule 3: Illuminating discussion of prototype history, equipment and operating practices is always welcome, but in the event of visitor-perceived anacronisms, detail descrepancies or operating errors, consult RULE 1!
chutton01 Would the "Olfactory Airs" layout scents from Mikros around the mid/late '80s be in the running for either silliest and/or lamest?I guess it was the peak of the Scratch & Sniff era after all... I liked Olifactory Airs. It added another dimension to the hobby which is now limited to 5..........relief (which is 3 dimensions), sound, and movement. Only when I suggested to Micros to do an outhouse smell, they thought I was nuts. HZ
Pan cake motors and Tyco trains in general
Jim
To be a little more serious, what about the hyperdetailed urethane kits from Sunshine Models, Railyard Models, Speedwitch Media, etc? Some are still available, but little is said about them, and I suspect they are a niche not too much larger than American TT or American OO.
JOHN BRUCE III To be a little more serious, what about the hyperdetailed urethane kits from Sunshine Models, Railyard Models, Speedwitch Media, etc? Some are still available, but little is said about them, and I suspect they are a niche not too much larger than American TT or American OO.
I wouldn't include Railyard Models in the "terrible/hilarious/just plain bad ideas" category which this topic was intended to encompass. They may have been semi-niche because many don't have the time or skills to build them, but they did give people an opportunity to build models of unavailable prototypes. IIRC, they offered a oft photographed D&RGW combo door box car that has never been availabe in plastic, for example.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
JOHN BRUCE IIITo be a little more serious, what about the hyperdetailed urethane kits from Sunshine Models, Railyard Models, Speedwitch Media, etc? Some are still available, but little is said about them...
The "average modeler" isn't the market for these, since most hobbyists have never attempted a resin car kit and never will. For those who are the target consumers for such models, they're a fine idea, as they allow for representations of prototypes that aren't available from higher volume manufacturers. You probably see a lot more of these in the pages of MR and elsewhere than you realize, as they fit in with more typical plastic cars once complete.
Instead of categorizing these cars with the "terrible fads/ideas/products that died off," I'd consider them successful products that cater to a limited market.
Rob Spangler
A bad idea from the very early days was giving your railroad a silly name. Thankfully that died out in the '40's - maybe the last well known 'silly' model railroad name was John Allen's "gory and defeated" G&D Line.
Using joke names for cities or industries...often with a pun or two... lasted a bit longer. 50-60 years ago I suspect 100's of model railroads had a "George's Gorge", playing on the name of then-well known TV wrestler Gorgeous George.
wjstix A bad idea from the very early days was giving your railroad a silly name. Thankfully that died out in the '40's - maybe the last well known 'silly' model railroad name was John Allen's "gory and defeated" G&D Line.
Now now, You're treading holy MR ground there with John Allen. He is worshipped, er, well respected by many. He did seem to be quite artistic from everything I've seen but to me it was in a Disney Land sort of way. Now there have been some realistic artists since then such as Mike Danneman etc. well I'm biased. He did a wonderful rendering of the D&RGW and scenery. I have to add that Rob Spangler has done some wonderful photo-realistic backdrops and scenery too in this day and age.
Well, there sure have been some real doozies from the past out there...
But——
I'm going to add a contemporary product to the list, with the caveat that "time will tell" but this is my early impression, anyway.
Rolling Thunder!
http://www.broadway-limited.com/rollingthunder.aspx
I just set up the system last night and gave it a cursory tryout. Somehow, I was expecting more!
Now, I only have the one Paragon3 locomotive to base this on, the Pennsy L1s, which— by itself has IMHO, awful sound reproduction. You would think things would improve as companies got more experience... but NOT this!
So, I have an engine with awful sound, and an amplified subwoofer to make that sound even worse. I'm sorry I didn't wait for reviews before I jumped in.
Maybe, after some tweaking, I'll be able to get something of use out of this but for now... no way!
My L1 has other problems as well but that's for another thread!
Happy Railroadin' Ed
Horn hook couplers!!!
For "just plain bad" I nominate: Horn-hook (X2F) couplers!
-Ken in Maryland (B&O modeler, former CSX modeler)
Cheap shot and really now, out of bounds for this topic. Shens!
I too have wondered about the Rolling Thunder. The name alone makes me chuckle and sure, it builds on the popular sound craze, but I'm not sure if thats something that has staying power either.
I have to add, some of the names of products these days are a bit commical, including the afformentioned Rolling Thunder, and I'll add TCS Wow Sound too. I mean, how do you top "Wow!", someone else will have to name their new sound product OMG! anything more superlative and it may be sensored! :D
I know we all used lichen "back in the day" and many still do, but I love how it was packaged. You can use it to scenic your layout AND make a table centerpiece!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/See-Niks-Landscaping-Accessories-Mixed-Lichen-Model-Train-Nature-Scenery-NEW-/191699021398
I disagree on the Tyco trains. They got a lot of folks including me started in model railroading. They were affordable and mine ran pretty well.
Enjoy
Paul
ctyclsscs I know we all used lichen "back in the day" and many still do, but I love how it was packaged. You can use it to scenic your layout AND make a table centerpiece! http://www.ebay.com/itm/See-Niks-Landscaping-Accessories-Mixed-Lichen-Model-Train-Nature-Scenery-NEW-/191699021398 Jim
How about Lone Star's old rubberband drive N Scale locomotives? In all fairness, these did actually give rise to N Scale as we know it.
Modeling the Pennsylvania Railroad in N Scale.
www.prr-nscale.blogspot.com
cold steald.c.c.
Having a laugh aren't you. How do you figure DCC fits the "terrible/hilarious/just plain bad ideas" when it has been gaining steam for well over 20 years now and most loco's are either DCC ready or have DCC installed. Uh huh, thought so. Enjoy yourself.
Yet those "lump tunnels" got Life-Like into the ice chest business (now called Lifoam)
Don't be dissing the Tyco brand - yeah, some of their stuff was rubbish, but lots could be upgraded to nice looking daily runners with some effort, and the structure kits improved with some paint and rework.Sadly, their line of freight cars with fantasy corporate branded liveries was in retrospect pretty silly, although probably very effective in catching a parent's/grandparent's eye when looking for a neat gift for little Johnny's trainset at the local Woolworths or Korvettes.Of course, in today's modeling marketplace, no serious manufacturer would ever consider producing freight cars in fantasy corporate liveries...
Gotta stick up for the NMRA horn hook couplers - as weird looking as they are. Prior to them, each manufacturer kind of did their own thing. When the NMRA developed the horn hooks (early 60s???), many companies adopted them and all of a sudden we could buy to much more equipment that could be readily used with one another.
Even with the advent of KDs, horn hooks were still a god send for the hobby. After all, they were "free" with Athearn and other kits, where as KDs were pricey (for that time of course). I still recall my first venture into installing KDs back in the early 1970s. It took me years to convert all my cars, and always had a couple of connector ones in service with NMRA on one end, KDs on the other.
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
Folks, neither Tyco or horn hook couplers were a bad thing for the hobby. I was wanting to hear about seriously awful things like the asbestos plaster that only few remember. Or the silly-named railroads/industries.
Yes, there have been some railroads or businesses on layouts that are puns or a play on words, but I don't think they ever really died out.
There is a guy who posts on another site whose railroad is the Ruphe & Tumbelle and for the images I have seen of it, it is a really nice layout.
One of the guys who posts here has a liqour store on his layout, Beaver Liqours. I can't help but to chuckle everytime I see it. If you just look around you still see it.
One thing I always thought that was bad were any of the Tyco automated items; operating crane unloader, coal unloading trestle, log dump unloader.
Robert H. Shilling II
Rubber-band diesel engines broke too often from overheating. Good thing many of us got "free replacements" when we got our teeth-braces!
Conemaugh Road & Traction circa 1956
BLI's animated Water tower has to be a silly idea.
(My Model Railroad, My Rules)
These are the opinions of an under 35 , from the east end of, and modeling, the same section of the Wheeling and Lake Erie railway. As well as a freelanced road (Austinville and Dynamite City railroad).
When I was a kid, I had a "voice control" thing for my Lionels. It had a "microphone" that you would talk into. It wasn't really a microphone, just a momentary-off switch that would open on a bit of air pressure when you spoke into it. It interrupted the voltage to the track, thus triggering a cycle of the Lionel engine's "E-unit." So, if the train was running and you said "Stop," it would stop. Unfortunately, of course, the E-unit would then back up the engine on the next cycle, so to maintain the illusion you had to tell the microphone "Reverse" or something, although, of course, saying "Beer" or anything else would have the same effect.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
CSX_road_slug For "just plain bad" I nominate: Horn-hook (X2F) couplers!
Ken,Those X2F couplers was needed in their day and when properly body mounted they worked quite well.
You see back then we had couplers,couplers every where that wouldn't mate with other brands and most worked quite poorly.
The X2F was a good idea at the time but,the X2F turned bad when companies like Tyco,Mantua,Life Like and other like manufacturers cheapen them and placed them on the trucks instead of the body.
We have crappy couplers on the market that's worst then the X2F.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
I had both the vertical launch missile, complete with a gantry tower that pulled back and a crane to lower the missile on to its launch pad, and the flatcar mounted "tactical" missile that I could shoot across my layout and hit .... the exploding box car!
Far from being bad ideas, though, these were good toys that added play value to my Lionels. Is a giraffe car stupid? No, not if it brings a smile to the face of a child.
The Yard Dog track cleaning thing it had a round cotton roll in front to clean the rails not enought weight to clean.
Russell
IMHO any track/roadbed system that has propriatory fastners. Makes it difficult to interface with other manufacturers. Good for first company, bad for hobby.
Dave
Love those Tyco brand name cars, nicely painted and as a buyer for a grocery chain ( since retired ) I dealt with all of the companies listed. I may have to look some of them up next time I'm at a train show.
The car with the propeller on end. MR had ads for it. Could it have been AHM?
Bernd
New York, Vermont & Northern Rwy. - Route of the Black Diamonds
protolancer(at)kingstonemodelworks(dot)com
riogrande5761 wjstix A bad idea from the very early days was giving your railroad a silly name. Thankfully that died out in the '40's - maybe the last well known 'silly' model railroad name was John Allen's "gory and defeated" G&D Line. Now now, You're treading holy MR ground there with John Allen. He is worshipped, er, well respected by many. He did seem to be quite artistic from everything I've seen but to me it was in a Disney Land sort of way. Now there have been some realistic artists since then such as Mike Danneman etc. well I'm biased. He did a wonderful rendering of the D&RGW and scenery. I have to add that Rob Spangler has done some wonderful photo-realistic backdrops and scenery too in this day and age.
John himself came to regret the name in his later years, especially as he became more and more interested in serious operations. So silly names, and including the G&D in that, is definitely fair game, since the builder himself felt the same way.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Ah yes the Atlas propeller driven "whatever it was" known as the Turbo Express.
http://www.hoseeker.net/AthearnBrochuresAds/TURBORACERFLYER.jpg
I would nominate the combined trainset/slot car sets that pretty much advertised the idea of "Hey kids! Try to beat the train to the crossing."
I read somewhere, by the way, that essentially none of the "horn hook" couplers used in train sets and sold to the public actually followed the NMRA coupler committee X2F design exactly. For one I believe that the actual X2F had a square surface below the hook that enabled trains to run in reverse. Or at least that was the hope. How and why they came up with a design that had no similarity to a prototype coupler I do not know, but it might be that they were trying to avoid even looking like the then pre-magnetic Kadee.
When a modeler was not busy slathering on the asbestos cement onto his mountains and hills, he was cleaning his wheels with carbon tetrachloride. And using raw mercury in small drilled holes to make the turntable indexing work (I no longer recall the whys behind the mercury but it was a real idea).
Dave Nelson
As one who enjoys rebuilding, painting and redecaling Athearn BBS and old Tyco cars I pick up at the swap meets I attend, I must say that Tyco cars can often be reworked to a higher level (see my recent Soo Line caboose in the photo gallery ).
More to the point: many fads were purposefully marketed as toys, nothing more, perhaps much less. Those pink Lionel engines failed to entice very many girls into the model railroading hobby; "cute" names for model railroads may more accurately reflect a hint of dis- ease with being a railroad aficianado, or desire to present ones hobby as actually being held at arms length when shown to others, perhaps to mitigate criticism that you "play with trains" as a mature adult. Who really knows? Fads are momentary, serve a limited purpose either commercially or socially, but one hopes that the pleasure of model railroading will endure!
Cedarwoodron
azrail Yet those "lump tunnels" got Life-Like into the ice chest business (now called Lifoam)
Being a life long Marylander who has been in this hobby for 45 years, and who has been in the old Life Like factory, I will tell you that you have it backwards.
Coolers came first - styrofoam tunnels were something they could sell in the winter and make with the same machinery.
Life Foam is still today the largest maufacturer of styrofoam products in the world.
From the tunnels they got into other model train scenery items - grass mats, "grass", "dirt", ballast, trees, etc. Their factory was in a part of Baltimore full of wood working industries - sawdust for "grass" and grass mats was readily available - CHEAP.
Then later they bought most of the Varney assets and became one of the first China produced brands - later they hired a young local modeler who had worked in a local train store - who helped them develop the Proto line........
All that from a styrofoam cooler turned upside down with a couple of tunnel portals cut in the ends and some green paint........
Sheldon
As a young modeler I remember reading the construction articles by E. L. Moore in RMC and some in M-R, and he always had a tongue-in-cheek approach to naming his structure projects. He was a prolific builder and author and many of his structures were used to pattern structures that we still use today.
I guess, golly gee whiz, it was a "clever" aspect of the hobby that has not stood the test of time.
Regards, Ed
Off themed train sets, like NASCAR..........as bad as pink train sets
Steamers without tender pickup.
Sawdust and RIT used for ground over, but then again, that was all we had.
Atlas under track mounted switch machines, good luck with those!
"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."-Albert Einstein
http://gearedsteam.blogspot.com/
"The car with the propeller on end. MR had ads for it. Could it have been AHM?
Bernd"
Rail Zeppelin - The prototype
http://www.alspcs.com/rail_zeppelin_03.jpg
The Turbo Express (ad link posted by dknelson) was a toy to take advantage of the slot car craze. More accurate models have been made by others such as Marklin and even Lionel.
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
Since most of my layout visitors are NOT into trains, I find that putting funny business names on my buildings is a way I can trick these people into being more interested. Once they discover one funny name, they start looking at more and more structures to see what they can find. Before long, they are praising the layout rather than sticking to the "grown man playing with trains" attitude they originally brought with them.
Hornblower
"Switching puzzles" as a method of 'realisitc operation.'
Thank God they disappeared back in the 80s as professional railroaders became willing to admit they were modelers too. I remember for a couple of years MR getting a fair number of letters saying "We'd never do that way, save brakemen's walking time, not moves!" And one letter pointing out that by rearranging the track plan all the industries could be worked trailing point, and with two fewer turnouts to boot.
Disclaimer: This post may contain humor, sarcasm, and/or flatulence.
Michael Mornard
Bringing the North Woods to South Dakota!
IHC Vanderbilt Tender ..... think they over done it alittle
I don't believe anybody has mentiond ASTRAC, "A Giant Step Forward In Model Railroading"
chutton01Would the "Olfactory Airs" layout scents from Mikros around the mid/late '80s be in the running for either silliest and/or lamest?
The Ferro KidHorn hook couplers!
Had it not been for the X2F coupler the HO market would never have taken off like it did in the late 1950s and early 1960s I would put the X2F in the running for a spot on the "7 wonders of the model railroading world".
Geared SteamAtlas under track mounted switch machines, good luck with those!
You mean there is something wrong with them????
wjstixA bad idea from the very early days was giving your railroad a silly name.
Jimmy_BraumBLI's animated Water tower has to be a silly idea.
I really wish those were still around! I would love to add the smell of creosote ties to my layout. To me, few things say "railroad" like the scent of creosote.
Lifoam was making ice chests before life-like was around. They started making train products to keep the factory working in the off season.
Gregg
Modeling the Bessemer and Lake Erie in 1969
Dave, you don't enjoy ramming your Athearn Genesis engines with slot cars?
The Bathtub Layout. I nearly electrocuted myself.
Rich
Alton Junction
Mheetu IHC Vanderbilt Tender ..... think they over done it alittle
Mheetu, Just sayin, thats a Rivarossi B&O 2-10-2 tender. Although, IHC MIGHT of made some....
Anyways, not including what was already said, I think Rivarossi's engines and cars in general arn't the best. (Over sized flanges, molded on detail, bad motors, loud gears, and cheap construction(like how their cars have the truck mounted hornhook couplers and the trucks are mounted via plastic pins, etc...))
Just my opinion
Charles
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Modeling the PRR & NYC in HO
Youtube Channel: www.youtube.com/@trainman440
Instagram (where I share projects!): https://www.instagram.com/trainman440
I, too, decried the idea of giving a model railroad a cutesy-poo name. John Allen's "Gorre & Daphetidd (or however it was spelled; I don't feel like looking it up) was almost universally mispronounced, back in the day. Most of us had no idea it was a pun--and most of the modelers I knew, including myself and my brother, pronounced it: "Gore and Daff-a-tid," just the way it was spelled, and most of us thought it was just names for the villages or towns on his excellent layout. It's interesting to note that Allen mentioned several times that the cuteness wore off quite soon, but it had gone to far for him to change it.
There was an excellent model railroad in Toronto called the B&R RR, which turned out to be named for the father and young son when started. I suspect they, too, may have regretted this decision when the son became a grownup. It was a hard enough job for us to convince outsiders that this was serious hobby, just "grown men playing with trains," when people named their roads things like the Putt-Putt Central, and I find it sad to see modern modelers writing about "playing with trains" after we and our forebears spent 70 or 80 years trying to discourage it. However, to each his own; as long as you're enjoying yourselves. My own HO Colorado Western became somewhat well known in the pages of Railroad Model Craftsman, back in the '70s---even if I did steal the Colorado Midland's herald. I think it was Tony Koester who spread the use of the term "prototype freelancing" to describe the practice. Enjoy. Excelsior!
Deano
Can I add a 1/1 example? Southern Pacific/ Santa Fe merger's blazing "Kodachrome" paint scheme! Reason enough to be glad it didn't come to pass.
Back to models... Fuzzy-hairy junk sticking out of steam loco smoke stacks never looked good, only ruined the photos.
AHM Rivarossi steamers were always geared way too fast. Exception; the Heisler. It's the only Rivarossi loco I still have in original form.
Bernd The car with the propeller on end. MR had ads for it. Could it have been AHM? Bernd
Atlas made that thing.
Another bad idea was Athearn's clip on plastic coupler box lids found on BB locomotives..
The X2F coupler applies to this topic description - it was another mainstream item for a long time, even if despised by many. RIP the X2F coupler and glad it's mainly in the dust bin of history.
[quote]
Geared Steam Off themed train sets, like NASCAR.........
Off themed train sets, like NASCAR.........
Again, another non-qualifier for this topic. Sure, serious model railroaders think those are silly toys but yet they continue to be produced over the years - there seems to be a significant market for that kind of stuff for sports or auto racing enthusiasts.
One man's poison is another man's treasure...or some such.
Although the horn hooks came in handy at the start of my MRR hobby I do believe the things did not perform all that well.
Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry
I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...
http://modeltrainswithmusic.blogspot.ca/
chutton01 Of course, in today's modeling marketplace, no serious manufacturer would ever consider producing freight cars in fantasy corporate liveries...
Of course, in today's modeling marketplace, no serious manufacturer would ever consider producing freight cars in fantasy corporate liveries...
Those are very Lionel-ish, but hardly as bad as tootsie roll tank cars and Chef Boyardee four bay open hoppers.
The fiber tie track came long before the plastic stuff. It used to be all there was, other than hald laying everything. Which is another of my peeves - handlaid track with spikes only every 5 ties or so. Sure it's plenty to hold the track, and the rails are nice and flowing the way only hand laid track can be, but the missing spikes stick out like sore thumbs.
As for X2f couplers - if you have the All Access Pass, or access to the old issues of MR, I suggest reading stuff from back when the design was developed and first offered. The junk on Life Like and Tyco train sets in the 70's are by no means what the X2f coupler was. The same thing has happened with knuckle couplers now that the Kadee patents have expired - look at all the knockoffs, some pretty poor quality ones. Calling them NMRA couplers is also not correct - the design was proposed to but never adopted by the NMRA. It briefly reignited the coupler wars, but it soon died down. Oh, and Kadee sold X2f couplers as well.
---Randy
arbe1948 I don't believe anybody has mentiond ASTRAC, "A Giant Step Forward In Model Railroading"
Why? It was neither a bad idea nor a bad product. Perhaps it was a bit ahead of its time, but the first of the other command control systems that came after it were built to be compatible.
It was reading the two chapters devoted to it in "The Complete Book of Model Railroading" that sold me on the idea that I would never build a serious layout and be chained to block toggles. By the time I could afford such things, we had progressed to CTC-16e and Rail Command, and then DCC was right around the corner. Outside of a small switching layout I built (and was in the middle of aquiring parts to build a CTC-16e for), any layout I've built as an adult has been DCC.
We can't forget that the X2f coupler helped promote the success of HO scale. Prior to their adop[tion, many of the larger manufacturers had their own design. Roundhouse had a reasonable die cast operating knuckle coupler, many companies offered a die cast dummy knuckle coupler. Mantua offered a loop and hook coupler. A local hobby shop owner in my home town of Dayton, Ohio designed and manufactured the "Baker" coupler . Many modelers in the mid 50s used his coupler. I don't know if the ever became used nationwide, but I would bet that other areas had locally produced couplers.
dinwittyI think one of the durnedest was a 2 truck GG1. There WAS a smaller GG1 like prototype, but with 6 powered wheels, 2 pilot trucks.
A bit OT, but I believe you are referring to the PRR P5A locomotives, which were not prototypes but a series of 90+ production locomotives, of which the 28 later ones were of the familiar GG1 "steeplecab" style. There were also 2 similar-looking one-off prototypes, R1 and DD2 - however, the wiki entry has an interesting note that documents uncovered a few years back indicate that the GG1 style was developedfirst, and then the 'P5A modified' styling (as well as the others) followed suit.
No, I think he's referring to the Tyco "GG-1" which had the Alco 6 axle (missing the center wheel sets!) trucks under it. From that Consolidated Foods era when Tyco was producing throwaway toys, not products meant to be part of a lifelong hobby. Those dark days I say drove more away from this hobby than it ever possibly helped bring in. You got the train set for CHristmas, and if it EVER ran (MR did some train set reviews in the late 70's and early 80's around the holiday issues - many of them you couldn't even put the track together without a huge gap because the tolerances on the track were so sloppy), it was often dead by New Year, or else just so frustrating that it got tossed in the corner and never touched again. This is the kind of stuff that made Athearn BB locos seem like the finest custom built craftsman locos, and if only the people who bought those cheap train sets would have picked up one of those Athearn locos and a few cars, and some Atlas track, they would have had a 'set' that would have worked and lasted.
slammin We can't forget that the X2f coupler helped promote the success of HO scale. Prior to their adop[tion, many of the larger manufacturers had their own design. Roundhouse had a reasonable die cast operating knuckle coupler, many companies offered a die cast dummy knuckle coupler. Mantua offered a loop and hook coupler. A local hobby shop owner in my home town of Dayton, Ohio designed and manufactured the "Baker" coupler . Many modelers in the mid 50s used his coupler. I don't know if the ever became used nationwide, but I would bet that other areas had locally produced couplers.
John Allen, way out on the West coast, was a big user of Baker couplers. For people doing prototypical operations back before Kadees, they seemed to be the go-to type.
Tyco Turbo train?
Looking cool, but hard to make it work as advertised.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57Kst-Ig4Zw
:)
Antoine
I happen to like silly names, especially companies (Dewey Cheatem & Howe, Napolmolive Detergent, Kyle Basa Sausage) that ship on my railroad. Otherwise, names are fairly prototypical.
Any Stooges fan worth their salt will have the law offices of Dewey, Cheatem & Howe.
Across town they have a competitor, with the first Howe's brother as a partner: Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman & Howe. As a Yes fan AND a Stooges fan I had to do it.
Remember this from 1964? I recall there was an article in MR about that time where someone actually incorporated slot cars into their layout. I doubt that many did.
DSchmitt Posted by Bernd on Wednesday, December 09, 2015 4:44 PM "The car with the propeller on end. MR had ads for it. Could it have been AHM? Bernd" Rail Zeppelin - The prototype http://www.alspcs.com/rail_zeppelin_03.jpg The Turbo Express (ad link posted by dknelson) was a toy to take advantage of the slot car craze. More accurate models have been made by others such as Marklin and even Lionel.
Mike
nycmodel Remember this from 1964? I recall there was an article in MR about that time where someone actually incorporated slot cars into their layout. I doubt that many did.
Some of the early HO slot car sets actually had 2 guide pin and the ability to run in reverse. There were even 'turnouts' for them - Atlas and maybe Aurora's original offerings, before they became strictly competition things. There were a few layouts in the magazine that had cars runnign in the streets, but yeah, it never really took off. The grade crossing came back in the 70's in Tyco's Road N Rail sets - I think they were most often used to stage grade crossing accidents than anything.
One of the great product failures was Schleicher's "The Model Locomotive Co." or something, which attempted to replicate that Baldwin catalog's mixing and matching of frames and boilers to build a series of small steam engines.
Though the idea was great, poor manufacturing quality doomed the project. Someone, somewhere, probably built a couple of engines successfully.
rrinker Any Stooges fan worth their salt will have the law offices of Dewey, Cheatem & Howe. Across town they have a competitor, with the first Howe's brother as a partner: Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman & Howe. As a Yes fan AND a Stooges fan I had to do it. --Randy
chutton01 dinwitty I think one of the durnedest was a 2 truck GG1. There WAS a smaller GG1 like prototype, but with 6 powered wheels, 2 pilot trucks. A bit OT, but I believe you are referring to the PRR P5A locomotives, which were not prototypes but a series of 90+ production locomotives, of which the 28 later ones were of the familiar GG1 "steeplecab" style. There were also 2 similar-looking one-off prototypes, R1 and DD2 - however, the wiki entry has an interesting note that documents uncovered a few years back indicate that the GG1 style was developedfirst, and then the 'P5A modified' styling (as well as the others) followed suit.
dinwitty I think one of the durnedest was a 2 truck GG1. There WAS a smaller GG1 like prototype, but with 6 powered wheels, 2 pilot trucks.
Sorry but the R1 was first, the PRR had a competition between the R1 - 4-8-4 and the GG1 - 4-6+6-4 (Actually they borrowed a New Haven Electric with that same wheel arrangement, tested it on their test track section, then ordered the first GG1 (Rivits)), and the flexibility of the GG1 won the day.
Graham Line One of the great product failures was Schleicher's "The Model Locomotive Co." or something, which attempted to replicate that Baldwin catalog's mixing and matching of frames and boilers to build a series of small steam engines. Though the idea was great, poor manufacturing quality doomed the project. Someone, somewhere, probably built a couple of engines successfully.
Don't forget Arbour Models with whatever metal they cast their engines out of, but the metal did not hold up on the running gear. I did see an Allegheny get built and run at one time, but little else.
rrinker nycmodel Remember this from 1964? I recall there was an article in MR about that time where someone actually incorporated slot cars into their layout. I doubt that many did. Some of the early HO slot car sets actually had 2 guide pin and the ability to run in reverse. There were even 'turnouts' for them - Atlas and maybe Aurora's original offerings, before they became strictly competition things. There were a few layouts in the magazine that had cars runnign in the streets, but yeah, it never really took off. The grade crossing came back in the 70's in Tyco's Road N Rail sets - I think they were most often used to stage grade crossing accidents than anything. --Randy
This is what my dad was building for me and my brother in the late 1980s - AT EYE LEVEL. I'm kind of glad he never completed it, because it would have been /really/ dangerous the way that those cars would come flying off the track. I like having two working eyes. Tyco sold those sets for a long time.
Ah, yes, dyed asbestos ground cover. Good times, good times. *cough*
I remember something nearly as inadvisable from back in the day. In our July 1948 issue, we published a reader tip from a fellow who powered the rails on his drawbridge with a pair of pins that, when the bridge was closed, made contact with two wells drilled in the landing abutment and filled with liquid mercury, thus completing the circuit. Which I'm sure worked wonderfully, if you ignore the health horror waiting to happen. Thankfully we know better now (and have micro-switches to handle such applications).
--Steven Otte, Model Railroader senior associate editorsotte@kalmbach.com
I didn't see it above, so I'll through it in here: AMI Instant Roadbed (Scenic Express Black Track Tack). That product alone caused me to stop playing with trains for 4 years when I was in my early teens.
I just skimmed through all three pages. Maybe I missed it, but I don't think anybody has mentioned brass track or oversized, knife-edged flanges.
Tom
Yes, maybe not a bad idea, but for the expense, limitations, and operation faults: overheating, noise, and reduced top speeds were noted cut it short. Introduced by GE in 1963, developments stopped in 1964, and product dumped in 1965.
A good overview of ASTRAC can be read here:
http://www.dccwiki.com/ASTRAC
There's been quite a bit of back and forth of the X2F coupler. How about its N Scale counterpart, the Rapido coupler?
I still recall the Mantua HO hook and hoop couplers. X2F actually was an improvement.
GARRY
HEARTLAND DIVISION, CB&Q RR
EVERYWHERE LOST; WE HUSTLE OUR CABOOSE FOR YOU
ACYI don't think anybody has mentioned brass track
ACYI just skimmed through all three pages. Maybe I missed it, but I don't think anybody has mentioned brass track or oversized, knife-edged flanges. Tom
*Including the Lifelike Logging Mill which my parent got me as a kid...and while I liked to play with it, it made absolutely no sense - you loaded the logs in the high bin, the logs rolled onto the log car, you shunt the log car around then back to the same spot, and then dump the logs into the (painted) pond... whatever, it was fun at the time).
nycmodelRemember this from 1964? I recall there was an article in MR about that time where someone actually incorporated slot cars into their layout. I doubt that many did.
chutton01from what I can find Nickel-Silver rail wasn't generally available till the early 1970s.
But how about the Atlas "brown" ties that lasted about 3 years.
Have fun with your trains
GP-9_Man11786 There's been quite a bit of back and forth of the X2F coupler. How about its N Scale counterpart, the Rapido coupler?
My first few years in N I use those couplers.. Terrible at best and while not impossible it made switching a chore.One needed a feather touch on the throttle.
Texas Zepher chutton01 from what I can find Nickel-Silver rail wasn't generally available till the early 1970s. Atlas produced it on the fiber ties for as long as I can remember. Had a hugh layout of it on fiber ties about 1963. Every one just ignored it because it was a tiny bit more expensive and no one had "extra" money in those days for luxuries like that. Even gave way for me due to the plastic ties (cool) and cheaper price. Don't remember when they started putting the NS on plastic. But how about the Atlas "brown" ties that lasted about 3 years.
chutton01 from what I can find Nickel-Silver rail wasn't generally available till the early 1970s.
Atlas produced it on the fiber ties for as long as I can remember. Had a hugh layout of it on fiber ties about 1963. Every one just ignored it because it was a tiny bit more expensive and no one had "extra" money in those days for luxuries like that. Even gave way for me due to the plastic ties (cool) and cheaper price. Don't remember when they started putting the NS on plastic.
If the original nickel-silver track was still on fiber ties, there was no real reason to pay attention to it. By the 80's the companies making better track products were producing them in nickel-silver only, right? Maybe decent quality switches (including curved) were a big part of the switchover?
BRAKIE GP-9_Man11786 There's been quite a bit of back and forth of the X2F coupler. How about its N Scale counterpart, the Rapido coupler? My first few years in N I use those couplers.. Terrible at best and while not impossible it made switching a chore.One needed a feather touch on the throttle.
I wonder if it's fair to say the hobby flurished because of X2F/Rapido couplers, or in spite of them?
GP-9_Man11786 How about Lone Star's old rubberband drive N Scale locomotives? In all fairness, these did actually give rise to N Scale as we know it.
How about Athern's old rubberband drive HO Scale locomotives? I think some of the cast metal shell Mantua or Varney locos [F3, GP7?] were rubberband drive as well.
Of course, it's when first-generation sub-optimal efforts such as these come along that efforts to build a better mousetrap follow.
Milepost 266.2 I wonder if it's fair to say the hobby flurished because of X2F/Rapido couplers, or in spite of them?
So far as Lionel, Marx and American Flyer equipment go, the magnetic cattle cars, operating crossing guard flagman and unlimited strings of beer company livery reefers and pickle vat cars come to mind. But that can also be described as a gray dividing line between toy trains and modeling, and those with a superdetailed brewery or pickle processor as an on line industry get a pass.
Milepost 266.2 chutton01 Of course, in today's modeling marketplace, no serious manufacturer would ever consider producing freight cars in fantasy corporate liveries... Those are very Lionel-ish, but hardly as bad as tootsie roll tank cars and Chef Boyardee four bay open hoppers.
G Paine The "train set" military cars that shot missles, until consumer produce safety comcerns realized that kids could be injured by fast flying objects (Olfactory Airs was my first choice, but chutton01 beat me too it; some environmental health concers there as well)
This was the first one I thought of but I decided to read the other replies before offering it.
The government really are killjoys when it comes to kid's toys. One of my favorite toys were the bow and arrow sets that shot suction cup arrows. Of course it was only a matter of time before the suction cup wore/fell off but the arrows could still fly. Spring loaded dart guns, also with suction cup tips were cool too. And let's not forget the line of toy guns Mattel came out with that had spring loaded cartridges that fired plastic bullets. You could also put Greenie Stick'em Caps on them and get sound effects as well. I think we had a lot more fun than kids have today with their electronic games.
As for those Athearn rubber band drive locos - many of them they sold both ways, with a rubber band "Hi-Fi" drive and with a traditional gear drive. Now here's the rub - the rubber band drive models had full 8 wheel power pickup. The gear drive versions only picked up from one side of each truck. So while the mechanical running properties of the rubber band drive locos wasn't as good, the electrical characteristics were actually better.
jecorbett G Paine The "train set" military cars that shot missles, until consumer produce safety comcerns realized that kids could be injured by fast flying objects (Olfactory Airs was my first choice, but chutton01 beat me too it; some environmental health concers there as well) G Paine The "train set" military cars that shot missles, until consumer produce safety comcerns realized that kids could be injured by fast flying objects (Olfactory Airs was my first choice, but chutton01 beat me too it; some environmental health concers there as well) This was the first one I thought of but I decided to read the other replies before offering it. The government really are killjoys when it comes to kid's toys. One of my favorite toys were the bow and arrow sets that shot suction cup arrows. Of course it was only a matter of time before the suction cup wore/fell off but the arrows could still fly. Spring loaded dart guns, also with suction cup tips were cool too. And let's not forget the line of toy guns Mattel came out with that had spring loaded cartridges that fired plastic bullets. You could also put Greenie Stick'em Caps on them and get sound effects as well. I think we had a lot more fun than kids have today with their electronic games.
And let's not forget lawn darts!
Graham Line One of the great product failures was Schleicher's "The Model Locomotive Co." or something, which attempted to replicate that Baldwin catalog's mixing and matching of frames and boilers to build a series of small steam engines. Though the idea was great, poor manufacturing quality doomed the project. Someone, somewhere, probably built a couple of engines successfully. .
-Peter. Mantua collector, 3D printing enthusiast, Korail modeler.
Milepost 266.2I wonder if it's fair to say the hobby flurished because of X2F/Rapido couplers, or in spite of them?
Yes, N Scale has been around for 55 years(started in 1960) and it was several years before the MT coupler was released.
The X2F coupler worked quite well when correctly body mounted.. The bad was the train set truck mounted X2F couplers that most new modelers started with and judges the X2F couplers by.
Did you know there was metal X2F couplers with a small spring on the back? These springs was similar to today's KD knuckle spring.
BTW..Advanced modelers use a small flat tip screw driver to uncouple cars.. Today we use bamboo skewers to uncouple KD couplers
Howard Zane chutton01 Would the "Olfactory Airs" layout scents from Mikros around the mid/late '80s be in the running for either silliest and/or lamest?I guess it was the peak of the Scratch & Sniff era after all... I liked Olifactory Airs. It added another dimension to the hobby which is now limited to 5..........relief (which is 3 dimensions), sound, and movement. Only when I suggested to Micros to do an outhouse smell, they thought I was nuts. HZ
You'd be nuts to pay for it when you could make it yourself.
Just be glad you don't have to press "2" for English.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ_ALEdDUB8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hqFS1GZL4s
http://s73.photobucket.com/user/steemtrayn/media/MovingcoalontheDCM.mp4.html?sort=3&o=27
"Biffy" (outhouse) modeling contests sponsored by the NMRA and perhaps others.
Thank goodness we've outgrown the bathroom humor!
Just a brief flash in the pan - COLD STEAM (dry ice) locomotives. I understand that in operation the stack would ice up like a mint julep glass.
I disagree about a number of the products others have called bad ideas. Many of them were state of the (not very advanced) art when made by people working out of garages, basements and spare bedrooms. Advances in technology always leave earlier products lying in the dust. (1980-ish mobile phone about the size and weight of a brick...) That doesn't mean that the products were bad THEN, although they appear ludicrous NOW.
About the time the 'sorta like an X2F' coupler made HO toy train sets practical, Japanese RTR manufacturers standardized on a close approximation of the Baker coupler. I have a small pile of them, removed from freight cars now equipped with Kadees.
I also have one of those much-maligned Mantua Loggers (which actually hauled Gilsonite, not logs.) The chassis of another is under TTT F101, which looks rather more JNR than Uintah (superstructure inspired by the E10 class 2-10-4T.)
Use of toxic and hazardous materials by model railroaders was much more common before the CPSC and that California sticker made people conscious of the dangers. There was a nice article (forget which mag) about weathering model timber with dye - aniline dye, toxic as **!! It was not alone.
When the Talgo truck-mounted couplers appeared they were actually praised by the model press, as a way to get cars around tight radii...
And now a counter-question. What's (supposed to be) wrong with plastic wheels?
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
chutton01*Including the Lifelike Logging Mill which my parent got me as a kid...and while I liked to play with it, it made absolutely no sense - you loaded the logs in the high bin, the logs rolled onto the log car, you shunt the log car around then back to the same spot, and then dump the logs into the (painted) pond... whatever, it was fun at the time).
LOL, I had the same conundrum, it didn't make sense but yet........it was fun at 7 years old (and I still have it sitting on a shelf, right beside the Tyco Freight unloading depot.
Can you imagine pushing concrete pipes down a ramp? Maybe they should have called it "The Gravel House"
https://youtu.be/hxyw1WZGP58
Of course, you would also need this!
Geared SteamLOL, I had the same conundrum, it didn't make sense but yet........it was fun at 7 years old (and I still have it sitting on a shelf, right beside the Tyco Freight unloading depot. Can you imagine pushing concrete pipes down a ramp? Maybe they should have called it "The Gravel House" Of course, you would also need this!
Ah, a fellow aficinado of the glorious Tyco way.I might just know a thing or two about that Tyco Freight Unloading Depot...
This AFAIK is the oldest freight car I own, from my first layout in 1976/77. Motive power was a PRR Tyco 0-4-0 Shifter & Tender, and I'm pretty sure I also had a Blue B&M offset open hopper as that was required by law then (that, or the famed "Hooker" chemical tank car - just the thing to get preteen boys smirking). I think my parents brought the unloader at the same time as the train set, it did work (and the little tractor's blade often did catch on the flatcar as in the video), but my unloader must have been old stock, as it didn't have the painted shrubs and weeds around the concrete base like the Tripod page images shows.OK, yes, I did upgrade the flat car around the turn of the century as a nod to it's importance in my history; new KD body mounted couplers, new trucks attached by screws to the body, and a new brake wheel & staff (from some other car). Airbrushed the pipes Floquil concrete, and one day I'll add the remaining chains so that 3 chains criss-cross each pipe - I ran out back then, and hey it's not contest quality anyway...
chutton01and hey it's not contest quality anyway...
But,it looks great! I likes.
BRAKIE chutton01 and hey it's not contest quality anyway... But,it looks great! I likes.
chutton01 and hey it's not contest quality anyway...
I agree with Larry, it looks great.
I also had the 0-4-0 with slope back tender, that got lost over the years. I still have the white Dairyman Milk Car and the red SF caboosearound here somewhere.
Geared Steam BRAKIE chutton01 and hey it's not contest quality anyway... But,it looks great! I likes
BRAKIE chutton01 and hey it's not contest quality anyway... But,it looks great! I likes
But,it looks great! I likes
One thing I think is worth mentioning as a very bad modeling idea but,was still popular during the 50s...
How many can recall making lead figures in wooden molds? The lead could be bought in square strips at hardware stores or removed from old car batteries then melted and poured into a figure mold.
A lot of those figures you see in photos of the G&D and other layouts of that time was made that way and IIRC there was articles in MR on making these lead figures.
There was no safety involved in making these figures.
The Ferro Kid rrinker Any Stooges fan worth their salt will have the law offices of Dewey, Cheatem & Howe. Across town they have a competitor, with the first Howe's brother as a partner: Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman & Howe. As a Yes fan AND a Stooges fan I had to do it. --Randy Another great 3-Stooges law firm was "Cess Poole & Drayne" from a 1947 short.
Another great 3-Stooges law firm was "Cess Poole & Drayne" from a 1947 short.
Side dump gons marketed as "log cars" back in the '70s. Mine was forever dumping over in the middle of curves, sending the plastic logs onto another track or onto the floor. Say hello to a static display!
Also, using a soldering iron to distress freight cars. While not a product per se, it was a technique that introduced a teenaged me to the wonders of burns from soldering irons and toxic petrochemical fumes if I got too close to the car side and melted the plastic.
I just remembered another: used coffee grounds as scenery material. If you like bugs (and who doesn't?), this was the technique for you!
How about this fad?
CLEANING TRACK WITH STEEL WOOL! Enough people did this in the 40's and 50's that Lindsay put screens on their motors to keep bits of steel from getting sucked in and shorting out the motors. I've seen old mechanisms at train shows that were absolutely clogged with the stuff. Good thing we have plenty of alternatives now!
_________________________________________________________________
After reading this, I'd say about 90% of the "terrible" items listed were actually best available technology for the time and without them we might not have any model railroading hobby. If model railroading is still around in 50 years there will be someone doing a thread like this saying model building was such a bad idea since they will have holographic layouts.
jim
I don't think that's so ridiculous. Not that long ago I saw a feature on the Wazzup Dock Railroad. And I'm still seeing punny names for industries on published track plans.
As for me, my model railroad will have Princess Dairies, North American Veeblefetzer (from Mad magazine, and I'm hoping to display Arthur the potted plant in a window), a Shotz brewery (from Laverne & Shirley) and Our Lady of Perpetual Guilt (Roman Catholic, of course, like me). One town is called Clarksville (as in "last train to..."). The herald for my Omaha Southern Railroad will be based on the chakram (a circular weapon) from the later seasons of Xena: Warrior Princess.
John Armstrong kept this sort of thing up throughout his life. Even manufacturers still get into the act. I saw a commercial model of a used-car lot, and the phone number was BR-549, a reference to a continuing sketch on "Hee Haw". And there are plenty of real-life names that are deliberately or accidentally funny: Diehl Ford (pronounced "deal") in Bellingham, Washington; the Rust Tractor Company in Albuquerque. Both are family names. And then there was (also in Albuquerque) A Real Muffler Shop, so named to get it placed first in the phone book, which concluded its ads with: "...because we're not a pretend muffler shop, we're A Real Muffler Shop!"
It's a matter of personal preference. Not all of us want to be prototype-specific!
riogrande5761 cold steal d.c.c. Having a laugh aren't you. How do you figure DCC fits the "terrible/hilarious/just plain bad ideas" when it has been gaining steam for well over 20 years now and most loco's are either DCC ready or have DCC installed. Uh huh, thought so. Enjoy yourself.
cold steal d.c.c.
I'm with you on that, though I don't use DCC myself. On that subject, not a bad idea but one that came too early was Astrac, by General Electric. This was the first ancestor of DCC, and thoroughly tested by Linn Westcott, who gave it a thumbs-up. The problems were several: there were only five channels, and Channel 3 was not available as a stand-alone; it was bulky for HO, as components were not solid-state (and computer chips were not even a gleam in anyone's eye in 1963), though part of the casing could be pared away; a receiver was set to a single fixed channel, so two locomotives set to the same channel would either have to be doubleheaded or not used at the same time. As a throttle it was great, however. GE soon withdrew support for the product and Astrac was already history before 1970.
BRAKIE CSX_road_slug For "just plain bad" I nominate: Horn-hook (X2F) couplers! Ken,Those X2F couplers was needed in their day and when properly body mounted they worked quite well. You see back then we had couplers,couplers every where that wouldn't mate with other brands and most worked quite poorly. The X2F was a good idea at the time but,the X2F turned bad when companies like Tyco,Mantua,Life Like and other like manufacturers cheapen them and placed them on the trucks instead of the body. We have crappy couplers on the market that's worst then the X2F.
For details on the "coupler wars", get an All-Access Pass and read about the subject in the back issues from the 1950s. If Kadee couplers had turned up just a couple of years sooner it might have been moot. Linn Westcott was very picky about horn-hooks; he refused to call them X2F couplers because the actual products had an integral spring instead of the separate springs of the design, or NMRA couplers because although the committee that created them (headed by famous model railroader Paul Mallery) operated under NMRA auspices, they were never endorsed by the NMRA. Oddly enough, even the NMRA website sometimes calls them "NMRA" couplers!
The idea was to produce something that worked and was simple to manufacture, and the X2F met those requirements. But truck mountings on the sharp curves of most model railroads of the 1960s compromised its efficiency, as with the bulky Rapido couplers of N scale later. (This too was a compromise, adopted by European manufacturers and already in place when N scale came to the U.S. 50 years ago. Lone Star's models were actually 1:152 and called OOO "gauge", later regauged to N but not re-scaled.)
The trend today is for broader curves on all but the smallest of layouts, and knuckle couplers as pioneered by Kadee in the smaller scales. (Lionel, of course, had truck-mounted knuckle couplers since the late 1930s, and American Flyer used them in S scale from around 1947). But the humble X2F served its purpose in providing inexpensive train sets and equipment for beginning modelers.
How about those collectible beer cars (reefers with assorted craft brewery liveries)? Anyway, the prototype does enough of that, from the NS heritage fleet to the blue "Take an Alberta Break" and green "Saskatchewan!" covered hoppers. Or Guilford renaming itself the Pan American Railroad and using the old airline logo as its herald. As even freight lines are not as ubiquitous as they once were, the idea of rolling billboards has faded away, though we still see some colorful company-owned cars, mainly from chemical companies.
BRAKIE One thing I think is worth mentioning as a very bad modeling idea but,was still popular during the 50s... How many can recall making lead figures in wooden molds? The lead could be bought in square strips at hardware stores or removed from old car batteries then melted and poured into a figure mold. A lot of those figures you see in photos of the G&D and other layouts of that time was made that way and IIRC there was articles in MR on making these lead figures. There was no safety involved in making these figures.
This used to be fairly common for military modelers, especially those who wargame with miniature figures. Commercial kits were available as late as the 1980s, using rubber molds secured with wood strips (because of the heat) and thick rubber bands. Prince August was one manufacturer; they also sold lead and other appropriate accessories. They did caution about vapor from the melted lead as well as the heat. I still have several molds, accessories and lead bars.
Similar warnings came with products like Cerro Bend and Cerro Safe, which model railroaders used. I haven't seen the articles in question, but I'm sure the authors warned about hot metal. Similarly, lead has been used to give locomotives extra weight for traction. Lead is not a metal to be regarded lightly, but even without protective gear it can be handled safely when cold - just wash your hands, carefully clean up any filings, and you shouldn't have food or drinks around a modeling project anyway.
Back when there was a controversy over lead and it was abolished for wargaming and fantasy miniature figures, an exemption was granted for model railroaders precisely because of the uses we made of lead and the attention to safety. I remember this because I worked for a wargaming wholesaler/mail order store and manufacturers were scrambling to change over to pewter. (And it gave Games Workshop an opportunity to raise prices again!)
Model railroaders continue to use dangerous chemicals, with appropriate warnings. Photoetching involves acid, for instance. At one time carbon tetrachloride was used to clean track (and available over-the-counter as a spot remover for clothing). And once upon a time, when battery power was the norm (not all homes were wired for electricity), there was more than one case of model railroaders being electrocuted by their homemade power supplies. This sort of thing is why MR has a stock warning about 110V connections in wiring diagrams.
On the subject of brass track, it was popular because it looked like real rail (except the shiny surface where the wheels ran), but fell out of popularity because it had to be cleaned much more frequently. This was due to oxidation, which made the sides of the rails look even better; but the oxidized layer was non-conductive. Nickel silver was already commonly available in the 1960s, and N scale used it exclusively, as far as I can remember.
I remember an article in MR, about the early history of electric trains. One set had the rails powered...straight to the electrical outlet!
Hmmm. That would keep the cats off the layout, huh?
I think I still have that mag and article. Anyone else remember it?
I don't either. My wife gets her hair done at a place called Curl Up And Dye. There are lots of funny business names in the world as well as funny place names (off the top of my head, I can think of 3 actual place names that would get me permanently banned if I posted them).
Some funny business names that actually exist. http://www.pleated-jeans.com/2013/10/07/20-of-the-funniest-business-names-of-all-time/
Here's a few place names: http://mentalfloss.com/article/27987/15-places-strange-names-and-how-they-got-them
Think of it this way. You could always live in Dull, Scotland or Boring, Oregon. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-28691197
Andre
The X2F sure has had a history of both good and bad. All my freight cars have kadee but some older IHC, AHM, Rivorossi passenger cars I keep the X2F's but only having a transition car in front with a knuckle coupler. nobody can notice the X2F's when running or sitting on a siding. I don't back them up or make up a passenger train in a yard so for now the X2F's work just fine.
andrechapelonHere's a few place names: http://mentalfloss.com/article/27987/15-places-strange-names-and-how-they-got-them Think of it this way. You could always live in Dull, Scotland or Boring, Oregon. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-28691197 Andre
Interestingly, the second of your links I quoted (regarding Dull, Scotland) is authored by one "Glenn Campbell" and the prior link mentions a town in the U.S. named Glen Campbell. The same name, sans one "n". Coincidence?
I think not.
There was a small restaurant in Reedsport, Oregon called
Half Fast Cafe. I shoulda took a picture.
Javelina a town in the U.S. named Glen Campbell.
The Scottish naming tradition used "Glen" to mean valley. So Glen Campbell would be first settled by a Campbell.
Atlas had brass rail too in N.
BroadwayPhilFor details on the "coupler wars", get an All-Access Pass and read about the subject in the back issues from the 1950s. If Kadee couplers had turned up just a couple of years sooner it might have been moot. Linn Westcott was very picky about horn-hooks; he refused to call them X2F couplers because the actual products had an integral spring instead of the separate springs of the design, or NMRA couplers because although the committee that created them (headed by famous model railroader Paul Mallery) operated under NMRA auspices, they were never endorsed by the NMRA. Oddly enough, even the NMRA website sometimes calls them "NMRA" couplers!
Actually my Dad was a modeler and I have first hand knowledge on how most of the couplers worked and the best of the lot was Bakers but,X2F took hold and flourished.
Lynn pushed the idea of a standard coupler instead of the hodge podge collection of couplers we had.
ACY I don't think anybody has mentioned brass track
Brass track carried the HO element of the hobby for about 50 years. Nickel silver track came out in the early 1960s and almost everyone ignored it until the 1980s when suddenly everyone who had been ignoring it all those years suddenly started yelling brass was bad. ??? Never understood that lack of awareness.
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I don't think brass rail was a fad or a bad idea as many of us still utilize it today. It never warranted as bad a rap as it still gets from many out there. It may not work as well for DCC but works fine for DC users.
Dave, you don't enjoy ramming your Athearn Genesis engines with slot cars? Jim
You've got more money than me if you can afford to buy detailed exensive models just to ram them with slot cars. I mean, who wouldn't want to do that?
jmbjmb After reading this, I'd say about 90% of the "terrible" items listed were actually best available technology for the time and without them we might not have any model railroading hobby. jim
After reading this, I'd say about 90% of the "terrible" items listed were actually best available technology for the time and without them we might not have any model railroading hobby. jim
I'm going to have to agree with this one. But as is the MO for this forum, people to turn topics into what suites them, not what the topic is supposed to be about. Sort of a coffee clutch for remembering the olden days for train guys.
riogrande5761coffee clutch
not to shift gears, but it is coffee klatch
maxman riogrande5761 coffee clutch not to shift gears, but it is coffee klatch
riogrande5761 coffee clutch
Thats a new one on me, maybe it depends on what part of the country you live in? For me it's northern California, Texas, Indiana, New York and Virginia. I've always heard "Clutch". You know the old saying, YMMV.
eaglescout don't think brass rail was a fad or a bad idea as many of us still utilize it today. It never warranted as bad a rap as it still gets from many out there. It may not work as well for DCC but works fine for DC users.
Where the bad rap came from was from the pages of MR and RMC in the form of infomercial articles.
Brass track worked back then and it still works today.
riogrande5761 riogrande5761 coffee clutch not to shift gears, but it is coffee klatch Thats a new one on me, maybe it depends on what part of the country you live in? For me it's northern California, Texas, Indiana, New York and Virginia. I've always heard "Clutch". You know the old saying, YMMV.
riogrande5761 coffee clutch not to shift gears, but it is coffee klatch
Just plain wrong: http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/coffee.html
Sorry, just trying to provide some feedback.
Wouldn't want Big Dog to copy your post and have the incorrect word inside his copy cup.
Coffee clutch is just a terrible phrase that should have died off with brass track.
Anyway, it's just a relatively minor cosmetic change.
maxman Just plain wrong: http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/coffee.html Sorry, just trying to provide some feedback. Wouldn't want Big Dog to copy your post and have the incorrect word inside his copy cup. Coffee clutch is just a terrible phrase that should have died off with brass track. Anyway, it's just a relatively minor cosmetic change.
I don't know how I'm going to break it to all those people who have been saying it "wrong" for all these years. Well, I guess they unwittingly "coined" a new term - best let Wiki and Urban Dictionary know, heh heh.
Anyway, don't shoot the messenger, like thousands of others, I'm just passing on what I've heard as a popular saying for many years.
duplicate due to lag glitch
maxmanCoffee clutch
That term been use for years in some areas of the country just like coffee fix,coffee crutche,cup of mud,cup of joe,java and my favorite 'eye opener' plus a host of other names.
Another my Grandfather use was 'tender water' if the coffee was too weak for his taste and that was any coffee that wasn't strong enough to hold a spoon up.
BRAKIE'tender water'
aka: bilge water and panther pee
Southgate - yes - power straight from the wall socket to the rails was very common in pre WWI Europe. Marklin and Bing both offered numerous sets that ran off of 220v. I knew a collector many years ago whose entire train collection was made up of these trains. The insulation on the center rail was something to see and he was very careful not to run them too fast - in case of a derailment.
BRAKIE eaglescout don't think brass rail was a fad or a bad idea as many of us still utilize it today. It never warranted as bad a rap as it still gets from many out there. It may not work as well for DCC but works fine for DC users. Where the bad rap came from was from the pages of MR and RMC in the form of infomercial articles. Brass track worked back then and it still works today.
I agree that brass track works fine. My first layouts used brass track both sectional and fiber tie flex track from Atlas.
I don't personally like the color as well as NS, but operationally it's fine.
Jetrock - It's my understanding that the biggest deposits of unobtainium can be found on Pandora
I see all the comments about the X2F coupler. True, it was ugly. And also true, many manufacturer's versions were lousy at best. But . . . as many have pointed out, it was better than a lot that were available before, and it became sort of a standard until modellers made the Kadee the defacto standard.
I bought my first HO models (in 1957) from a fellow who decided to get out of model railroading (he later got back in, and became a very accomplished modeller). All the equipment had dummy couplers . . . they sure looked good, but they still were dummies. I soon changed everything to X2F, and that's what I used until the mid-70s or so. They, unlike some other things people have cited, served a purpose.
I used brass track for the first 15-20 years . . . it was the only track available. When I built a layout in out first house, in the late 70s, I used NS . . . because it looked better.
mersenne6 Jetrock - It's my understanding that the biggest deposits of unobtainium can be found on Pandora
Hi all
Well I am surprised
No one has mentioned the most useless and incompetent piece of model railroad design that just should never have been allowed to continue.
As it covers up bad first design and when failed you can never get the right spare.
And that is traction tyres.
They get the lemon of a life time award from me because all it means to me is that the loco so fitted is a, BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!! erhm sorry about the language, but I hate them it means cheap skate poor design in the first place.
I just will not knowingly purchase a loco so fitted and then if discovered straight away before use will then be returned for refund.
I just won't pay good money for a #### product I can't afford to.
I am surprised many Toy Train products are listed they are surely out of context with a Model Railroad thread
I had some similar items as a child and loved them.
Strange or funny names for Railroads and lineside are as old as the hobby it's self.
Love them or hate them I think they are here to stay.
regards John
I'm not going to re-read through 5 pages but did anyone mention those magnetic air hoses that WOWed everyone a year or two ago? I was recently reminded of them in another forum and every since the initial wow factor, I totally forgot about them. Bad idea or no, they looked cool in a close up video but seriously, how many peope had the time or money to out fit more than a few cars with them? Probably it would be rare to find a layout with all the freight cars outfitted and operational.
After the initial video's of the magnetic operational air hoses came out, I totally forgot about them. I but a number of peope bought a few to play with but expect these may have fallen into the category of this thread after a year or so.
The GSB sd 40-2 was another disappointment. Nice body, motor and details. Terrible trucks and production delays doomed a great idea.
riogrande5761 to out fit more than a few cars
csxns riogrande5761 to out fit more than a few cars Pelle Soeborg.
Pelle Soeborg.
Ah, did Pelle do the magnetic brake hose treatment to his entire fleet?
It will be interesting to see, but in terms of practicality, I wonder if the magnetic brake hoses will ever grow beyond a novelty stage. The fact that you have to buy and install them individually on potentially many many cars makes me think only a few individuals will go to the trouble. But I could be wrong. They are cool looking.
eaglescout
Lionel railscope, poor performance and black and white images.
JetrockMaybe it should be filed under the "whimsical industry name" category, but it seemed like model railroads of the 1960s (as seen in MR) were often likely to have an "unobtainium" mine somewhere. This mythical mineral must have been completely mined out, as the modern unobtainium industry seems to have vanished among contemporary model railroaders. Or is there demand for an April Fools' edition of "The Model Railroader's Guide to Industries Along The Tracks: Unobtaininum Mining"?
Not bloody likely...............
Southeast......Southwest
Ship IT on the FRISCO!
Chief cook & bottle-washer, SLSF Arthur Sub, Paris, TX, circa 1975-1978
True, brass track has its problems, especially with oxidation, but it still beats the steel track some manufacturer put out. Steel track is a waste of resources, and belongs in the dustbin of bad ideas along with plastic Kadee coupler knock-offs. The other products (horn-hook couplers, track with fiber ties) would never be seen on my layout these days, but I understand that was what was available back then.
The final nail in the X2F coffin was when the KD clones hit the market (not that I like them) but then the X2F was finally relegated to memory for most of us. The X2F is dead, long live the X2F!
Ah the X2F coupler.
A string of cars with truck mounted X2F's on 15" curves. Guaranteed to derail on every backup.
Those were the days
Enjoy Paul
Paul,Just the thought of coupler mounted X2F couplers makes me chuckle.. All to sadly that's the way most younger modelers think of those couplers.
Younger modelers meaning those that wasn't around when the X2F was body mounted and worked quite well when properly mounted.
As far as backing up there are those among us that can't back a cut of KD coupler equipped cars without dumping them on the ground.
I suspect I could back a cut of cars with truck mounted couplers around those 15" curves since its all in the speed.
Not neccesarily a bad idea but I've never seen one since: back in the 1950s my brother and I received a gift from Santa Clause of an American Flyer layout on a 4x8 piece of plywood which had an automatic cattle loader. The loader consisted of a vibrating piece of a fuzzy material in the stock yard that would allow the 'vibrated' cattle to move up a ramp and into a cattle car. it sort of worked!
But boy oh boy what I wouldn't give to have that American Flyer locomotive and cars with me today! Neither my brother nor I have any idea what happened to them?
Wayne
Modeling HO Freelance Logging Railroad.
sfcouple Not neccesarily a bad idea but I've never seen one since: back in the 1950s my brother and I received a gift from Santa Clause of an American Flyer layout on a 4x8 piece of plywood which had an automatic cattle loader. The loader consisted of a vibrating piece of a fuzzy material in the stock yard that would allow the 'vibrated' cattle to move up a ramp and into a cattle car. it sort of worked! But boy oh boy what I wouldn't give to have that American Flyer locomotive and cars with me today! Neither my brother nor I have any idea what happened to them? Wayne
I have figured out what is wrong with my brain! On the left side nothing works right, and on the right side there is nothing left!