Is Cast Iron still Tinplate?

Andy,

Lacking a metallurgic analysis of the shells of the two early 1900's cast iron wind up locomotives that I own, from appearance and no rust present, I would say they're truly cast iron. One of the qualities of cast iron is its' resistance to oxidation.

As to whether they're considered tinplate, I would hazard a guess that it depends on how early they are.  I guess one manufactured in 1860 would be considered prewar, civil war, that is.  One manufactured in 1920 & came equipped with tin plate cars I would consider tin plate.

Dave

Andy,

There are those like myself who have a problem accepting prewar diecast as it is. Now you expect to sneak cast iron into the mess . 

As for your question about prewar electric diecast. There were a few makers. My advice is to stay away..............far away. It's a specialty market where there are deep pocket buyers. Most all of the early pieces are for display only and almost never see tracks.

  Yes, there were any number of pre-war engines that had cast iron superstructures.  Ives, Bing, American Flyer, Fandor, and Joy Line all made steam outline and electric outline locomotives from cast iron...and, as far as I know, they are all referred to as tinplate as are their later pre-war diecast brothers and sisters.

In generally accepted useage, the term includes diecast and cast iron trains.   Not all "tinplate" is made of tin-plated steel.  The old Ives cast iron locos with their lithographed cars would definitely be seen as a tinplate train.

"Tinplate" in reference to a type of toy train is more about a certain kind of toy train (as distinct from, say, "scale" trains), than it is about the materials used.

Actually defining "tinplate" is a bit elusive.  No less authority than Louis Hertz devoted all of chapter 3 in his "Riding the Tinplate Rails" (1944) to the task, with only moderate success. 

If you can find a copy at a used book seller, that book is still a great read for anyone interested in prewar trains. There's a lot of background information about tinplate that most people today don't know.

I think that there are some who make the case for "Tinplate" actually referring to the tinplate steel used in the rails, as opposed to just the trains themselves... although I don't have a reference for that off the top of my head (Hertz, possibly?).

Regardless, I consider the cast iron body locomotives as the patriarchs of tinplate.  The body may have been cast iron, but the majority ran upon tinplate rails pulling tinplate cars.  Indeed, the cast iron clockworks from Ives, Flyer, Hafner and the others are the proud ancestors of the tinplate, die-cast, plastic and even brass trains that followed in their tracks... 

For your consideration... a 1912 Ives clockwork.  102 years old, and has tinplate DNA under that iron exterior:

Are there any cases where a plastic model would be considered tinplate?

I see postwar Marx on the forum occasionally, I think the word "tinplate" is used as a general term to cover a broader category of trains.

I personally wouldn't consider cast iron or plastic trains to be "tinplate".

I agree with Brian.

Marx made lithographed tin trains into the 1970's, so while they were making plastic trains they were also still producing "real" tinplate too.  LOL

Thanks guys. So a cast iron or prewar die-cast loco can be considered tinplate if it pulls tin cars, sort of. 

And the early cast items really were cast iron.

Thanks for all the info.

As Hojack and WindupGuy have said, "tinplate" has different meanings to different groups of train people. The trains themselves do not have to be made of tinplate to qualify in the eyes of some.

To scale modelers in HO in the 1950s and 60s, "tinplate" was a semi-derogatory term that referred to anything that ran on 3-rails (tubular tinplate rails). There were few scale 3-rail items available at the time to confuse the issue. If you read Model Railroader magazine during this period, you will see the term used frequently in this way to refer to just about anything made by Lionel or AF in the prewar and the postwar eras (even the plastic items).

"Tinplate" was also used to describe non-scale or poorly detailed models in other scales. For example, Marx HO trains were referred to as "HO tinplate" on occasion.

So, like many terms in the hobby, it all depends on to whom you are talking. Take "hi-rail" for example......on second thought....forget I said that!!!

Jim

IMHO it really is inclusive of cast iron and die cast locomotives. In the prewar era, most all cars were tin, and the locomotives that pulled them were made of a number of types of metals. To some degree, this carried over in the post war era for a short period of time. Marx made the 3/16 scale tin cars well into the post war era pulled by 999's & 333's. Absolutely tinplate. Flyer's first S gauge cars were tin, pulled by cast locomotives, again to me, these were tinplate. Some of the early Lionel post war passenger cars were tin pulled by cast loco's. The blue & silver, the green  and the brown coaches pulled by cast loco's to me were tinplate sets. Just my opinion.

Steve

I think we can safely put some Bakelite items into the tinplate category.

Many of Lionel's items used bakelite parts and the "Manhattan" and "Irvington" passenger cars with bakelite bodies are definitely considered tinplate trains in my book.....especially behind a 763 or 226 diecast locomotive.

ANDY!!,

Now look at what you done caused . I don't feel like splitting hairs today.

Cast Iron Locos pre-date tin locos, and even then, early tin Locos had cast iron frames.  Lionel was one of the first manufacturers that used all tin construction, unlike Ives or American Flyer, that used cast iron.