1970's Tyco, Cox, Life-Like and Bachman toy trains... they all provided low cost rolling stock that more or less met the NMRA standards. So what does that mean?
1) A bunch of us got into this hobby thanks to these toys... Bonus, we can still run them on today's DCC layouts with minor changes!
2) They are still available low cost, so they are GREAT fodder to hone down your skills in terms of painting, weathering, modifying, etc. They also provide parts that can be reused on other equipment or scenery details.
3) They are cheap, which is important for those getting into the hobby when pockets are less deep. That was my cases when I had a young family... That still holds today thanks to the shows and the Internet.
I know these manufacturers made these products in millions to make money, but I don't think this hobby (and community) would be the same today if they had not been there. And who would have guessed that these 70s products would still impact us 50 years later!
Simon
Old-school freight cars from my childhood are special to me. I think of this hobby as using art to transform memories and objects of sentiment, sometimes making them part of something new. These five Mantua metal cars were on my first layout when I was 8, and sloooowly get upgraded over time: metal wheels, body-mount Kadees, details added, new paint jobs and decals to better fit my prototype, (eventually, I hope) sill steps and brake gear:
It's nice to have part of my own model train history still rolling around, slowly being refined.
I did buy one Tyco car in adulthood, their drover's caboose, because it was the only model I knew about at the time that came close to matching a specific piece of rolling stock my prototype had.
Like the others, it's a work in progress that I upgrade slowly in fits and starts-- new paint job, glass windows, archbar trucks-- with future intentions to replace the sill steps, install a brake system, make an interior for it, etc.
Phil
When I was 14, that's all I ran, along with AHM. After I bought my first Athearn BB/MDC boxcar, TYCO and AHM never saw daylight.
IIRC back then, Athearn and MDC kits were about the same price as the assembled TYCO cars, so for me the choice was clear.
For performance reasons mainly.
- Douglas
riogrande5761Same here. They are simply too toy-like.
Jim, I fully agree. The only Tyco I ever owned was that crane I mention above and I had tons of fun replacing the wheels and detailing it. Without a doubt it was the best looking cranes I ever detailed.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
Paul3 I grew up with Tyco cars as my father had a bunch of them, and I spent my later teen years trying to get them to run well by body mounting Kadee couplers, replacing wheelsets, etc. After I turned 18 and went to college, I decided I'd had enough of Tyco and all their shortcomings. I either sold off the ones I had or tossed 'em. Just looking at them brings back all the bad memories of derailments and not knowing what I was doing as a modeler.While I'm hardly a freight car snob (most of my fleet is Athearn BB), I have my own minimum standards. Cars must have body mounted couplers, must be realistic looking (paint schemes), and have reporting marks and car numbers. Tyco does not usually meet these criterias, so they are not for me.
I grew up with Tyco cars as my father had a bunch of them, and I spent my later teen years trying to get them to run well by body mounting Kadee couplers, replacing wheelsets, etc.
After I turned 18 and went to college, I decided I'd had enough of Tyco and all their shortcomings. I either sold off the ones I had or tossed 'em. Just looking at them brings back all the bad memories of derailments and not knowing what I was doing as a modeler.While I'm hardly a freight car snob (most of my fleet is Athearn BB), I have my own minimum standards. Cars must have body mounted couplers, must be realistic looking (paint schemes), and have reporting marks and car numbers. Tyco does not usually meet these criterias, so they are not for me.
Same here. They are simply too toy-like. I don't have time or desire to try to bring them up to a higher level of realism. I got rid of mine before time began. But some like Lionel so I realize toy-like trains are a hobby for some, or maybe nostagia.
As for $40 freight cars, if I want that kind of car bad enough, I'll buy it but it has to be a special car.
The new Tangent 86' Greenville boxcars sure are special.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
Well, Wayne did a fantastic job with those old Tyco cars, indeed. I would not have the time (kids sports, etc.) or the patience to do all that. They do look great.
The other thing is my one son wants cars that are "modern" and now that is the time period many years AFTER Tyco existed, so those freight cars are nothing anywhere near what we would need. To each his own.
By the '80's few 40' cars remained in revenue service...at least around here.
John
IRONROOSTERSo I am very fond of Tyco and occaisionally buy them at train shows.
Way back when I used to train shows with Scale Rails of Southwest Florida, one of the members had an improved Tyco set made of iconic train set cars we ran at the shows. It was always a crowd pleaser.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
As always, Wayne can be counted on to amaze. Perhaps some day he will show us a project that DIDN'T work out, or show workmanship that is pathetic and inadequate. It hasn't happened yet but in quantum mechanics all possible results exist in some world or other. In this world Wayne reigns supreme.
If you have been in the hobby long enough, you know that one of the most considerable, and perhaps saddest, changes in stature and reputation was what happened to Mantua/Tyco quality between the late 1950s and say, the 1970s and beyond. the company changed hands, started to peddle borrowed Hong Kong tooling, and for a time seemed to abandon any pretense at being other than a low end train set operation. Totally fake locomotives such as their GG1, paint thicker than elephant skin. The train sets had power packs that looked like an electrocution waiting to happen. We won't even mention what they called sectional track. Oddly at their worst they did have some structure kits worth buying for kitbash, but even more oddly other outfits offered the same kits.
When I started in the hobby, the distinction was simply this: Mantua meant kits, Tyco was the same stuff but ready to run including train sets, and that extended from metal steam locomotives to freight and passenger cars. Maybe it was never the best but it was always solid and reliable and at least as plausible as any other make of plastic freight cars. The paint jobs were not laughable shiny and thick. The floors of freight cars were as a rule metal. Couplers were "talgo" truck mounted but for most cars that was easily remedied. They had boxcar doors you could open and close that didn't rely on those huge "claws" at the bottom of Athearn doors. Their selection of freight cars was just different enough from the competition to be worth owning. As I recall in Mantua kits the plastic bodies were screwed into the metal frames at all four corners. The only annoying thing about Mantua/Tyco back then (again late 1950s early 1960s) was that the bearings in their freight car trucks and the axle ends of their wheel sets were proprietary and didn't seem to match any one else's after market wheels.
As Wayne has shown even the later iteration of Tyco or Mantua/Tyco (for a time they entirely dropped the Mantua name) could sometimes be salvaged. Many of the most fussy prototype modelers, who would rather be caught robbing banks in their underpants than be seen using anything by Tyco, maintained a fondness for the kitbash potential in the Tyco gondola. Interestingly because Tyco was not the same as the old Tyco, for a while TWO different Tyco 40' gons had their fan clubs. Some also made use of their tank cars and chemical tank cars. And yes the railroad crane was not a shabby model with genuine kitbash and modification potential. They also had even in their cheesy train set era a decent flat car with removable "wood" deck. I think Bachmann acquired the flatcar tooling.
So to address the basic question I have some Tyco cars but what I mean by Tyco is not what it came to mean and seems to still mean: in Yiddish, a shanda. Go ahead, look it up.
Dave Nelson
I never said Tyco and like we're for everybody and I also don't use them every time I run my layout. It is a fun thing for me to get them out and use them and remember the great times I had when I was a kid. Can't be too serious all the time.
Dave
It was a gift of Tyco trains from my wife that started me in the hobby of model railroading in December 1971. I had a lot of fun with those trains.
I still have all of them - and my wife and I will celebrate 52 years of marriage this week.
So I am very fond of Tyco and occaisionally buy them at train shows.
But I am in S scale now so I haven't run them in some time. At some point I will set up a lower level under my S scale layout to run my old Tyco's and other early trains I had.
Paul
tstage rrebell Only cars I paid a premium for are two Tangent 3 dome oil cars. Tom
rrebell
Tom
Hello All,
MisterBeasleyI would never have returned to this hobby if I hadn't saved those old trains, so I owe them a debt of gratitude and it does make me smile to see them in action again.
Unfortunately, I did abandon my first train set.
However...In 2014 I attended my first train show and walked away with a DC "starter-set" for less than $50.00. The purchase included the Tyco crane set (now repurposed as the overhead crane).
I don't consider myself a "collector" of vintage Tyco trains. I just happen to run vintage Tyco trains on my pike.
Hope this helps.
"Uhh...I didn’t know it was 'impossible' I just made it work...sorry"
Some Tyco cars are better than they initially appear, as many got overly-heavy factory paint jobs, which obscured some decent details.
While I don't have any "before" photos, I do have a bunch of "after" ones. These 40' reefers had almost invisible "board" detail due to heavy paint, but after stripping off the factory paint (methyl hydrate works well on most Tyco stuff), and adding a few grabirons and sill steps, plus new paint and lettering, they looked fairly respectable...
However, several years later, I noticed that the plastic floors were beginning to sag, as on the 2386, above, so I decided to redo all four cars. Not too long after starting the project, I decided that since my layout's set in the late '30s, perhaps the "steel" ends were a little bit too modern, so I made a slight detour in the rebuild...
...and then another one...
By that time, I figured that maybe they could be re-done in a manner so that they wouldn't look quite so Tyco-like, and this is what happened...
A friend had shown me photos of some very nice gondolas he had created, using cheap 40'ers to make them into more realistic-looking CNR 52'ers. Not too long after that, I was visiting a friend in the States, and we went to a train show. My first thought was to look for those cheap gondolas, and I found several vendors offering Tyco and Mantua gondolas, most for only a buck or two apiece. In no time at all, I had ten of them, enough to make five longer cars.
Well, when I returned home and checked-out my friend's thread showing the re-build, I saw that the gondolas used were from Model Power. DOH!!So, now I was stuck with 10 Tyco/Mantua gondolas...but, they appeared to be very similar in size and style to two Accurail gondolas that happened to be on the layout...
...in fact, the main difference was that the Accurail cars had modelled brake gear and I had already fitted them with metal grabirons and sill steps....well, they also had scale-sized rivet detail.
Since I wasn't too concerned about the rivet issue, there was no reason why the cars couldn't simply be upgraded with some better details, along with body-mounted couplers and better trucks.
All of the underbodies, except for one of the Mantua cars, were plastic, so it was easy to add a representation of brake gear to them...
Because it's difficult to drill small holes in diecast underbodies, I simply installed some styrene blocks in the centresill of the one Mantua car with a metal underbody, as anchor points for the brake rigging. I generally don't add brake piping to most layout models, as most of it is not noticeable, unless derailments featuring roll-overs occur regularly...
All cars got metal grabirons and sill steps, along with better-looking brakewheels...
The Mantua car with the metal underbody came with screw-mounted trucks which I replaced, then added a body-mounted coupler...
...while all the others had clip-in plastic trucks with Talgo-style horn-hook couplers. After cutting-off the couplers and adding body-mounted Kadees, I used styrene rod to plug the holes in the truck bolsters, then cut-off the clip-in portion of the plastic trucks. (The styrene rod in the trucks is to facilitate cementing more styrene to the top and bottom of the truck's bolsters, which are made from engineering plastic - not, at that time, easy-to-glue.)
I then plugged the truck mounting holes in the cars' underbodies, using styrene rod, then drilled it to accept 2-56 screws...
Next, I cemented black sheet styrene to the rod material plugging the holes in the truck bolsters, both top and bottom - this is to ensure that those plugs won't separate from the Delrin material into which they were installed, as the bond between the plugs and black styrene is extremely strong - nothin's gonna fall out anywhere! With the truck bolsters now one solid piece, I drilled a hole between those closely-spaced plugs, so the trucks could then be screw-mounted...
...plus new paint and lettering, along with some weathering...
...and I now have a decent-size fleet of 41' gondolas.
This Tyco "makeover" is not what one might call "obvious", but I had purchased a Bachmann Santa Fe Northern (the version with the pancake motor and easily self-unquartering drivers) because I'd always like Northerns, and the CNR had more of them than any other railroad.I decided to re-work the loco into something a little-less Santa Fe, and at least a little more Canadian, although not CNR.It was pretty easy to re-detail the front end of the loco, using mostly parts from Cal-Scale, and almost as easy building a vestibule-stype cab over the existing cab, using sheet styrene. I then used my X-Acto to remove whatever portions of the original cab that were visible through the windows.
The big sticking point was the gigantic oil tender, equipped with eight-wheel trucks. I decided to shorten it and convert the oil tank portion into an open coal bunker, complete with slope sheet and coal pusher. I also intended to shorten the cistern portion of the tender.One day I happened to drop into a hobbyshop which I seldom visited, and on a otherwise empty shelf, was a Tyco covered hopper, a fairly long ACF centre-flow car, lettered for Old Dutch. The body shell was severely warped.I asked the store owner, "What happened to this one?" "Oh, it was in the window, part of a display, but the afternoon sun did a number on it."I asked if it was for sale, but he said, "No, you can have it if you want it." I bought a bottle of paint, mainly just to return the favour, then headed home to fix that tender.
The hopper car's body was in rough shape, but the roof was okay, and with a little work, made a perfectly-good rolled-under body for a centipede-type tender (not at all Canadian, but one of my favourites, especially on Niagaras).
I modified the giant Bachmann trucks into a suitable one-piece block, then added a centipede-style sideframe - traced on paper from a photo in an add in a Model Railroader magazine, then transferred to styrene. The springs and other details were made from Kadee coupler covers and brass wire....not much Tyco in this one, but the minute I saw that poor covered hopper, I also saw where it needed to be...
Another often overlooked el cheapo brand is LifeLike (what I call the Proto-No-Thousand version).
Their version of the original Varney reefer was in plastic, but the details were obscured by a heavy application of paint. I picked-up one off the "used" table at a now-long-gone hobbyshop for a buck, and after stripping off the paint, adding Kadees and better trucks, and new paint and lettering, it was at least presentable. I lettered it for "ICE SERVICE", delivering ice to various ice dealers on my layout...
...and later picked-up a couple more, at the same price.
Eventually, though, the moulded-on roofwalks (runningboards) began to bug me, and likewise for the ice hatches and platforms, which indicated that they were reefers, with ice bunkers taking up a bunch of room where blocks of ice would be placed for delivery, rather than car-cooling.
I removed the cemented-on roofs, and replaced them with new roofs made from sheet and strip styrene...
...and running boards from strip styrene, distressed with a razor saw to impart some "wood grain"...
The re-finished cars now better-fit their assigned duties...
While many recently-offered freight cars are r-t-r and detailed-to-the-nines, don't overlook some of the older offerings. With a little work and some imagination, you can create some very unique, yet still prototypical, pieces of rolling stock.
Other manufacturers of useful older rolling stock include Athearn Blue Box cars (and their metal predecessors), along with offerings from Model Die Casting/Roundhouse, and Train Miniature.
Wayne
jjdamnit Hello All, MisterBeasley When you replace the plastic wheels on one car, it performs better, but doing a whole string of 11 hoppers makes a huge difference. My entire Tyco fleet has now been modernized. I completely agree. Yes, the tools and supplies to perform the upgrades could have probably bought me just as many non-operating RTR cars but the satisfaction of watching 50-year old cars run on a 2020 DCC pike is pretty amazing. Hope this helps.
MisterBeasley When you replace the plastic wheels on one car, it performs better, but doing a whole string of 11 hoppers makes a huge difference. My entire Tyco fleet has now been modernized.
I completely agree.
Yes, the tools and supplies to perform the upgrades could have probably bought me just as many non-operating RTR cars but the satisfaction of watching 50-year old cars run on a 2020 DCC pike is pretty amazing.
I typically don't go out to train shows and buy old equipment needing a lot of upgrades. But, these cars I have had since I was a young teen are really like old friends. My locomotives are the same way. Even though all my old engines are no longer functional, I have gutted a couple of them, added lighting decoders and now run them as unpowered dummies.
Likewise, I saved most of my structures, and those have been repainted, illuminated, provided with interiors and generally brought up to 21st century specs.
I've thrown away a few hopeless locomotives, and some passenger cars I found in a box, completely fallen apart, but I still have all my rolling stock. I can even identify my original Athearn train set. Those, too, have been upgraded.
I would never have returned to this hobby if I hadn't saved those old trains, so I owe them a debt of gratitude and it does make me smile to see them in action again.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
MisterBeasleyWhen you replace the plastic wheels on one car, it performs better, but doing a whole string of 11 hoppers makes a huge difference. My entire Tyco fleet has now been modernized.
I liked the Tyco cars...in 1975. Loved my bunch of Illinois Central, totally wrong color of light yellow orange instead of correct orange, boxcars. Have some fond memories of that era.
By the 1990's I had thrown away those cars from my childhood and replaced them with Intermountain cars built from kits, Kadee, P2k, etc. "high detail cars".
Now, almost all cars on my layout are what the OP referred to as "high detail" "very expensive" cars. It's my railroad. If I want to own rtr correct models built to high assembly standards, then so be it. I do have 2 new Athearn Roundhouse series Santa Fe 50' hi cube boxcars that are "close to" Santa Fe Class Bx-154 (but are foobies). Every other car on the layout is totally correct for the prototype, in a correct paint scheme.
Have one remaining Mantua-Tyco trolley remaining from childhood that runs fine. All other Mantua or Tyco motive power is gone.
If I choose to own $90 Intermountain Autoracks and $53 Tangent 86' hi cube box cars (first blue DT&I one just arrived, more coming), it is my railroad.
We have much better trains today, and I only need maybe 75 freight cars total on my layout. I do not miss the 1970's and do not need to go back.
My memories of Mantua kits and Tyco ready-to-run always begin with a glossy red 62 foot Coca-Cola tank car with three huge expansion domes that looked like they were stolen from an Athearn three dome BB tanker. And they don't get any better. The only car that was reasonably usable for me was the 40 foot gon, otherwise, molded on roofwalks, and talgo trucks were carry-overs from the tin plate world that I no longer wanted any part of. I had discovered yard and industrial switching where Tyco didn't perform very well, just like the tinplate.
When Pacific HO introduced their Fruit Growers Express mechanical reefer kits in the early 1960s, a new day was dawning in this hobby. Now that sun is high in the sky with manufacturers/importers like Arrowhead, Athearn Genesis, Exact Rail, Moloco, Rapido, Scale Trains and Tangent--in alphabetical order-- giving us rolling stock worthy of being pulled by the $200-$300 locomotives no one seems to complain about buying. Others such as Athearn, Atlas, Intermountain, and Walthers have improved the realism of some of their offerings but, still have work to do. Some have relegated their older, less detailed or accurate items to their own budget lines which is fine.
I applaude the changes in manufacturing processes that now make it possible for a company to offer ready-to-run, fully detailed models of cars whose total numbers in all of railroading did not exceed 500. You know we have turned another corner in this hobby now that Arrowhead is offering the GSG-10 gondola with code 88 wheels standard and, 110s optional! I realize most of the layouts out there were built to coarser standards requiring wider wheel treads and accommodating horn hook couplers. Much of that track was also built with code 100 brass rail on fiber tie strips or milled roadbed. How often do you see those layouts in the spotlight? We have advanced beyond those days just like Tyco, the old Life Like, Varney, A.C. Gilbert, Lionel, Marx and Bachmann are memories, a lot of them unpleasant.
We all have our areas of prime interest that have first dibs on our hobby dollars. For some it is locomotives ($200 diesels and $400 steamers), others prefer rolling stock, many, structures (some kits selling for almost $300) and for many, the trains are an excuse for the electronics. I have spent many hours witnessing the nitty-gritty of switching yards and customer's tracks so, I want cars pulled by locomotives that replicate what I saw. If a manufacturer produces a quality model that fits my era and scheme of things, guess who gets my money!? I never saw any 62 foot red Coca-Cola three domed tankers--or Morton-Salt blue and yellow 5250 cu. ft. ACF Center Flow covered hoppers either, Tyco.
I have a number of old Tyco cars from the early sixties. A few box cars, a few tankers, maybe a gon, but my cars I actually bought new are 10 of the old clamshell door operating hoppers, plus another I found at a museum sale. I have a flood loader and a special track to open the doors into a waiting bin below.
When I started rebuilding a layout after years in storage, I removed the Talgo couplers and figured out how to tap the frames and body mount Kadees. When I committed to replacing plastic wheels, I had to buy trucks because the old trucks were metal and wheelsets couldn't be replaced. While the cars were apart, I painted and weathered the trucks, and painted all the original metal frame parts flat black as well, including those clamshell hopper doors.
When you replace the plastic wheels on one car, it performs better, but doing a whole string of 11 hoppers makes a huge difference. My entire Tyco fleet has now been modernized.
My entire pike is based on the 1970s Tyco 34-foot operating hoppers with live loads. I substituted the OEM "coal" for ashtray urn, non-magnetic, black sand.
I currently have 37 of these cars in Virginian, Boston & Main, Monon, Burlington, Spreckles, Holly Sugar, and Stratton & Gillette liveries.
The Monon's have square hatches on their covers while the Burlington, Spreckles, and Holly Sugar have round hatches on their covers.
All but nine (9) have been converted from metal Talgo trucks, Hook & Horn couplers and plastic wheels to body-mounted Kadees, Accurail plastic roller bearing trucks, and Semi-Scale Intermountain metal wheels.
The remaining nine (9) are on the RIP track (bench) to be converted.
Sixteen (16) of these cars make up the main coal drag pulled by four (4) GP40s in a distributed power arrangement: two (2) on the head-end, one (1) mid-train, and one (1) on the tail-end.
Eight (8) of these cars makeup the coal drag that is pulled up the 3% grade by three (3) GP30s: one (1) on the head end and a GP30 and a GP30-B as pushers up the grade to the unloading shed.
A critter pulls the empties from the unloading shed in preparation for the descent down the historic spiral trestle (helix) to the mainline with the single GP30 cut from the head-end.
I also have two (2) of the Tyco cranes with the tender cars.
One has been fitted with body-mounted couplers and metal wheels, along with the tender car.
The other has been repurposed as a heavy-duty, overhead, crane that serves the maintenance yard for the mine and coal-fired power plant.
The tender car from this set was also converted by moving the cab to the center and is now in service in my snowplow MOW train as a tool car.
While most modelers prefer the safety of running coal cars with removable loads I prefer the challenge (heartache) of live loads.
DAVID FORTNEYKevin, I saw your post on another thread and that you like old Tyco freight cars. I also have a bunch of Tyco cars and like you I upgrade them so I can run them.
David: This is a reply I put together for another thread that explains the different "fleets" of freight cars I am collecting.
The Tyco cars are in the Fun Fleet!
1) The Fleet Of Nonsense: This group of models is strictly August, 1954, very well detailed, and all are ficticious roadnames.
This VIRGINIAN AND OHIO boxcar is the centerpiece of this collection.
2) The Prop Fleet: These are mostly broken models I have bought at train shows and painted well enough to use them in photographs. They do not run, might be real prototype roadnames.
This USRA Mountain is missing the valve gear, and does not run. The green SGRR head end car is the only one I have in that paint scheme for prop use only.
3) The Fleet Of Anachronism: Yes, I do love GP-30s, GP-35s, and SD-40s. I even have modern rolling stock lettered for the STRATTON AND GILLETTE. I even have a couple of CNW dash-2 diesels just because I like them. These show up sometimes.
I no longer own this SGRR boxcar, but it is representative of these cars.
4) The Fun Fleet: These are train-set cars that I have upgraded with Kadee wheels and couplers, and proper weight. I bring these out for nostalgia.
This PURINA tyco car brings back childhood memories.
rrebellOnly cars I paid a premium for are two Tangent 3 dome oil cars.
Same here because that was the only way to purchase them with the shell already detailed. Wish Tangent made kits with the detailed shells. Same with ExactRail. Beautiful models.
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
I have no special memories associated with Tyco from childhood since I grew up with American Flyer so I neither have any in or purchase them for my rolling stock roster. I am a huge fan of kits so that's what I try and purchase - whenever possible.
If RTR is the only way to obtain a model that I'm interested in then I will purchase RTR. With the diminishment of kits over the past 10-15 years in favor of RTR, I've been able to find a lot of great deals on more prototype-looking rolling stock from manufacturers such as Proto 2000, Branchline, Intermountain, and Red Caboose.
While I can understand the sentimentality associated with Tyco and Athearn BB, I'd rather spend my money and my time on better-quality kits. That said, I have seen some amazing upgrades using either of those as the baseline. Wayne (doctorwayne) immediately comes to mind in that regard...
I have all high end cars, most were bought for $15 or less, in fact just bought some MTH hoppers at that price, new in box. Only cars I paid a premium for are two Tangent 3 dome oil cars.
After I turned 18 and went to college, I decided I'd had enough of Tyco and all their shortcomings. I either sold off the ones I had or tossed 'em. Just looking at them brings back all the bad memories of derailments and not knowing what I was doing as a modeler.While I'm hardly a freight car snob (most of my fleet is Athearn BB), I have my own minimum standards. Cars must have body mounted couplers, must be realistic looking (paint schemes), and have reporting marks and car numbers. Tyco does not usually meet these criterias, so they are not for me.As for $40 freight cars, if I want that kind of car bad enough, I'll buy it but it has to be a special car.
I always like Tyco's 200 ton crane since it was diesel powered and easy to detail.
Kevin,
I saw your post on another thread and that you like old Tyco freight cars. I also have a bunch of Tyco cars and like you I upgrade them so I can run them.
Some of them amazingly look really look and run pretty well. I refuse to pay $40+ for any freight car no matter how well detailed when there are so many cars out there that may need a little work but can be picked up cheap.
Tyco, Athearn blue box are just a few. Not only can you return those cars to service but remember the fun I had as a kid and the fun I have remembering them now at 73.