I search for old kits of cars and structures once made in the past for items not
currently available (no, they don't sit on shelves and nest mice, I build them to run and use). Bob Peare Train Craft made a series of caboose kits that offered the most variety in O scale cabooses that I have FOUND, but several times I have run across a green catalog for Vanden Boom, dated 1940, that shows a couple of caboose kits, side door, and drover's, that I have never blundered on. While I have found some odd-ball kits, I have never found a "Vanden Boom" kit. This catalog show a LOT of cars, and locomotives, presumably available as kits. Now some locos are Lobaugh, and some shown are said to be Lionel converted to two rail. The brochure offers all kinds of conversions and reletterings, and shows a larger variety of rolling stock, locos, passengers, and
freight cars, than I would have guessed existed in 1940.
I think some of it must be from the various known old manufacturers, who were
not given credit by identification, but some of it which I have never seen may
be the company's creation. A little research revealed that this company
did not survive WWII. A large building is shown and it was located at Broadway and 38th in Kansas City, Mo. The print says they specialized in western roads such as the Santa Fe and UP. Anybody ever seen a Vanden Boom kit or is old enough and from KCMO to remember this company? What
other uncommon manufacturer's kits have you blundered on? (in HO, hundreds,
in O scale, maybe not so many)
