Has anyone here built the 1943 "Lionel wartime freight" set ?

Great ours!

Peter

Great topic , Thanks for posting it . I have always wondered what they where like when put together , Everyone that owns one today is too worried about the collectors value . I think the even the reproductions are fairly hard to come by ,even today . Maybe we'll hear from some lucky person who had one during the war .  jim

Maybe there would be more interest if Lionel offered more cars to add on to the set. And cardboard switches for more variety of track plans. And a battery-power motorizing kit with electronic sound and radio control.

IIRC...Ed Boyle did a story on this train years ago, with the first pics I'd ever seen of it assembled.

i havent really seen them either

Maybe there would be more interest if Lionel offered more cars to add on to the set.

According to what I've read, they were difficult to build and fragile.

A slight digression from the original topic ... at an "Antiques Mall" I happened to see a WW2-era children's activity book that reflects the events of the times. New toy production was limited during the war and these "activity books" were an economical alternative using minimal resources, I reckon. Sadly, it also shows how extensive the war effort was when wartime subjects even infiltrated children's books like this.

These pics were taken taken indoors with a cell phone so the resolution isn't great.

I had two mint boxes that were complete and yes I did  put one together, It was a real pain, took many hours ,but it did turn out very nice . I had it displayed in my train room for years till I sold all my Post War through Stout Auctions. (that's another story)

While going through my 15 yr. collection of CTT I saw an article on the set but don't think I saved it. I have 2" stack of articles that I cut out.  Civilian life, especially for the kids, was interesting during the Big War.  Never saw one of these sets but we had our big, old Standard gauge train. Toys were mostly wood and paper but we never got too many toys anyhow.