(http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac134/simko_n/55943_1492708077509_1228246774_31123897_7187785_o.jpg?t=1304201295)
It is at my dad's old house, this photo is from around late 60's to the early 70's. I think I have some more in an old album.
ACY-
Wow! That's the most American Flyer trains I've
ever seen. I hope you appreciated them.
-- D
Quote from: Doneldon on April 30, 2011, 06:27:51 PM
Wow! That's the most American Flyer trains I've
ever seen. I hope you appreciated them.
If you look in the upper right hand corner you can see he had them all on wooden shelves on the wall, they shelves extended the full length of the wall and there were shelves on the opposite wall but split in the middle by the doorway.
I'm with D that is impressive. I still have my older brothers set from the 50's and everything still works just chose to display them. I just wish my dad or brother would have done something similar. Let's see more!
That is impressive. I sure wish I had more photos of my early days in model railroading.
If you find more, please post them.
Jim
I will scan them in the next time I visit my parents. That is my Dad in the photo, in his early 20's i would guess.
My first toy train set was a Marx set with a pair of F-unit style SP diesels (one was a dummy) and 3 or 4 freight cars. My second train set was an American Flyer passenger train with the New Haven 4-6-2 and a three-car set of standard passenger cars. I got to pick it out as a birthday present when I was about 7. My dad took me to Corr's hobby shop in downtown DC. I eventually traded it away for a train table with HO track already laid down when I decided to "go scale".
Was this the set you had? Or did you have the red/burgundy ones?
(http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac134/simko_n/IM000652.jpg)
Was this your loco, or did yours just say New Haven?
(http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac134/simko_n/IM000655.jpg)
ACY: That's the locomotive, but the passenger cars were the old standard style from the 1920's/30's era, not the streamliners you illustrate.
my first train was an n scale erie railroad fa. it was cast metal, weighed a ton (for an n scale locomotive) and ran at supersonic speeds. i am a third generation railfan/modeller, they skipped the toy train stage with my generation.
i always liked american flyer. s scale is a nice size, i just wish there was more available in that scale.
Quote from: jward on May 02, 2011, 08:52:06 PM
i always liked american flyer. s scale is a nice size, i just wish there was more available in that scale.
If I get the photos up this weekend you will see how many things American Flyer made in S. They also had HO & O. I also have one American flyer HO loco, and a couple pieces of rolling stock.
One of the iconic HO steam models from the late '40's/early '50's was the American Flyer Hudson. Take a look at the Trackside Photos in MR from those early years and you'll see quite a few of them, along with the Varney Docksider. The Hudson looked just like it's S scale brother, complete with white-wall driver tires. The other American Flyer HO loco model I'm familiar with was a Pennsy B-6 0-6-0 switcher. I had one for a while once - it had a piston assembly in the tender to make it go "choo-choo". Not sure if the Hudson had the same thing.
My American Flyer HO loco is a Hudson, if I happen across it sometime I can take a photo.
I have the American Flyer Silver Streak that I purchased with my paper route money when I was 12 years old. This set is almost 60 years old.
I still have my HO American Flyer Northern Pacific streamlined passenger set.
I found a whole album full of pictures of the ole layout, I don't know if they will look okay if I take pictures of the pictures.
ACY-
You can scan 'em.
-- D
Taking pictures of the pictures usually works well, particularly if you do not use flash.
Jim
Quote from: Doneldon on May 06, 2011, 04:58:33 PM
ACY-
You can scan 'em.
-- D
Not if you don't have a scanner. That is what I would do if I had one. I am having trouble getting them to come out becuase the pictures are faded because they are over 40 years old and the photo quality back then was not the greatest.
(http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac134/simko_n/IM000128.jpg?t=1304725640)
(http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac134/simko_n/IM000129.jpg?t=1304725640)
(http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac134/simko_n/IM000126.jpg?t=1304725640)
(http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac134/simko_n/IM000125.jpg?t=1304725640)
(http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac134/simko_n/IM000124.jpg?t=1304725640)
(http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac134/simko_n/IM000123.jpg?t=1304725640)
(http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac134/simko_n/IM000122.jpg?t=1304725640)
(http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac134/simko_n/IM000121.jpg?t=1304725640)
Right Click on the photo and go to view image then you can zoom in on the photos to get a better view. This may only work with Firefox though.
Great old pics man ;D
Love the line up of equipment on the walls. The wood panelling definitely "dates" the shots....lol.
Sid
I'm not a big fan of the S scale but I wanted to put this:
Lionel has Introduced S gauge Fast-Track for the American Flyer, Just look in their most resent catalogue.
ACY
Great find. Thanks for showing them. Even though I was never into American Flyer, they still brings back old memories,
wtierce
Have to remember that most Lionel, MARX, etc. is 3/4 of full size 0-scale, making it 3/16" per foot or S-scale.
That in turn made the track SW78 or SW6.5 (S-scale, Wide gauge, 78" or 6-1/2 feet between the rails.) S-scale at least had track of about the right scale. Having said that, I have to plead guilty to having cut my teeth on MARX 3/16 trains (tinplate trains built 3/16" per foot running on Lionel type track)
I love the oldies from the 40's, 50's and 60's. At the museum where I volunteer, I have a standing offer to repair them free or for a minimal charge for parts. I particularly enjoy it when a grandfather comes in with his childhood train that hasn't worked for years but wants to be able to set it up to run with his grandchildren. When I can give it back cleaned up, oiled up, tuned up, or many times rebuilt from the ground up, I feel I have made the world just a slightly better place.
Jim
Jim - a buddy inherited his father in law's standard gauge Lionel set. I don't know the particulars but the engine's wheels spun after sitting for many years. The transformer looked like something out of a frankenstein movie! They should build autos like the old Lionel trains.
I used to make it my business when I was a kid to visit the Gilbert Hall of Science which was in Manhattan. It was about four blocks away from the Lionel display layout - which I also visited. The Lionel layout had all the cataloged stuff - all the operating cars and the latest diesels. I loved the DRG&W F-3 that they produced. My godfather had two sets of Madison cars - both pulled by GG-1s (His dad worked for the PRR). The GG-1s had a horn that sounded nothing like a real GG-1!.
The American Flyer layout was nothing like the Lionel layout. It was more realistic - lots of scenery. I read years ago that Flyer couldn't match the Lionel show layout so they focused on the realism of two rail track.
Lionel finally got the rights to make American Flyer track. That will help get some people back into S gauge.
I have a ton of original American flyer track, I have all the track from the layout in the pictures. My father sold a lot of the locos and rolling stock and most of the Plasticville buildings. I have more photos, if I get the chance I'll try and get some more up.
Nobody seems to remember when American Flyer made O-scale 3-rail trains. I had one in the 1940's, bought, I believe, just before World War II. Memory is fuzzy, though, and it may have been 19946, right after the war.
At any rate, it was AF, and it was O. I had two Lionel turnouts for loop with a short-cut on a 4x8 piece of plywood in the basement. Nothing complex, but it was fun for a kid. The loco, I recall clearly, was a streamlined Hudson (Loewy?) with a series of tinplate freight cars and caboose.
Unfortunately all gone now.
Everybody talks about the AF S-scale two-rail stuff, but to me that's "Johnny-come-lately" new stuff. Are there any AF catalogs around that show this stuff?
Railsider (now in HO, HOn3 and a little N)
Somewhere I have a bunch of old American Flyer Catalogs. American Flyer S gauge (not called so at the time) started by at least the early 1940's. The last year for American Flyer producing O gauge was 1945.