Atlas industrial rail.

I have some of the Industrial Rail boxcars and they are the same size as Lionel's traditional size ( 6464 type ) boxcars. They seem larger than S scale.

The only Industrial Rail car that was truly S Scale was the caboose.

Shown here with it's brass cousin from Southwind Models.  Detail of course, was not as refined as the brass model, but the overall measurements were spot on:

Some of the other cars came close to S, but the scale proportion was, shall we say "flexible," and suitability was in the eye of the beholder.

Rusty

I had one of the E-6 Atlantics and it was quite a bit smaller than "traditional size", guessing it was close to S. It was overwhelmed by the cars in the set.

Of course even if it was close to S converting it to two rail would not be an easy task.

This has been talked about before. Industrial Rail was started by United Model Distributors, who created the line and had the tooling made. Because they were a distributor who was having the products made for them, the wholesale prices to dealers were very good, hence part of the reason for their popularity, among other reasons.

Then for some reason, UMD decided to stop the line and HobbyCo picked up the remaining inventory and blew it out at incredibly cheap prices.

Atlas O, under the leadership of Jim Weaver who had vision of the Atlas O line growing, purchased the dies and restarted the line. At the time, there was a lot of whining about the new prices. The Atlas list wasn't that much higher than the prior list, but because the products had recently been being blown out, people were unfairly comparing the new list prices to the recent blowout prices.

Atlas also invested in new dies and tooling for several other items including the steam engine (definitely smallish, even for 027), a new better proportioned caboose than the first one shown by Rusty above, passenger cars, their own track system, a new transformer, a work caboose/flatcar, and a new reefer. Most of these items were a little large for S scale, save for the steam engine, the first issued caboose, and the little short ore cars and logging cars they made.

Then Sanda Kan dropped nearly everyone who they had been producing trains for as a vendor. It took months for those companies to find new manufacturing partners in China. Atlas later issued a statement saying much of their tooling and dies had been damaged in the process and would need extensive refurbishing. Though the Industrial Rail products weren't mentioned specifically, I would say it is safe to say the IR dies were also damaged. Who knows, maybe from being left outside in the elements?

At any rate, there has never been a single word as to the status of the Industrial Rail tooling, whether it is still in the possession of Atlas, whether it has been scrapped, awaiting refurbishing, etc. And given the production difficulties Atlas has been suffering through, I personally don't hold out much hope for seeing the IR products again anytime soon.

Well, I have a bunch of them, for a really good price, you can indeed see the Industrial Rail products again!

brianel_k-lineguy posted:

 

Atlas also invested in new dies and tooling for several other items including the steam engine (definitely smallish, even for 027)

@brianel_k-lineguy are you sure it was new tooling?  I always thought the Atlas train set 4-4-2 was based on the prewar American Flyer die.  To my eyes it looked like 3/16" with wheels gauged to O.  Thanks for the interesting and informative post!

IR also offered a single-truck Brill semi-convertable trolley. I have never held one so I do not know how close to any scale that it is.

I love my Industrial Rail cars.   I got mine a long time ago back when UMD still had them   They were perfect for my layout as everything I ran freight-wise was in the traditional 6464 size/style.     They were and still are some of the best rollers I own. They simply glide along the rails.   Even before the blow-out days, the prices were excellent at my LHS where I bought them.

Thanks all you guys for all the replies. I'm looking for the industrial rail black gondola that Nassau hobby put out. I ordered their last set and it was missing the Long Island gondola. If any one has one. I would be interested.  Also I would like to find the 2 pack set of Santa Fe passenger/ combine. I would love to make a coal train with the Atlas N&Ws. and Virginians. Also I would like to add that I found the little bobber caboose that has a 1970s box that looks great with the little ore cars.  It has those really cheap plastic couplers, that don't open sort of S scale again.   Again thanks a coal load.  I learned a lot.

JIM S.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Well, I have a bunch of them, for a really good price, you can indeed see the Industrial Rail products again!

John. What I'm looking for is in my last reply. 

Thanks Jim S.

To answer your question @Ted S, no, I can't be positive on that. But what would be the likelihood of Atlas getting their hands on the original pre-war Flyer dies? Or possibly copies of the dies.

Now could they have copied or based their loco on the Flyer original? That's a possibility. But they'd still need a new dies to produce the loco. It's also possible another manufacturer had started the tooling for S gauge, leaving it unfinished. And Atlas got access or purchased those dies and modified them for 3-rail: That would help explain the smallish size of the engine, even by 027 "standards."

The detailing was marginal for certain, but the engine body casting and what details were there, didn't look like it was produced from a well-worn set of dies. Even the reviews of the loco at the time commented on the crispness of the casting and details. And I've seen and run the engine and thought the same thing.

When K-Line produced their starter set Pacific steam engine, it was from the original MARX dies, albeit refurbished. But even K-Line had to eventually put money into a new set of replacement dies as the original set was worn out.

So with Chinese production, anything is possible. Look at Menards: They're not doing new tooling to my knowledge. Instead they're getting access to dies that have already been produced. Even the scale 14 inch flat car: I suspect that tooling was done by someone else and not used. Or how about their SP caboose offering, which has only been done in 3 road names thus far. I'd think there would be more road names available, right? Unless, they're purchasing over production of bodies from another vendor. But that's just my theory.

Back to Atlas, I do suspect that whatever design Atlas based their 4-4-2 starter steam engine on, there was either extensive modification done to existing dies from another source, or a new set of dies had to be created. A look over the replacement parts selection, which are still available from Atlas, for that particular model. leads me to believe it was made from new dies.

Well Brian, you have made my day.  When I first opened the box of an industrial rail 4-4-2 it does look quit crisp!  I wrote Jerry at atlas and suggested they make a S scale line. To no availe.  The big question is...... Why would a company bail out on a product that sold out?  It's like saying the Big Mac or Whopper is no good?  They could make that freeeekin loco so good! They need a new marketing guy? Like us.   The legacy founders series was great. It's also Gone. Make it in the USA. I would pay More.  Over seas no more.    Weaver is now closed. We need American jobs! I wish I could get my Hands on those molds and dies. 

JIM S.

For more info on Industrial Rail, here's a link to a website focusing on the pre-Atlas Industrial Rail O gauge Line.  As others have mentioned, apparently Atlas O discontinued this product line awhile back.  

http://www.blueboxtrains.com/

Hope this helps,

Bill

Nice site, now I can see what I have.

The cars I really liked from IDR were the little skeleton log cars.  I went out in my yard and hacked up a bunch of branches of the right size to replace the cheesy plastic logs, makes the cars look pretty good.

Jim

I have an LIRR black gon I might be interested in selling. My email is in my profile.

David

Atlas Model RR Co. acquired a large amount of HO scale, N scale, and Z scale molds and/or tooling in the past 2 years, so the HIATUS for Industrial Rail could be longer than expected.

Andrew

The IR Brill has been used as a basis for S gauge streetcar operation.  As you can see, it doesn't look bad on AF track: 

A comparison with a relatively scale Bowser/Pittman Brill: 

Mitch 

Just a FWIW:

Atlas is doing fine and dandy in the other segments of their interests: HO, N. In HO, their "Gold" line is one of the premier products in HO. It's only the Atlas' O scale line that's languishing.

Personally, I think they're done with O scale... just haven't officially broke the news to anyone yet.

Andre

Here’s a photo of my Atlas Industrial Rail Atlantic. I intentionally set it next to a true O scale caboose and in front of a K-Line A5 switcher to illustrate its S scale size.

Also, I can assure that based on its design cues, this has no ties to any postwar American Flyer locomotive. It is designed like many of the traditional-sized trains tooled up in China in the past 20 years.

That's downright "cute".   I had actually not run across their locomotives, only a lot of the rolling stock.

>Also, I can assure that based on its design cues, this has no ties to any postwar American Flyer locomotive.

Well.... no you are absolutely correct in the real-world sense.  But there happens to be some dummy out there (me) puttering around and he came up with this:

AF 3/16 postwar body on the Atlas chassis.    Runs and drives, waiting for the paint shop.  Anyway I feel it removes all doubt that the Atlas 4-4-2 was a 1:64 scale engine running on O-gauge track.   

The reason I wound up here is that there aren't any good cars to pull behind this thing!!  Now I am very fond of pre-war metal (which is what AF offered to pull behind this) but I'm trying to go scale here so they won't cut it.   The IR cars maybe.   But...even if these are OK then where's my Reading caboose going to come from?  Get the one in Rusty's picture and repaint?

And if none of the IR cars look good enough then what.

That's an odd looking duck, it appear to have a Wootten firebox, usually seen on the camelback locomotives.  I don't think I ever saw an Atlantic with that firebox.

Here you go--Reading Atlantic

Still it does look odd, few roads used that firebox.

Good find, I only ever saw them on camelbacks.

I think that model need an upgrade of the trailing truck!

I can't even find a simple darn box car that looks right behind it and you want me to improve the trailing truck??? 

The D&H also used a similar fire box and had some strange looking engines. Worth taking a look at them on the web.