Please help identify a Scout "Evans" Auto-Loader

Would this be in the Scout sequence of numbers - 1001, 1002, etc.?

Photos

Dale could this be a home made job? Top from a Lionel 6414 and some other base? The couplers  look like earlier Atlas.

It is a factory job.  The middle U-shaped piece is a single stamping, and the lower pieces holding the trucks are held by factory-grade crimps.

Those are Scout couplers, and the trucks are definitely Scout with plastic sides.

The couplers are Scout couplers that have been modified to latch with a knuckle coupler by shaving the bump on the side and cutting off the Scout lower pin.

Hi Dale,

 The scout trucks were discontinued in 1950 and the Auto Loader was not introduced until 1955. So it is either a handyman's job or a Madison Hardware special. The Plate the truck is attached to looks like any 1000 series frame cut in half.

The 1955+ Auto-Loaders are a u-shaped piece with the legs pointed down, sitting on a plastic flatcar.  This one is 4 sheetmetal pieces:

1. The top and top sides that is a u-shaped piece with the U pointed upward (the top sides.)

2. The center u-shaped piece with the 6 legs pointing upward, supporting the top piece.  This is a one-piece stamping that has the bottom floor and the 6 support pillars as one piece.

3. The two truck plates that look like they are halves of a shorter frame, with eyelets holding the Scout trucks.

The top two pieces are complicated stampings with embossed anti-slip treads and raised edges around the 3 center cutouts in the top deck.  The lower piece has tabs that were punched during blanking that are tightly folded down around the frame (see photos.)  There are no screws.  Everything is held together by folded metal tabs in the stampings.

This was intricate tooling!!  Did Madison Hardware go to that extent with customs?

The only thing that I can see in common with the later auto-loaders is that the overall length of the body is the same as a plastic flatcar.

Is it possible that this could be an early Lionel engineering/concept prototype that was fabbed using leftover Scout trucks; possibly even a prototype that was made before 1950 when Scout trucks were still in production & prior to the final production models that were made starting in '55?

This piece has been altered for sure, but then I have only been collecting & researching Lionel trains for 40 years.

Definitely a home made job. You'd be surprised what a skilled hobbiest who works in a machine shop can do. 

Gandy

homemade

The body structure above 'flatcar/trucks looks to be similar to a plastic molded product that has been available from different manufacturers over the years. It is thinner than the Lionel O gauge version and comes unassembled in pieces in a white box (at least version I have seen at York).

Can be mounted to basically any 0-27 traditional flat car.

Nice item that replicates an interesting prototype.

Walter M. Matuch

Very interesting question.  Evans did not build the two prototype auto loaders until 1954,  so the Lionel model had to come after this date.

I have designed enough mechanical parts to know that this items just screams "TOOLING"!!  You don't draw metal edges without stamping dies.  This is definitely not homemade!

Given the time frame of the prototype and the original Lionel release you could try flipping the question and start eliminating who it can't be.  

The quality of the stamping does indicate this wasn't done in some ones basement or garage.  It may be that the rack stamping was an early Lionel pre-production/prototype and was reworked for the production runs to cut down on parts/steps.  It's possible the whole car is an early prototype but the trucks and "frame" seem to be out of place/time.  Even Lionel's engineering people would have had access to full flat cars and newer trucks.

I seriously doubt that there are many more like that out there.

I don't have an example of the later versions to look at.  Do they have 3 oval cutouts in the top rack with raised edges around the ovals and embossed "tread" on either side of the ovals?  If so, I think that maybe this was the original version, but they later used the tooling to make a piece that is similar to my middle U-section, but with the 6 pillars folded downward instead of up.  This would essentially convert my middle piece into the top piece that sits atop the plastic flatcars.  That would probably have been much less expensive to manufacture.

In the Lionel 1000 product sequence of numbers:

1001 original Scout locomotive 1948

1002 Scout gondola 1949

1003 A transformer??  Can anyone confirm this?

1004 Scout box car 1949-51

1005 Scout single-dome tank car 1948-50

1006 ?? Maybe this auto-loader car???

1007 Scout caboose 1948-1952

1008 Uncoupling unit

1009 ??

1010 Transformer 35 watts 1961-1966

This info is from my 1982 Greenberg book.

I doubt there is another one like it out there. Would you take $30,000 for it?

Umm   Uh  Well, just for you, Eddie, as a memory of my "virgin" visit to York. 

The later versions do not have the tread detail - it has been reported that the longer the tool was used the more faded the treads became, but more than likely this step in decoration was just eliminated.  Otherwise the structure was identical.

I looked at '55-'57 and '62-'63 versions and the superstructures are identical to yours, they are all 2 piece superstructures.  The "truck plates" on yours are a 1004 box car frame cut in half.

Very interesting home-brew find!  Some ingenuity shown here for sure.

Rob, I read your reply to mean that there is a metal floor on the bed of the plastic flat car, not just a u-shaped overbridge.  Correct?  The pictures in my Greenberg aren't detailed enough to show me this. 

How is the metal structure attached to the flat car?

Correct.  Here are some large photos to study.  The superstructure is tabbed to the plastic car through stake holes.  The tabs are quite long, long enough to be bent over the flange of the 1004/6004 box car frame.

I've looked at Dale's pictures carefully as I could. The superstructure looks stock to me.

Folks should be aware that the Lionel parts dealers had 6414 superstructures readily available a couple of years ago. I do not know whether they were reproductions, old postwar Lionel stock, or Modern era stock.

Dale, there are a few Postwar experts around.  I would go to them.  Dennis Waldron for one, also Paul Ambrose.

Take it to the April York.  "New and Unusual Seen At York" articles in the TCA Quarterly.

I am now willing to accept that this was home grown.

Well it was grown in a very clever home.  That's a very unique conversation piece you have there, and made an interesting thread.

It cost me $1, as did a 1005 tanker chassis that has two trucks with both Scout and knuckle couplers (back to back).  Makes it easy to mix Scout and knuckle rolling stock.

I will add the Auto-Loader to my Scout display train.

Thanks to everyone for helping me here.