steam locomotive identification

[Mike]

I am trying to identify an HO steam locomotive. It is a B&O Atlanti 4-4-2. On the box : General Hobbies Corp., HO Train Co. of Philadelphia 40, PA. On the bottom of the engine: Tokyo, Japan. The engine is heavy enough that it may be made out of some kind of metal. The 8 wheel tender is plastic with B&O markings. Any ID help would be appreciated. No, I'm not trying to value it for a "big sale"... just interested in finding out a little of its history.  Thanks- Mike

[jayl1]

A photo would help.  Could it be an old AristoCraft engine??

[wjstix]

I think General Hobbies was an importer of brass locomotives.

Brass engines have usually been made in Asia, first in the 1950's in Japan and in recent years in other countries. Brass is usually top-of-the-line as far as attention to detail and value.

If the tender is plastic it could be someone "kitbashed" it - replaced the brass tender with a plastic one to make it more accurate for the particular engine they wanted to model.

[Atlantic Central]

General Hobbies - early importer of brass and die cast locos from Japan. sold in the late fifties and early sixties. Company was the for runner of what became AHM and than IHC from what I remember.

This was from slightly before my time in the hobby (I started in 1967 at age 10), but when I was younger my Father was a modeler and my Uncle owned a small hobby shop.

Not worth much now days but stuff like it was all you could get back then.

Sheldon

[Woody Elmore]

If the engine is die cast it may be a forerunner of the Aristocraft line of die cast engines. Aristocraft engines were not well detailed and were mediocre pullers. It was not uncommon to junk the heavy die cast tender and replace it with a plastic tender - say from Varney or Tyco.

A fellow owed me some money and gave me some HO rolling stock and engines. Included was an old timer 2-8-0 by Aristocraft. The thing didn't run well because the frame was bent in the middle-and it was like that from the factory.

[pdlethbridge]

I had one of those atlantics. It had a wobbly driver and ran real bad. It had a metal tender though.