Standard Gauge Hand Car Whodunit ** Templin Hand Car Update **

Arno, you never cease to amaze me.

And MESG is just endlessly fascinating.  For all of us who endlessly kvetch on the forum about "Why doesn't MTH make one of these...?", there were these resourceful guys who said, "I'm gonna make one of these!", and then proceeded to do so.

Just got a 3-car set of Forney freights, my first venture into Forney trains.  They're really impressive!

HELLO! Did this guy REALLY think he could do these without Disney licensing?  

Well, in his defense, he bought the items at a 5 & Dime store and considered the royalty already served. He did not create the figures, just used them in a different fashion. He also did not use "Mickey" or "Donald" in his advertising. He thought he was safe. Either way, I'm glad he did it for now we get to enjoy these pieces!

ARNO

Here are some more Forney boxcars to choose from.

ARNO

I have one of these handcars too, exactly like yours.  I acquired it from a close friend, and I really like it.  I've seen another with two Mickey Mouse's on it, but one has a skirt and made up to be a Minnie Mouse.  I assume that would be more rare than the Mickey/Donald handcars?

I am not a Disney train expert, but I believe the SF&D stands for "Santa Fe & Disneyland Railway".  When Disneyland first opened, I guess the Santa Fe Railroad sponsored the Disneyland Railway.

How does yours run?  Mine runs ok, but not something I would want to run long and often.

Phil, mine is not running, no response at all, dead.  I need to take some time and look into it, might be something simple.

Thanks for deciphering SF&D.  I was trying to put together Frisco and Durango, Santa Fe and Denver...   Santa Fe and Disneyland.  That's comical.

I'm always on the lookout for standard gauge hand cars.  I love the McCoys.  Anybody else make one?

Arno, jeez, I had no idea.  This collecting thing keeps growing new limbs.  I think with Forney I may be happy with a "representational sample", looks like you could spend a lifetime and a fortune collecting just his stuff otherwise.  The 20" boxcars look intimidating, but presumably they could go anywhere a State Car can?

David,

Phil was right, the SF&D markings do indeed stand for Santa Fe & Disneyland Railway.

As far as other handcars, there are no others that were commercially available other than the bulky Pride Lines Christmas handcar. Any other handcars would be one-offs, of which I have a few.

The Forney line of freights included boxcars, gondolas, flat cars, hoppers, tank cars and of course cabeese. The hoppers are very neat (as you now know) and they are some of my favorites, you might need to add a couple more of these to make a coal train! They seem to come in endless shapes and colors. And don't forget the tank cars, they are nice too. I'll find you one. I have not run the 22" cars yet as I have not had large enough curves. I'm sure they would not work very well around regular 42" curves without removing half your scenery, but around larger diameter curves they should be fine. Hopefully soon I will be able to test out that theory.

ARNO

I'll be keeping an eye out for a Forney tank car and gondola to round out the consist.

The story of the Templin hand car is an interesting one, and like I say I've always had an eye for Standard Gauge hand cars.  I'm going to really look at the components and how he built this thing... making something along these lines out of available components would be a very fun project.

ONLY if he made the single car for himself, with NO intention to reproduce additional ones to sell, did he not violate Disney's intellectual property. 

Turns out the hand car I bought runs just fine.  It did stall wherever there was a dead spot on the track - switches, crossings - because of the single-roller pickup:

... so I did a little modification and swapped it out for a double-roller pickup I had in the drawer, to bridge the gaps:

So here it is, George Templin's finest, running around the layout this morning, as smooth as you please:

Fine job with the modification, I'll have to do the same to mine. It runs great and looks so good on your wonderful layout. It almost looks like Donald was getting tired as he circled North Village!

While I agree with you this is a wonderful piece, I will disagree (respectfully) that it is not his finest work... that would have to go to the trolleys he built. He only made 25 of these and each one is individually numbered on the side. This is an old picture and I have since upgraded to one that is not as paint chipped. It is not very easy to find these, so that was a chore all its own.

ARNO

Nice job!  I am going to make that modification to my handcar too.  Mine doesn't have a brass number plate, and I don't recall seeing any stamped numbers either, but I will look again.  Was that pickup roller assembly an O gauge or Standard gauge part?

Hojack,

He metal stamped all the frames with numbers, but did not built them in proper order. But, considering yours is a #9 it is most likely a Templin piece. The brass makers plate would have been mounted on the the end of the black frame. And looking at the picture of the bottom of your handcar, you can see some glue residue on the right side of the frame. This is where the plate should be. I am confident yours is a Templin made piece.

Wurlitzer, I would be interested in knowing if yours has the number stamp. It should as they were done prior to being painted. The brass plate, for clarification, was the Templin makers plate, not a number plate. I'll see if I can find a picture of one.

ARNO

Here you go, found one. This is numbered #3 on the black cross member (you can see it kind in the first picture) and the brass plate reading "Made by George Templin".

Glue residue is where its at!

I just took a look at mine.  It does have the number stamp of 81.  No brass plate and no glue residue I can find.  Interestingly I don't have a drive belt to second axle.  I will take a quick snapshot of mine.

The pulleys are there, though.  Seems like with a certain amount of scrounging one could come up with a length of coil spring that could be made to fit.

On the other hand, it might not need two drive axles to run!

I've seen this spring-as-drive-belt thing somewhere else, can't remember what maker used them.

Stationary steam plants use them to transfer power to accessories. Look for a hobby shop that sells Wilesco or similar steam plants and they should have accessory belts.

Roland

Roland, thank you...

I found this on Amazon.com,  here.  Are they the ones? Hard to tell from the picture.

Hojack,

yes, that is what you want. each one is about 10" unstretched and has a tapered end. You stick the tapered end into the open end and back wind in a bit. when you let it go it sort of screws itself into the other end. if you need a shorter belt just cut down the open end. if you need a longer belt, just put two together (two joints when done)

Roland

Roland, thanks again, that's really helpful.  I'm going to order a pack to have some in the parts drawer.  Good thing to have around...  I'm sure I've got some other train that uses them, just can't remember what.

There seems to be another one available at this time, if anyone is interested!!

Arno,

Aren't you forgetting about the McCoy handcars.  The first with the two workmen, one pumping away while the other is sitting on a bench eating his lunch.  These were mass produced by McCoy.  All were hand painted, with the result that there are numerous variations such as different shirt colors, different tie patterns, different hair colors, etc.   I know you've seen James Hall's collection and as you recall he has around 20 different McCoy workmen handcars all with different paint schemes.

In addition, McCoy made a "Merry Christmas" handcar, also mass produced.  This handcar uses the same basic design but replaces the two workmen with Santa and Mrs. Claus.  As you know, James Hall has several variations of these McCoy Merry Christmas handcars in his collecton too!

I'd post photos of both McCoy handcars here but for an unknown reason I can no longer get this forum's photo posting feature to work on my computer.  So, checkout photos of both designs of McCoy handcars on the Standard Gauge Blog website:

http://stdgauge.blogspot.com/2...9/mccoy-handcar.html

http://stdgauge.blogspot.com/2...10/mccoy-trains.html

Bob

 Found this ad on the Standard Gauge blog while looking around for info.

Steve

Thanks for posting that Steve; it's very similar to a full-page ad c. 1974 that Arno sent me.  Your ad mentions the brass plates that aren't there.  Must not have used very good glue.  Maybe they were the peel-and-stick self-adhesive brass labels you can have made up; inexpensive but not very permanent.  Remember this when you start marketing your line of tinplate trains.

david

Yeah, that was the ad that was in the Nov. 1974 TTOS Bulletin.

It's pretty much the same as the flyer, just not as pretty. I opted for pretty, like me.

ARNO

Got mine running the other day. The roller was rusty on frozen on the shaft. As long as the track is clean, it runs well but someday I will add the dual roller pick up.

Steve

Excellent Steve, purring along smooth as can be.  It's a nicely designed hand car.