Hafner Trains

Looking good and a nice string of herald cars. I always loved Hafner, second to IVES of course. Although in my opinion they had the most durable clockwork motors. I have only seen a few that did not still run. A wonderful product for the price.

Hafner is under appreciated!  Any chance we can get some pics of those pieces?

 Hafner you say?

...just ask an Overland Flyer.

cheers...gary

Gary

Love the colors in the little Overland Flyers and Sunshine Specials. As you can tell in  my photo's, most of my Hafner is the later Streamliner types. The past year or so prices have gone down enough on the earlier types to allow me to add a few. Very reliable motors also.

Steve

you sure are right about the colors of Hafner.  having every style might fit on a small wall, but every color combination would likely fill a warehouse.

i like your extra long passenger trains.

standard sets typically came with only three cars.

another favorite of mine, this color combination is the only one listed in the Greenberg guide as a lighted 5½" observation.

cheers...gary

Hi all,

I inherited my dad's O gauge sets, and pulled them out after Christmas.  Some need some parts or are missing items, so they didn't make it under the tree.  In any event am hunting for a Hafner locomotive, and with the help of traincollectors.org  I am told I have a blue 2000 set, which just happens to be the blue red and silver guy 4th row in Mr. Eastman's  wall of Hafner 2.

Since I am very new to tin plate, I was wondering if anyone can point me to some good places to look for my missing loco?  I also have a bunch of 6" four wheel Marx.  Naturally the loco is missing/bodyless in this set.

Gary,

Thanks!  The hunt is on!  The train museum said that a prewar tin plate lionel boxcar I have is the first time they had seen one like it.  We found the whole set in boxes on sat!  If only my search for better employment went that well!

Geez, I thought I was the only nut that liked this stuff! Have only two sets, a later freight set, and a streamliner like Mr. Eastman has on the shelf, it is in decent shape, traded some Lionel repairs for the price of it, and think I got a bargain. These two and my prewar American Flyer whistling Blue Streak boxed set are my non-Lionel prizes.

Ya gotta love Hafner!  They are nice running clockworks.  I have a couple of Hafners on the workbench right now.  I just repaired this one for a friend of mine, needed a new hub for the mainspring:

Just got my first Hafner set here at York.  A blue 1110 steamer with assorted freight cars.  

It came without a key.  It seems to take the threaded variety.  Will a threaded Marx key have the same thread size or do I need to find a real Hafner key?  There seem to be repro Marx threaded keys available but no Hafners?

Gary is correct, they are the same thread diameter and pitch.  A Marx threaded key will work in a Hafner, but a normal (short) Hafner key won't work in a Marx - because the Hafner key is too short to reach the motor without hitting the body first.  At least, that's what happens on a CV!

Thank you gentlemen, this is most helpful.  Marx keys seem relatively easy to come by.  Gary, if as you say the key doesn't turn as the spring unwinds, maybe the larger key won't be too much of a problem.  Can't wait to get it home, this should be interesting.

very nice Steve!

Steve

The white background really makes the colors stand out which is duly noted. Hafner was my introduction to clockworks and they are seriously underappreciated except by the true connoisseurs.  I need shelves myself but to install them I have to rearrange everything but like you, having stuff in boxes bugs me as it negates having the stuff and it bugs me. Your display looks terrific. Just got a #30 Hornby 0-4-0 and it's the longest running one I have and has reverse. The weird thing is I bought it cheaply as the seller said the spring was broken. It wasn't.  How can you get mixed up with a loco running versus not running? If the couplers were not so high mounted, they could be coupled to the Hafner cars, without modification, hence my mentioning it.

Bruce

Hojack

I have a spare Hafner key if you still need one..send me an e-mail if so. I'll dig it out.

Thank you Bruce, email sent

Here is my only Hafner/Wyandotte train.  It is running around my layout that won 1st place in the "O Gauge Micro Layout Design Contest".

I often see Hafner/Wyandotte referred to together with that slash - what was the relationship, did one buy out the other at some point?

Hafner Manuafacturing(Chicago, Ill) made windup trains from 1914 - 1951.  They went out of business in 1951 and the company was purchased by All Metal Products Company(Wyandotte, MI), the makers of Wyandotte brand of stamped metal toys and they produced the trains until 1956 when they went out of business too.  The tooling was then purchased by Marx and sent to Mexico. 

If you look closely at the 3 photos of my train you will see that the Hafner name is still used on the sides of the engine and tender along with the round Wyandotte Trains logo on the front and side of the engine.  The gondola and caboose also have the round Wyandotte logo.

Steve, your Hafner collection is terrific, and looks great on the shelves. That's one brand that I've never focused on, and it is truly underappreciated.

The caboose below I believe to be Hafner. I got it in a collection of other items, but kept it since its marked for the C&NW, one of my favorite roads. Its a little banged up, but I like it.

Thanks for all the pictures, everyone!

Not strictly Hafner, but closely related Wyandotte

Bruce, your key arrived today, thank you, it is greatly appreciated.  Dimunitive little thing,  better proportioned to the Hafner loco than the larger Marx keys, as Gary noted.   I'll have to get some photos posted.

Here's the little set I picked up recently, with Bruce's key completing the set.

The livestock and gondola do not say Overland on them - just "Peerless Stock Car" and "Sand and Gravel"; are they Hafner?

No markings of any kind on the tender, and it's a different color than the loco.  Would the set have come like that?  Also, no couplers on the caboose, so I need to look for one.  They look like Joyline couplers!

Yes they are all Hafner. I have the same loco in green. Still looking for a red and a blue one. My peerless stock car is yellow. The blue is harder to find in my opinion.

Steve

Thanks Steve, good to know.  This is new territory for me.  Well preserved little set, I'm glad I went for it.

Found that George and Agnes Tebolt have the Hafner couplers, so I ordered a few.  If anyone else needs one or two, I'll have extras.

Hojack,

Thats a great looking engine. Shades of The Blue Comet! I'm pleased to be able to assist. Nothing worse than a clockwork without a key. I felt that Owen was kind to make a key for the AF Hiawatha clockwork so I wanted to pay his generosity forward if any opportunity arose. My favorite Hafner engine is identical to David's but has a Lehigh Valley "John Wilkes" sort of scheme and it's somewhat similar to Overland Flier's engine.  I electrified the yellow version.

 Bruce

That's a beauty, Electroliner.  I've never run across one of those.

Gary, thank you very much for posting these photos.  It helps put them all in context for me.  

I really enjoy these very simple older pre-war 4-wheel (no trucks!) cars.  I discovered the Marx 4-wheel cars first, and thought they were unique.  Then I found American Flyer sets and got all excited.  Finally I realized that Lionel and Ives, make that everybody, made these little cars at one time.  More recently I got into the Hornby British version of tiny, 4-wheel lithographed cars.  

The Hafners have a charm all their own.  There is an ingenuity and simplicity of design that is really appealing.  They are almost whimsical, like the Joy Line freight set with it's Eagle Eye caboose and Venetian Gpndola and so on.  I mean, Peerless Stock Car, who thought of that?

Do any of you know of a good Hafner reference book?  There is no Greenberg on Hafner??

They are usually pricey.  Here is one starting out:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Greenbergs-Guide-to-EARLY-AMERICAN-TOY-TRAINS-Carlisle-Finch-Hafner-Dorfan-/300898598676?pt=Model_RR_Trains&hash=item460ef43f14