Tyco Brown Box Era Question?

You might want to look into "HO Collector Magazine." It is put out but a different publishing company than OGR Magazine, but it is a fantastic product.

There's also the website "HO Seekers"... very informative.

Mark in Oregon

Thanks.  Yes I def subscribe to HO Collector and also use HO Seeker.  HO Collector is a great magazine on an under-represented topic.

Have you seen tycodepot.com?

I remember there being an entire forum like this one dedicated to Tyco trains that I used to frequent when I was much younger, no clue if still in operation but if it's still up then that might be your best place to check

@palallin posted:

Have you seen tycodepot.com?

No I have not.  Looks like a great source.  Thanks!!!

Michael,

I too had many Tyco products growing up. Santa brought me the Transformer Train Set as well.

Dave

@palallin posted:

Have you seen tycodepot.com?

Full url below. Should be a click link.

https://tycodepot.com/

@luvindemtrains posted:

Michael,

I too had many Tyco products growing up. Santa brought me the Transformer Train Set as well.

Dave

Oddly I only had the Transformers Train but always had friends with Tyco from the 70's and 80's.  Some belonged to their parents...from the 60's.  I was a kid that fell in love with vintage Lionel but ended up with a HO Set on a Table using Athearn equipment.  When purchasing Christmas gifts for me my parents were steered away from the RTR items like Tyco/Bachmann to the better brands like Athearn.  But the colorful playful look of the Tyco Sets and the catalogs or Sears Wish Book offerings pulled me in.  Tyco was like a Lionel in HO Gauge with all the operating accessories.  The Brown Box Era Tyco when I was a kid was all Made in Hong Kong and I thought HK made always meant cheap.  But as time has passed my understanding of the model/toy train market and history gave me an appreciation of the products, no matter where made, and the good and bad.  Its all about the story.  Tyco has a good story from all American Train Maker to mass toy conglomerate that made Mattel nervous enough to purchase them.  Tyco was the 3rd largest toy producer at the time.   The source of production, the tooling, items that looked so cool but had the horrid power torque motors is all appealing to me.  Who wouldn't want a sealed Tyco Amtrak Set with that odd GG1 2 truck Hybrid?  I bet if one were to appear it would have no difficulty finding buyers.  I also had some Marklin and LGB as a kid.  Loved the classy finely made look of the German electric trains from the 80's.  Thankfully I kept everything except the Tyco Transformers Set.  It was placed in the attic and removed when I was away at school. 

For Christmas of '76, my grandparents gave me a Chattanooga Choo-Choo.  (I had wanted more Lionel, but that story is told elsewhere.)  It took two trips back to JC Penny to get a working engine, alas, and I never was able to get reliable trackwork until years later when I could finally set up a permanent 4' x 8'.  Very frustrating.

But.  It came with the current TYCO catalog, and the images captured me.  My catalog is all marked up with those items I wanted--most of them!  The products--well, at least the images--still appeal to me very much though I have no desire to go further down that road.  I am no anti-TYCO snob, but I just have no desire to inflict HO on myself again.

I still have most of that set (plus other HO from that side-track excursion, including a TYCO/Mantua Prairie kit that I built), but I modified it during my "scale" (yeah, right) days, adding detail to the engine and painting the rolling stock.  MR was a pernicious influence   I keep it all because Grandpa was dedicated to me and my trains even though he had a late-in-life lapse in judgment