American Flyer Trains

What gauge? S, O, or Standard?

I have Standard Gauge in the living room to run American Flyer and S gauge in another room to run some Christmas S Gauge American Flyer.

That's wonderful Jeff. Is your S gauge a steam engine or a diesel?

I have several. I posted some pictures in the Christmas Train thread in the S Scale forum.

All postwar, inner loop American flyer S gauge, then 2 outer loops of O.  Running my new to me 1950 773 that someone has modified at some point to smoke me out of my own house.

I have 3 lopes of S gauge running.  American Flyer running with Christmas box cars on the middle loop.  Polar Express running on the outside loop.  The center loop is a Putts train trolley.  I change my layout for Christmas right after Thanksgiving each year.

This got me thinking.  American Flyer S gauge is the only sized that we don't have.  My wife loves G gauge and she has a few "fun" sets (e.g., Mickey Mouse Christmas, the Disney World set from the 80s, Thomas, etc.).  I'm primarily O gauge, but have picked up a few items in HO and N over the years (although it's all boxed up right now and I have no real plans for them).  But somehow I've missed getting any S gauge.  I do have a friend who has a large American Flyer collection though, so I can enjoy AF through him .

My first train set was an AF O gauge 3/16 scale 561 K5 freight which Santa left under the Xmas tree in 1946.  It was my first Xmas with Dad after he returned from Germany in WWII.  The set was brand-new- possibly left over from 1941- or manufactured postwar with pre-war parts.  With encouragement from Mom and Dad continued in 3 rail O gauge with Lionel.  Dad machined a knuckle adaptor that pinned to the upside of the AF link coupler so 561 could haul Lional cars.  After many years of running the locomotive, it finally simply wore out (E unit??).  I credit my love of model trains, and interest in the Pennsy to that set. Fast forward 60+ years and I purchased an identical set from Ray Ellen in excellent condition that I run under my office Xmas tree every year.  Attached is a photo of the 2024 setup.

My 2 rail O scale PRR layout was featured on the cover of MR last February.  A favorite locomotive on that railroad is a scratch-built model of PRR K5 5698.  Here is a side by side shot of my two PRR K5's - one in 3/16 scale and the other in 1/4 inch scale.  Better not power up the layout with the AF model on the rails as i would short out the DCC system.

Merry Christmas

Ed Rappe    PRRT&HS member 421

Flyer and Lionel running around the tree.

Seven car orange stripe streamliner in action, pulled by a Milwaukee Road S3 4-8-4.  The Union Pacific "little 800" is a good stand in for an S3.

I ran my wide gauge AF set around the tree last year.  This year has been a challenging one personally, so I haven't gotten the track up quite yet for this year's layout.  It will be Lionel standard gauge this year though.  Probably my #10 and some freight cars if I can't get to my full #10 passenger set.