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QUOTE: Originally posted by Railroading_Brit Have to say this sounds like Hornby underestimating their locos - I suspect they mean that it'll run for 50 hours without servicing, then you may need to replace motor brushes, etc.
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
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This is a 3 year old thread hehe, but in any event, making a dummy is relatively simple. Pop the hood off the engine (assuming its a diesel here) and inside should be some fun guts, namely a motor and a couple sets of driveshafts ending in gears over each truck, meshing with gears inside each truck. Remove the motor and driveshafts, including the worm gear at each truck, and thats about all there is to it (ps...this is for Athearn engines, i believe tycos use a similar drive system)
No matter what the drive system, should be pretty self explanatory when you get the model opened up. Just remove or disconnect the motor, and remove whatever runs from it to drive the trucks.
dave9999 wrote:Wouldn't it be something if Tyco all of a sudden came out with a product that compared tosay P2K or Atlas? Are they even still in business? Dave
There is a lot associated with the name, so it would take a while for a new Tyco product to gain credibility I would think. It is sort of like when Life Like started the P2K line, I still associated the Life Like name with an inferior product (same with Bachmann when they started the "Spectrum" line).
2-8-8-0 wrote: This is a 3 year old thread hehe, but in any event, making a dummy is relatively simple. Pop the hood off the engine (assuming its a diesel here) and inside should be some fun guts, namely a motor and a couple sets of driveshafts ending in gears over each truck, meshing with gears inside each truck. Remove the motor and driveshafts, including the worm gear at each truck, and thats about all there is to it (ps...this is for Athearn engines, i believe tycos use a similar drive system)No matter what the drive system, should be pretty self explanatory when you get the model opened up. Just remove or disconnect the motor, and remove whatever runs from it to drive the trucks.
Umm...Have you ever seen a Tyco drive?? COMPLETELY different.
Take the power truck cover off(3 phillips screws on the bottom) and pry the large black plastic gear off the side of the truck. Also remove the smaller black plastic idler gear. Reassemble.
That would be the part where i said "this is for an Athearn"
So, in response, no, i havent. My apologies for any confusion my error may have caused, and my thanks to Loathar for politely pointing the error out.
That is an...odd design. Reveals why Tyco has the reputation they have for low quality.
2-8-8-0 wrote: That is an...odd design. Reveals why Tyco has the reputation they have for low quality.
2880:
It's weird, yes, but not too untypical for its day. Everybody was into pancakes for a while. Some of them actually don't work all that badly. For a trainset engine, the LL pancake does its job pretty well. It won't displace any Athearns from revenue service, but to throw in a set that sells for $40 at Christmas, it works.
If you strip the dummy truck of everything and weather it, it makes a nice flatcar load. Big heavy nondescript casting of some sort.
Honestly, the 40 hour design isn't as bad as it sounds. Parents are going to return something if it quits working while the kid is still playing with it. If forty hours of running on carpet, eating fluff and cat hair, is what that requires, then that's its design life, and if that's the design life somebody gives me, that's what I'm going to design for. These were really inexpensive toys.
I think they would run longer in hobby service, too. B17s didn't last too long in war service, but those that didn't see much action could fly for years in fire service. Remember, playroom duty is combat duty, where toys are concerned. The fact that these remained available from 1972 to 1990, at which point video games were booming and taking business away from all sorts of toys, does tell me that however bad they were from a hobbyist's perspective, they did do what they set out to do. Really bad products seldom last that long.
(I can't believe I'm defending the Powertorque drive...)
(Maybe it's just that superstitious thing about speaking ill of the dead. VAMPIRE TRUCKS VILL SUCK YOUR BLOOD. BLAH!)
Can't imagine why they called them Vampire trucks??You wouldn't believe the carpet fiber I picked out of this one. (still runs pretty good though.)
My brother just dug out his Hornby loco from 40 years ago. We all ran the daylights out of it as kids and then it has sat in a box for the last 30 years. New brushes, and what have you and it is running again for his son.
csmith9474 wrote: dave9999 wrote:Wouldn't it be something if Tyco all of a sudden came out with a product that compared tosay P2K or Atlas? Are they even still in business? DaveThere is a lot associated with the name, so it would take a while for a new Tyco product to gain credibility I would think. It is sort of like when Life Like started the P2K line, I still associated the Life Like name with an inferior product (same with Bachmann when they started the "Spectrum" line).
Tyco was originally Mantua, became Tyco later and then came back as Mantua. Lifelike has re-issued the Mantua Classics such as the 2-6-6-2 in both the logging version as a tenderless version and also the tender version.
The new throw-away economy of 1970 forced both Lionel and Tyco along with a number of toy manufacturers into the hands of conglomerates who cheapened the product to make it sell-able to the masses. Parents would no longer spend beyond pocket change for a trainset like they did in the 50's. Another philosphy manufacturers keep with cheapo sets is they are a good experiment to see if a kid likes a train well enough for the parent to invest in the good stuff.
70's Tyco is fun to collect for display because it is cheap, toyish, high on colorful graphic art, and looks realistic enough.
3railguy wrote: 70's Tyco is fun to collect for display because it is cheap, toyish, high on colorful graphic art, and looks realistic enough.
Some of those old bill board cars are going for $15-$20 on E-Bay these days. I wish I still had all my old ones from when I was a kid. I'd like to start collecting them again just to keep in a display.
loathar wrote: 3railguy wrote: 70's Tyco is fun to collect for display because it is cheap, toyish, high on colorful graphic art, and looks realistic enough.Some of those old bill board cars are going for $15-$20 on E-Bay these days. I wish I still had all my old ones from when I was a kid. I'd like to start collecting them again just to keep in a display.
A guy could make a living buying Tyco on ebay during the summer and selling it during the holiday season. Come December, the bid wars blow my mind.
To be the devil's advocate.... When you think of it, most train sets are purchased for Christmas. The kids are home for a couple of weeks. The set gets set up on the floor and run hard for two or three days. Then, it's taken up and moved to the bedroom and played with, on and off for the rest of Christmas break. After that, it's put up to "clean up the mess" and go back to school. Considering the attention span of kids, that's about all you can expect. In light of that, forty hours or so of running time is just about right. As mentioned, so long as it doesn't break down during Christmas break, it's done it's primary job and the parents aren't put, out so they don't care.
So the company has cut it's costs, maximized profit and sold a bunch. As far as they're concerned, the marketing was good.
And loathar, seek professional help for that urge to become a "Tyco Collector".
Tilden