Taylor Made Trucks - Beep Shells?

I believe all of these are leftovers from a few years back when, as rumor has it, RMT didn't accept shipment of an order of locomotives.  That's when several names suddenly showed up on boxes of seemingly RMT items, apparently the manufacturer selling off the unclaimed stock.

FWIW, I have the exact same BEEP Shell, very glossy and has the same legend on the front running board.

Robert's Trains website has a page on Taylor Trucks. http://www.robertstrains.com/TMT.htm. They did a truck with a licensed Lionel Beep shell.  Also did trucks with other Lionel cars such as a tanker and a caboose.

A quick google search also provides a variety of images of Taylor products with not only the Lionel products but Beeps in other names.  

There is an article in January 2012 OGR (Vol 42, Issue 1) with some additional information about Taylor Made Trucks and Beeps.

Well, whatever happened, Taylor Made Trucks' "Railroad Legend Series" ended in just three games.

Found this info on the net.

"WAREHOUSE FIND!!! From original Toy Truck Collector Englewood, NJ Warehouse...now closed. SANTA FE and CHESSIE/B&O and CONRAIL BEEP diesel bodyshells only #1-#2-#3 in series. SET OF 3 Made in 2003 by TOY TRUCK COLLECTOR/TAYLOR MADE TRUCKS, Englewood, NJ, USA Packaged in original Taylor Made Trucks white box with clear plastic inserts to protect bodyshell from damage. Fits easily on any BEEP diesel chassis. No Longer In Production. Once these remaining few are gone...they're GONE! SET OF 3 BEEP diesel bodyshells only - #1SANTA FE + #2 CHESSIE + #3 CONRAIL. Made in 2003 by TOY TRUCK COLLECTOR/TAYLOR MADE TRUCKS, Englewood, NJ, USA."

I will happily end up with the Sante Fe and the Conrail.

(The Chessie color scheme of orange against yellow makes me feel queezy.)

Mannyrock

Picked up a ATSF and Chessie B&O shells today from Ken Jr and Trainland.

Bob

Great Job Bob!

Doesn't that Sante Fe look fantastic?

Mannyrock

I have an extra if someone really likes the look of it.

There were 3 Taylor Made Beep Shells produced when Walt Matuch was working for Taylor Made Trucks.  They were all in Taylor Made white boxes and none of them were complete with chassis and motors. They were the for-runners of the flood of Beeps Walt had made in following years when he struck  out on his own with RMT.  There are a wide variety of roadnames and the 3 Taylor Made beep shells fit their chassis perfectly.

The Santa Fe was No. 1 in the series and the box claimed 2000 were made. No 2 in the series was the very colorful Chessie with 2000 made. The orange part of the deco was unpainted and I painted the inside of the body shell a dark color to prevent the "Jack 'O Lantern" effect when the Chessie version was operating on a spare chassis. The Conrail was No 3 in the series and the packaging stated that 1000 of them were made. It was shiny blue plastic with white Conrail markings. To my eye it looks really good.

Later on Walt had a Lionel Lines unpowered Beep made as a load for a Lionel Lines truck.   It didn"t take long for hobbyists to circumvent the Lionel strictures for powering it. Needless to say, Lionel's new CEO, Jerry Calabrese was less than thrilled with this and no more Lionel Lines trains were made by outsiders, which made the ones produced by RMT quite collectible.

Back issues of Collector's Gallery chronicle the Beep sagas in much greater detail, Now that Rich  Melvin has has all the back issues of OGR cataloged finding them is pretty easy.

Hope this helps.

@Mannyrock posted:

Great Job Bob!

Doesn't that Sante Fe look fantastic?

Mannyrock

Yes it does. The blue bird scheme is one of my faves.

Thanks

Still have one of those shells, maybe I should put it in the for-sale forum.

The blue conrail 2003 is my Christmas tree power