Clark A. Benson and "Custom Services"?

Clark Benson was around about 30 years ago and showed the cars at York.  I believe he lived in Connectitut.  I have seen them and they seemed well done.  I remember some sort of compressed board flooring.

Marty, thanks for the reply.  It's been 10+ years since I opened even one box, but you are right; I do recall that Masonite or some similar product was used; slides in just like a Lionel car.

 

I'll probably go through each box tomorrow to reacquaint myself with what's in them.

 

Marty's reference to 30 years ago is spot on.  At least one of the vista domes (that have no windows installed) are wrapped with newspaper dated 1982!

 

Thanks, again, Marty.

 

Carl

I got curious, and looked on DaBay for "Benson". There is an O-scale listing for a UP

car (finished, 2-rail) with "Clark Benson?" in the title. Price not bad. Maybe a reference

model for you...?

 

Otherwise I know nothing of Benson. Interesting, though.

I related what car I drove to York in and connected the dots.  Somewhere in my boxes of paperwork I know I have some sort of info from him.

He got Lionel to run their extrusion for him - or got Lionel's supplier to do it.  His mistake was in not using the baggage car extrusion, which was pretty darn close to a Budd car.  The ones he did run have a letterboard on the lower half, and as far as I can tell, there is no known prototype for that.

 

the extrusions were done with 2- rail in mind, so floors, couplers, etc. were up to the kit builder.  A table saw and some clear pine makes very good floors, keyed to the inner shelves of the extrusion.

 

He did supply the Lionel plastic ends, which fit perfectly and looked good.

 

Since this is the 3- rail forum, let me recommend K-Line Budd cars - they came in various lengths, and were much more accurate models.

 

For Santa Fe modelers, Budd baggage and postal cars came as short as 66', which is awfully close to 15" in O Scale.

My fondness of Mr.Benson was the tinplate amfleet cars he introduced to the market back in 1983. 4cR set for $200.00. His was the only realistic one with the inboard bearing trucks and the unique 3d window detailing that still rivals mth and Lionel's versions today.

Thanks for the replies.  I expect I'll remove every car from its box and get the tape out.  One thing I recall is that at least one of the  Benson vista dome cars had windows that were closer to prototype than Lionel's postwar product.

 

Again, thanks for the replies.

 

Carl