My Hafner Overland Flyer "Century of Progress" train set

Very nice train.

I have since a couple of years a similar Hafner loco and was also surprised at the AA battery powered headlight. I noticed a difference between your loco and mine; mine has something on the cab (might be a whistle) which I thought which was original, but I do not know.

Regards

Fred

I am starting to wonder about the date of manufacture of my Hafner "Century of Progress" train set.  The Chicago "Century of Progress" World's Fair took place in 1933.  The train set has a headlight and taillight that is powered by AA batteries.  When I searched for the history of AA Batteries, I found that the standard was set in 1947.  Does anyone have any information to share on this subject?

There were a number of variations to the Century of Progress sets. Tenders were in different colors, but red is the most common. Also, there was a freight set. Most all passenger and freight cars were red & cream.

Steve

The "Century of Progress Special" train by Hafner was made 1933-1935, according to the Greenberg section on Hafner by Paul Doyle. It was made to coincide with the World's Fair.  It had the light and batteries.  "The illuminated feature was a very important selling attraction."  The batteries were just called "penlight" batteries back then; they were the same size but were not called AA until later.

Fred, I don't know about the whistle on the top of your cab either.  The Greenberg book has one picture of the Chicago Special locomotive in which there is a small nubbin on the roof of the cab. David from Dearborn, does yours have this? Other examples of this locomotive do not have anything on the roof. So it is possible your whistle is an original variation?

david

Very nice Hafners... thanks for the pics David & Fred!

I worked on one of the "Century of Progress" locomotives for my friend Rick, and was pleasantly surprised to find a vintage penlight battery in the locomotive... and the best part was that it hadn't sprung a leak and corroded the loco:

I found information at batteryuniversity.com about the AA "penlight" battery history.  So the AA batteries go back a lot farther than I had thought!

David,

I had a closer look at the "whistle" on the cab roof; it looks to be the same material as the bell on the boiler, but it could be added later. I just cannot determine. It does not really look like a whistle:

Regards

Fred

Normally you would find a slightly flared split rivet. This acted as a stop for the batteries to keep them from sliding out.

Steve

great looking set!

here is photo of the split rivet Steve was referring to...

sort of a cross between a rivet and a cotter pin.

if the pin was missing, my guess is that a previous owner just found something to fill up the hole.  cab roofs sometimes had a vent?  whatever it was meant to be, i doubt it was original production.

cheers...gary

The Flyer battery tender used a square battery. difficult to find an equivalent.