Hello O scale world .... 1937 the world was filled with several options for buying a the latest and greatest steam engine ...the Class J Hudson ..... Acme, Alexander, Birch, Mi-Loco, Mini-Scale, Scale-Craft , Scale Model Railways , no doubt there were more ... all beautiful in their own right ... some hand built , some kits, some ready to run ...
ready to run starting about 70.00.....custom built 200.00 + ...life was good for the little manufactures till..
Lionel who was the king of TinPlate ..wanted more , a bigger slice of the pie ... 1933 with the lovely massive Railroad sponsored O scale layout seen by millions at the World Fair ..the public's appetite for model trains would no longer be satisfied with brightly colored soup cans on wheels circling at warp speed .
Cohen sensed the tectonic plates of his empire shifting away from sheet metal . The depression is waging and neither the public or Lionel has deep pockets to change the world over night .... but Cohen took the first step towards "scale" (scale would always be a loosely defined term at Lionel) with the introduction of the City of Portland... roughly 17/64ths scale ..requiring O 72 track ...a mixture of castings and tinplate brightly colored ...rapidly excepted by both the toy and scale world ( with modification for out side 3rd rail) .
1935 Lionel introduces the Hiawatha again roughly 17/64ths scale ...pulling the City of Portland cars .... well the toy world loved it ...and the scale world loved the engine, Walthers jumped in with proper looking cars for the engine to pull, filling the gap . Walthers was happy to help modify Lionel pieces to a more scale look ... listing in his catalog the degrees of modifications .. new wheels , out side pick up etc .....this all sends the Lionel purist running from the room.
1936 Lionel introduces smaller die-cast Commodore ...in a much smaller scale and very loose on the accuracy rating .....but Lionel was working hard on their big entry into the scale world ...the NYC Hudson .
1937 Lionel rolls out the 700E now in 1/4 scale ..sticker price of 75.00 ready to run ...sold with center rail or outside rail pick ups . Lionel with it's name and marketing is able to take over the world's need for NYC Hudson models .. the little guys offer other engines..or in the case of Mi-Loco and Mini-Scale ... slash prices and fade from view.
A 75.00 engine no matter how wonderful it is has a much smaller market than one that sells for say half price ... Lionel quickly realized not everyone was rich ....and wanted to get a return on their invest of the all the Hudson tooling .... so by selling the same Hudson body with less detail and cheaper tender and tinplate wheels, retailing at 37.50 ..a whole new market opened up . Now you could buy two 763's for the price of a 700E . The scale world ( those on a budget ) quickly bought up 763's to add to their layouts ...magazines of the era are filled with layout photos all with the trusty Lionel Hudson .
Robert Foster of East St Louis must have been Lionel's best customer for the 763 ...buying about 20 of them ...but Robert did not want to be like all the other boys ...oh no ...he wanted to be different ... he want unique engines ...so out comes the saw.
Here is Robert's story and a full photo essay of his motive power ..as published in (Lionel's) Model Builder February 1943 .
Warning !!! if you are a purist Lionel collector ..quick jump to another topic..NOW !! ....do not look down ....
last warning ...
For the rest of you ... check out one man's work ...20 kit bashed engines within 5 years ! ... Has anyone ever seen one of these engines ...no doubt they are out there somewhere .
Cheers Carey
