Post your non-O scale stuff here!
I have had one of these for many years and finally popped it open to run on my desk at work. By what I've read these are N scale which I know ZERO about. I'd like to buy one steam engine to run. Looking for suggestions on a manufacturer/importer for something that runs well and not expensive. Don't need sound either. Thanks.
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Hey Roman. What you have there is a set from the late '60's. It is most likely 50 years old. Aurora (yes, the same folks that made the really cool HO road race track) got into the N scale train business back at that time. There was not a lot of competition, mostly Atlas, Arnold Rapido, Bachmann and Con-Cor. Kadee started to make their line of N scale freight cars that are still being made today. Those early cars are worth 100's of dollars each.
Aurora most likely "cashed out" in the early 70's.
Those early engines were a lot of "hit and miss" if they ran at all. Rapido and Aurora were about the best at the time. Your engine is the classic "F" unit that came in almost all of their sets. It looks like the caboose is missing a truck.
As far as steam today in N scale...I would check out KATO.
Hope that helps. Be careful....those tiny trains can get addicting.
Donald
Aurora Postage Stamp Trains were made by Minitrix.
Rusty
Bachmann is a good buy for small $ in N. Kato used may be a better buy. Kato new is premium. I have been checking them out for an amusement train ride on an O layout.
Minitrix still a good value, ebay has many affordable sets/cars. Model power was made by minitrix for a while. Revell was Arnold rapido as was parkway for a while (these companies would contract out and buy trains and repackage). Old Arnold rapido is good, but parts are scarce as new Arnold is not compatible with old. Japanese make excellent N gauge as well. I collect 1960's Arnold and have a 4 dealer display layouts, parts bins, etc as they were the trains of my youth. However I by far have more Lionel O and std gauge than anything and a few dealer items there as well.
you can see a couple of the Arnold layouts (back to back) in the bottom of the picture and, although not clear, the turntable demonstrator display from the Nurenberg toy fair from the 60's I got from a gentleman in Germany years ago. Very neat!
Excellent info gents. Thank you.
The picture of the set I posted was from a Google search. I didn't notice the caboose lacked a truck. Fortunately mine has its!
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