Back in the late 1980s when I became involved with the trains again as an adult we didn't use that term. Had never heard of it. I was out of the hobby from from about 1998 until the fall of 2008 and discovered/joined this forum in Jan 09. Started hearing folks talk about 'china drive' (usually in a derogatory fashion).
Lionel had single and twin Pull Mor (a term coined by Gilbert American Flyer in the 1950's referring to a pair of rubber wheels - not just tires to gain traction in competition to MagneTraction) motors which were their 'quality' motors while many of the lower end engines had small can motors mounted down IN the trucks. Williams and Weaver had twin vertical can motors like today that were fairly powerful but originally lacked flywheels causing them to 'slam' to a stop if power was cut abruptly. Then Samhongsa in Korea began incorporating flywheels and theses quickly became recognized as the best way to power our 'non-steam engines' giving us quiet, smooth, and powerful drives. MTH was beginning then and all of their engines used the Samhongsa system as did Weaver and others. Am not certain who was building William's models that had the flywheels but it pretty much became the industry standard with even Lionel eventually abandoning the old open field Pull Mor's.
When did this system come to be known as 'china drive' please?
