Tail End Tuesday

Have a good Tail End Tuesday! God Speed All!

For Tail-End-Tuesday, April 23, 2024, the short train behind New York Central SW8 diesel switcher #9620 is tail-ended by NYC wood cabooses #19654 and #380 – both by MTH.

MELGAR

This is an RMT, Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines cabin car that my son Chris just got finished weathering.

In 1930, with the onset of world wide depression, Hornby (Mecanno) like other toy manufacturers had to face a customer base with far lower budgets for discretionary spending, for things like toys.  Their solution, just like Lionel and American Flyer, was to bring out a lower priced line to make it easier to buy trains.  In their case the line was called M0 which was 0 gauge but a smaller scale than their regular line (primary curve radius was 1 ')  although as the years passed it did become a full line with appropriately sized stations, cross overs, switches , and signals.  Pictured below is the 1930 M0 offering.  The locomotive never had either leading or trailing trucks or drive rods, it was clockwork as were most Hornby trains, and it came in both red and green.  The lithographed Pullman cars were named "Zena" and "Joan" for unknown reasons but with exception to a late change in the color of the roof, remained the same and in the line until war production caused a stop.

In honor of "Tail End Tuesday" here are the tail ends of Zena and Joan , note the clear marking for Hornby, Mecanno Ltd, LIverpool.  You may wonder why, given that Hornby trains were for the most part clockwork, they had to bring out a lower priced line.  If you were to review the status of the 1920's you would find that Hornby, despite being mostly clockwork, were most certainly NOT inexpensive.  They were very high quality and finished beautifully.   The clockwork motors had track control, brakes, speed governors, and were very long running.  Thus like the other manufacturers when the Depression dawned, they had to make adjustments.

Happy T.E.T.

Don

Here's my rear for this fine Tuesday!  B&O cabboose by MTH.

Sam Houston Zephyr, SILVER HOURS sitting by Texas Zephyr, SILVER TRAY.

Railking, from RTR set 30-4046-1. Don’t believe, (but I certainly could be wrong), that MTH has offered this same caboose as open stock.

My Tail Ends for this Tuesday.
513 Observation of the 700 limited set

Track congestion in both directions

Hi guys, sorry nothing from me today, just doing a quick check in. Love all the wonderful pictures and videos!

The nightly Amtrak run leaving the station on the Pennsylvania and Ontario RR.

Chris

LVHR

@pennsyfan posted:

My Tail Ends for this Tuesday.
513 Observation of the 700 limited set

Track congestion in both directions

I  thought I got into Don McErlean's site when I  saw those two photos Bob.

Nice TET photos of your taii ends.

I may have missed a day this week...lol...here's the "Chief" at the North Main Street station...

@Dallas Joseph posted:

I  thought I got into Don McErlean's site when I  saw those two photos Bob.

Nice TET photos of your taii ends.

Thanks Dallas, that’s a real compliment being compared to Dons collection.

Boston & Albany wood-sided caboose #1179 (MTH Premier 20-91791) ran at the tail-end of a short freight train behind B&A 4-6-0 Ten Wheeler #1916 on my 12’-by-8’ layout. Caboose model still available from Forum sponsor JR Junction.

MELGAR

Here's my rears for this fine Tuesday!  

A Pennsy Caboose

The rear of a Patapsco and Back Rivers VO1000

It is 1949 and the photographer could not have asked for a better day to get pictures.  This cabin has the Chrome Yellow handholds per the mandate released earlier in the year, but still has its brown roof.  Apparently this cabin had no roof leaks so the roof was never tarred.

Weaver C1, Atlas X-26c boxcar, and Lionel N5b cabin.

Powhatan Arrow

@pennsyfan- Hey thank you for the compliment, I feel the same way about being compared with yours

@trumpettrain- Hey Patrick, when I looked at your 3rd picture I saw the "Patapasco & Black River" gondola...was that a commercial item or did you make it special or have someone make it?  Never saw it before, could you post a full picture?

OK Bob broke the ice today with some "oldies" so here is another.  In 1948 if your Mom was so afraid of you playing with electricity (plug into the wall OMG!) your choice might be the Schilling all plastic, battery powered steamer.  Here is a view of the "tail end" to honor T.E.T. and a view of the entire train.  I am not fully sure, but I do not believe Schilling ever expanded their line...this train was the only offering I believe and by 1950 they were gone (at least from the toy train business I have only been able to find advertisements for 1947-48-& 49 for this train)

Best Wishes

Don

Tail end of a observation car leaving the station.

MTH

@Don McErlean posted:

@trumpettrain- Hey Patrick, when I looked at your 3rd picture I saw the "Patapasco & Black River" gondola...was that a commercial item or did you make it special or have someone make it?  Never saw it before, could you post a full picture?

Best Wishes

Don

Don - the gondola is a Williams item.  I own two of the P&BR gons.  Lionel also made a full scale P&BR gondola which i never purchased because the price over my budget.  I'll try to get a photo up of the Williams P&BR gon by this weekend.  

@trumpettrain. Thanks Patrick

Don

Williams New Haven Tail End on this fine Tuesday

My tail-ender for Tuesday May 7, 2024 is Pennsylvania N5C cabin car #477879.

According to the MTH website, this model is Railking 30-7730 and was delivered in March 2000. However, the added-on handrails, sprung trucks, conductor in the cupola, and other details are typical of a Premier model.

Data on the car says it was built in March 1941 and the wheel bearings were last repacked in February 1959.

Photos and video show the car running on my 10’-by-5’ layout at the tail end of a train pulled by PRR G-5s Ten-Wheeler #5740, an MTH model (20-3031-1) delivered in March 1999. I’ve been running this engine for 25 years but this may be the first time I’ve run this caboose.

MELGAR

Here's my rear for this fine Tuesday! ... The rear of a Ma & Pa Sw1.  

AND for Don McErlean, who commented on the P&BR gondola last Tuesday, when I showed it with the back end of P&BR VO1000  ...  A couple photos angles of a Patapsco and Back Rivers gondola taken of the side of the car. This car is a Williams product of which I have two, since I also model the P&BR.   The photo angle makes the car look much longer than it actually is.  At least the bottom photo captures the rear of the car, so as to qualify for this thread .. lol!

@trumpettrain-Thanks for the pictures of that gondola Mate!

Here is an early Marx train for today's T.E.T.  This is a group of "Bogota" passenger coaches with the short, silver lithographed frame and Joy Line couplers dating them from 1934-1935.

Here is the front end of the same train, pulled with the ever present "Commodore Vanderbilt" #597 locomotive which was available from 1934 to 1952.  However the black wagon top, 8 wheel tender, is from 1934 and 8 wheel, 6 inch cars of any sort never returned after the war.  So my guess is that the entire train is circa 1934-1935 (after 1935 the Joy Line couplers were replaced with the far more common tab/slot couplers).

Best Wishes everyone

Don

@Don McErlean posted:

@pennsyfan- Hey thank you for the compliment, I feel the same way about being compared with yours

@trumpettrain- Hey Patrick, when I looked at your 3rd picture I saw the "Patapasco & Black River" gondola...was that a commercial item or did you make it special or have someone make it?  Never saw it before, could you post a full picture?

OK Bob broke the ice today with some "oldies" so here is another.  In 1948 if your Mom was so afraid of you playing with electricity (plug into the wall OMG!) your choice might be the Schilling all plastic, battery powered steamer.  Here is a view of the "tail end" to honor T.E.T. and a view of the entire train.  I am not fully sure, but I do not believe Schilling ever expanded their line...this train was the only offering I believe and by 1950 they were gone (at least from the toy train business I have only been able to find advertisements for 1947-48-& 49 for this train)

Best Wishes

Don

I have one of the yellow passenger cars. Found it cheap at a swap meet in Meridian MS some years ago. Didn't know what it was, but its combo of toy and realism (note the details) is something that always tickles my fancy. I since found out from a tinplate friend. I have considered turning it into a short static streetcar with paint and other "attentions", but I dunno - it's kind of sharp by itself; screams "flat car/gondola load".

An N6b cabin is the tail end of a local freight heading out of the yard.

Cabin is MTH.

1933 Lionel 712 observation car with nickel journals. The book indicates they should be copper??

@Don McErlean Got me thinking about my Marx Commodore Vanderbilt with the red passenger cars Bagota, Montclair, and Observation.

Taking a page from Mel -

TET goes around and comes around....wow already

LITTLE 0-4-0 hauling the work crew and the LITTLE  BOBBER caboose bringing up the REAR.

MTH ps2 / 0-4-0  and  MTH Bobber.

God speed all.

- walt

@D500-Hey you know I personally am a big fan of making something useful out of (almost) nothing.  Both your ideas sound neat for that Schilling car.  You know its strange, but this set, although relatively well known, must not have met the manufacturer's sales expectations.  I can find no sales reference for it beyond 1947 and 1948 and as far as I know they never made any additional cars or even the same cars in different colors.

Good luck with your mod

Don

Have a good TET all

My tail-end subject for Tuesday May 14, 2024 is New York Central wood caboose #19877, a recent model by MTH Premier. It’s trailing a short train headed-up by New York Central System #231, a USRA 0-6-0 steam engine and MTH Premier model delivered in 2007. Photos and video taken on my 10’-by-5’ layout.

I've posted this caboose before but it's been getting a lot of run time lately.

MELGAR

Here’s a shot of two tail ends, a Santa Fe observation car and a Union Pacific CA-1 caboose.

Happy TET!

Custom painted PRSL

Good afternoon,

Whatever happened to O-Line?  I have an O-Line PRR N5c cabin somewhere in storage, but here are some images I took a while back comparing it to a K-Line N5c.  The O-Line has the brown roof with #477927.  Definitely looks like the same tooling used for both.