Lionel MPC F3's?

That would have been from 1983, originally as part of the 20th Century Limited set.

Do any pics exist of 1) Lionel Hagerstown in the late 60's 2) Lionel Hillside late 60's 3) and Lionel corporate late 60's.  I always like seeing what places looked like at the end. Which pieces were made in Japan and do any exist?

The early MPC rolling stock had AAR trucks...were these from the left over parts bin at Hillside?  And the last 6464 Boxcars from Lionel Corp in 1969 had Bar-End trucks...were these also from the parts bin? And where were these 6464 cars assembled?

Well, for starters, you can't judge an entire era of Lionel production based on a single engine decades old that you bought from another owner. You have no idea what the real history of that engine is, although to you it appears new. Even if it were new, there is no logic in concluding that an imperfection in one engine warrants a generalization about thousands of engines made during a production period that lasted for years.

It's possible that you just got an engine with a very rare defect, or, more likely, that engine you got has a suspicious history, especially considering that not one but the armatures of both motors are allegedly bent.

Personally, I had a set of LTI Santa Fe Warbonnet engines years ago, no. 11711 from 1991, and it ran very well and for a long time. 

I was looking over this thread, with particular interest in  Todd's (PaperTRW) comments.
What a fountain of knowledge!

I think he could write a book.

I know that I would purchase a copy.

Todd was there, he knows. One of his favorite projects was the remake of the Wabash F3 set.

He used his own PW set as a guide for the new one. He told me they found the original die for the caboose.

Jim

Which caboose?

The brown SP type caboose that's in the Wabash freight set.

Haven't those dies been in continuous use since 1948, with many revisions & retooling?

In that case, you should talk to Joe or someone else at Grzyboski's and work something out with them about the engine.

I know in the past, at least sometimes, when they bought an item from someone for resale, they tested it first. 

Very true.......... but in this case, this ABA set has not been placed on the track as there is no wear marks on the wheels or roller pick ups. I already purchase the needed parts to repair or replace the defective parts.  Last weekend I installed the metal gears to replace the plastic gears.  This set is no longer original so no I will just fix it and keep it.  Lionel uses plastic gears since I think 1973 or 74 on the early MPC F-3's to this day. They just changed the color of the gears from white to black, WHY ? The metal gears was used on the last F-3 #2383 of the postwar period.  I had the 2383 set back in 1968.

the woman who loves the S.F.5011,2678,2003,200

Tiffany

Grzyboski's would have purchased that engine from someone else, so who knows what its history is? Engines can be briefly test-run on straight track and still appear to be unrun. Also, testing is often done using electrical clip-ons, and the engine isn't placed on track at all. So it is virtually impossible to say what the history is.

Regardless, I certainly would have contacted Grzyboski's about it at the time. They might have been able to provide some information about the engine, as well.

I have those same engines. I swapped the shells with some PWC F-3 chassis, because I run a command layout, so they now have TMCC, R/S, electrocouplers, directional lighting, cab interiors with crew, etc. I thought about the Legacy version when it came out, but didn't care for the black roof.

As I mentioned early in this thread, TM's 1970-1980 Guide is a must for covering the early MPC history. Not everything contained in there is correct, but it's the closest we'll likely get to documenting the time period, from many of the key people who lived it. Unfortunately, a large portion of the early players that transitioned the company to Michigan are no longer with us.

Bob Osterhoff's "Inside the Lionel Trains Fun Factory" is a must-read for any student of Lionel's manufacturing history. It predominantly focuses on the prewar and postwar time periods, but there is some post-1969 coverage.

There are also literally hundreds of other interesting tidbits that can be found by scouring other books, early train club publications, toy trade periodicals, model-kit magazines (MPC made quite the splash when they first hit the model kit market), General Mills corporate reports, and the like. I'm almost embarrassed by how large my library has become, but I can honestly say that I learn something new every time I go digging. 

Thanks, CW. I'm not sure a book will ever be in the cards from me, even though I've been fortunate to accumulate a lot of interesting material -- and stories -- from those years. Maybe someday the planets will align: there will be a demand for such a book in the marketplace, and I'll have the time to devote to it.

Great thread. Learning a ton.

Paper TRW, thanks for sharing your knowledge.

Hey, King James! Thanks for the shout-out, and I hope all is well. I'm sure we'll cross paths in the coming months. That 6-31711 1563W PWC Wabash F-3 set was one of my favorites, and I was quite proud with how it turned-out. I actually borrowed an original set from a friend to use as guidance, and it represented a turning-point in how the PWC items were developed in the early 2000's. There are lots of stories associated with that one, and yes, we uncovered the only remaining unmodified, original caboose tool during the summer of 2002 which I promptly scheduled for use in the Wabash Set. I think Ed Boyle did a Collector's Gallery on the reissue when it hit the marketplace, and I recall filling him on some of the details.   

Originally Posted by Jim 1939:

Originally Posted by ADCX Rob:

Yes and no. The SP-caboose story still hasn't been fully documented, but here's the short version (with a warning that I'm doing this from memory).

There are THREE individual SP-caboose tools, which I believe were created in 1947, 1949 and 1952, respectively. This was likely done for capacity reasons, but it's possible there's more to it that we haven't discovered yet. To make matters even more complicated, these tools contained multiple cavities, yielding even more variations of the 2357 diework. (I've seen some postwar guides attempt to put caboose variations in chronological order, but that's next to impossible as a caboose body could come from any one of these tools and cavities.)

In 1970, MPC heavily reworked two of the three tools, totalling four cavities. These changes include removing the end platforms from the molds, and allowing the caboose bodies to accept a new plastic frame and end rails. This modified caboose proved to be the workhorse of the 1970's, 1980's and early 1990's before a brand-new pseudo-SP, two-window style was released in 1994, largely due to the poor condition of the original tools. The vintage SP tooling was used again in the 1997-1998 time period, but because it had deteriorated so badly, one tool was shipped to China for refurbishment and production. (Lionel's total production shift offshore wouldn't occur for another 3-4 years.) I think I've said this before, but the folks at SandaKan did a wonderful job coaxing life out of old tooling.

In the early 2000's, there were two large "pushes" to ship tooling to China as part of the relocation efforts. The operations group handled most of what was immediately needed in the near term, and then I was given a two inch-thick list of Lionel's tooling to figure-out what else to send offshore, as part of the second wave of things that could be needed in the coming years. I literally took several days, going over the list line-by-line. I discovered MANY interesting things, but one of which was a caboose tool -- 002357T003A, I believe -- which didn't have any "parents" listed. This meant that it had never been assigned to any projects in Lionel's MRP II system (Manufacturing Resource Planning) that dated back to 1974 or so. I was intrigued, so I asked a project manager to have a bunch of tooling pulled for me in the summer of 2002, one of which was the 2357. After using a crane to remove the top half of the mold, I saw an unmodified 2357 cavity staring back at me. Bingo! Particularly interesting was the fact it was the cavity that failed back in the late 1940's, and required an extra "board" be added to the roofwalk before a more permanent repair could be made. It was clear where the top cavity of the tool had been inserted to perform the repair.

From there, it was easy to recreate the "deluxe" version of the 2357 caboose. We found the original stamped-metal frame tool as well as the prewar tool that produced the die-cast metal stack. The only thing we couldn't locate were the stamping tools to create the underframe's toolbox, but in the scheme of things, they were reasonably inexpensive to reproduce. I know that the Wabash F-3 set originally came with a 6357 without the toolbox underneath, but there was no way I was going to miss a prime opportunity to reintroduce the deluxe SP-caboose, which is why that set's 6357 has the toolbox.

Sorry if I've bored anyone to death, but that's the story of the rebirth of the original 2357 SP-caboose.

Regards,

Todd

All very interesting.  I do have these pieces with AAR Trucks.  The trucks look rough as the tooling was wearing out by this time.  I guess they did cast the trucks after 1970.  Also some late 60's pieces. Notice the odd cast wheels on the tankcar.

After what Lionel had done to their trains in the 60s I was happy to see any new signs of life. MPC started small and it took a long time to grow but I give them credit for saving Lionel Lines. First F3s started with single motors but over time they got better.

Todd there is no doubt we will be seeing each other soon, With a tear in my eye I can see that fall is upon us. Train shows galore, we are lucky to live where the hobby is very active.

Jim