Weekend Tinplate photos 📸 and videos 📽 2/7/20!

A recent Ebay find was this ca. 1912-3 Lionel No. 10 Interurban. It was been restored nicely but was listed as not running. When I received it I found that the commutator had exploded, a common failure with these 100 year old motors. I sent the motor off for servicing and installed an MTH trolley motor in it so I can enjoy running it.

For a next e-book (picture book) that I am compiling I made pictures of the different CR (Rossignol) streamlined locomotives from the collection:

This first one is 28 mm gauge, the next are 0 Gauge; all are clockwork:

Regards

Fred

390 Blue Comet

Lionel 812 with a load of MTH LCL containers:

Looks about right.

PD

Scott Smith

Roof Styles

  For their boxcars Bing made two different styles of roof - a smooth rounded European style and a stamped American style with the stamping simulating the roof walk.

European style

American Style

The great Louis Hertz, in his book "Riding the Tinplate Rails", wrote that tinplaters want lithographed freight cars. He wrote "...the battle cry of American tinplate today. Over and over again are heard the words "We want lithographed freight cars; we want lithographed freight cars in a variety of heralds, built in O gauge scale size!""  Last year I went a little crazy buying lithographed freight cars. I bought so many that I don’t have a tinplate engine that can pull them all.

The economy is so good in my make believe railroad land, that the freight cars are backing up in the terminal. The railroad had to enlist the service of the mighty MTH Allegheny to pull the fleet of Ives freight cars out to their final destination.

The railroad tried to add the American Flyer fleet of litho cars to the train, but the drag caused too many derailments. There are 15 Ives long cars and one American Flyer enamel transition car behind the Allegheny.

George

A few news in the collection this week.

Bing 62/598 for UK with box, made 1930-1932

Bing 62/603 LNER, made 1929-1932

A few Bing German cars

Bing 10/577 cooling car, made 1929-1932

Bing 10/578 meat car, made 1929-1932 with Elastolin pigs

Bing 10/579 fish car, made 1929-1932

Bing early coaches for trainsets, made around 1910

With printed windows in near mint condition

Bing french signals

Bing train indicator, the left is missing the roof.

Karl Bub train indicator

Karl Bub warehouse.

Arne

Arne: GREAT selection - especially like those two pigs!  ☺

The french 2D2 electric locomotive from the twenties has been reproduced by all three of the most important french toy trains manufacturers, JEP, HORNBY and LR. They are all different and only the LR model has the right wheel combination, JEP is in the middle and Hornby really simplified the question with four wheels only, impossible to do less.... Which one is the best, impossible to tell, each of them has his own charm.

Daniel

Daniel: ALL are VERY NICE!  ☺

Fred, will you be including the Bugatti Autorail in your coverage? CR26, CR70 and 71 tender, CR80 led pass set, Autorail

Jim O'C posted:

Fred, will you be including the Bugatti Autorail in your coverage?

No Jim, My book is called "Steamliners - Streamlined Steam Locomotives". So no Autorail.

Regards

Fred

George S posted:

  Last year I went a little crazy buying lithographed freight cars. I bought so many that I don’t have a tinplate engine that can pull them all.

 

comparable to the man that says "my wife is too pretty or my hot rod too fast...no sympathies here George.... I think I had 18 O Gauge/O27 cars behind my 226E before the O27 curves caused problems.

Awesome!  You guys are amazing.

GeorgeS, that big steamer pulls em by nice and slow.  Eye candy.  That’s sexy man.  Keep going!

Steamer posted:

George S posted:

  Last year I went a little crazy buying lithographed freight cars. I bought so many that I don’t have a tinplate engine that can pull them all.

 

comparable to the man that says "my wife is too pretty or my hot rod too fast...no sympathies here George.... I think I had 18 O Gauge/O27 cars behind my 226E before the O27 curves caused problems.

I know...

Yep, I tried to pull 24 lithographed freights.  As you know, these are mostly 9" cars. This was on O72 and O81 curves. About 5 cars after the AF 3208 just fell over on their side. I might have got them rolling if I had a long enough straight. The Allegheny has a very large can motor and could have dragged them along and ruined them. Of course, that is not what I was trying to accomplish.

George

A couple of oddities and unusual color variations.

NWL

Another Friday of wonderful shares. Almost enough to make me forget that all my new stuff is stuck in Customs somewhere. 

We are set up and running at the Great Train Show in Costa Mesa CA. Layout space is 1/3 the size of what we asked for so had to cut it way back.
Steve

Looks great Steve! Thanks for sharing!!

Sunrise

yes thanks Steve

Sooooo muuuuch Europeeeeean

All of it Lovely ! Fred I am gonna stalk your site until you publish your Streamliners , you know that yes?

My absolute favourite Style of locomotives

SO fresh from my hunting today I have a couple more european to add , probably nothing you all havent seen before ... A couple of French Hornby carriages .

A tidy SNCF 3rd wagon ... been hunting this one to complete the ones I already have ( 1st baggage, 2nd, 2nd baggage)

( Already collected vvvv )

3rd (new to me)

And a very very nice CIWL

Both sourced locally here in Australia

scott.smith posted:

Scott Smith

I really like the tall grass on the lowest level. What did you use for the grass and for the brown ballast?

Hello Tinplaters...

Note to George...thanks for the Louis Hertz quote. I think I should give you the opportunity to give those lithographed cars a new home (mine) so that your railroad could once again flow freely! 

Here is one of my #228's spinning around my workbench oval.

Tom

RoyBoy posted:

scott.smith posted:

Scott Smith

I really like the tall grass on the lowest level. What did you use for the grass and for the brown ballast?

Roy,

The grass is artificial turf. A local school bought it and didn’t install it. They gave it to the museum and the museum threw it out. The president of the club rescued it and that’s how we got it. It is very thick and multi-layered. I have to peel off the bottom layer just so the staples will go through it (longest staples I could find). I also have to cut out the white yard lines in the roll. Originally my plan was to make the entire layout a winter scene. I even debated using the yard lines on the turf. After seeing how great the green turf looked with the tinplate I decided to change the season.

The club had a lot of ballast in the storage room; however it was N and HO sized. Trying to do this cheap  I found a great brown gravel sized right at Pet Smart. The aquarium gravel was much cheaper than buying that much ballast at the hobby store.

Scott Smith

Guys what a great thread of pictures.  SNCF231E / FRED :  Wow between your pictures and those of Jim O'C on CR trains (is CR correct for the maker?) I saw trains that I had no idea even existed.  FRED - whenever you publish or make available your Streamliner e-book please let us know and I certainly want to see it and gain a copy.  Arne - as usual your Bing trains are superb, the "Kulh" Wagen was most interesting, and since I saw it as an example today I decided to post for the first time my "PioneerExpressen" KOLE VOGN from Denmark (note Denmark is where I purchased it, I do not know if that is where it was made) .  "PIONEEREXPRESSEN" is apparently the maker or manufacturer as I have at least one other car marked the same way on the bottom of the floor.  In addition, I have included what I believe to be a French Baggage/Mail car. It has no maker's markings on the car, however it does have the typical green & yellow paint / trim of SNCF cars and it contains lettering that is very similar to that which I can see on FATMAN's French Hornby Carriages...the yellow lettering says..."SN 70541" and there is a simulated plate that says "LIACI" over the top of "AIVIC" which I am speculating are two French words but my HS french cannot translate.  It is much smaller than FATMAN's coaches of course  being 4 wheel and only 14 cm long with tab/slot couplers.

These two are part of my very eclectic collection of bits and pieces that I picked up as I traveled the world for my DOD job and I tried to get some piece of "toy trains"  wherever they sent me. 

These are probably not either rare or unusual but they were fun to collect.

Don McErlean

Door opens although it is very stiff to slide, does not seem to be a very precise construction. You can see the tabs for making the car ends are simply folded over the sides.

The baggage door opens but obviously the personnel door does not.  The slider is very easy to work indicating some care in its construction.  There is also an end door in each end, lithographed into the design, but it is simulated only. 

Hello Don,

the baggage car is no Hornby, this is Model 4412 made by Karl Bub between 1936 and 1939.

Greetings

Arne

Guys:  Here is another fun piece.  It is rather old, most likely pre-war as it lists as its country of origin as "Germany" and is too old to be post reconciliation.  It clearly states " KARUS / Fandor / JKCo" in the black triangular trademark below the "E" in SHELL. The tank support, black with white lettering, contains much other information, all in German, of which I can easily read..." Deutsche Reichsbahn" (German Railways) plus some city names, prominently "Hamburg".

YIKES!  Forgot the picture before I hit "Post" ... sorry for that.

Don McErlean

Arne:  Thank you for the info on the Baggage car.  I will admit to being surprised that it is of German origin as the paint scheme looked French (Green and Yellow) but clearly it is Bub. Now I know more about it.  Thanks again for the data and the catalog picture.

Don McErlean

@Don McErlean  CR is an abbreviation for Charles Rossignol , a very sought after tinplate manufacturer in France His stuff usually commands a premium , they produced many sorts of tin toys , cars, floortrains, Airplanes,trucks, even model safes lol

They were exceptionally well detailed lithography and design for the most part , real quality toys

eg http://oldantiquetoys.blogspot...exceptional-toy.html

I only have a couple of CR which I have previously shared

My small fleet of Bowser powered tinplate San Francisco cable cars with home made summer trailer. Also a photo of my homemade controller and a short video just to prove that it indeed works. Paul

FATMAN: Those are exquisite SNCF carriages!

Fatman posted:

@Don McErlean  CR is an abbreviation for Charles Rossignol , a very sought after tinplate manufacturer in France His stuff usually commands a premium , they produced many sorts of tin toys , cars, floortrains, Airplanes,trucks, even model safes lol

They were exceptionally well detailed lithography and design for the most part , real quality toys

eg http://oldantiquetoys.blogspot...exceptional-toy.html

 

CR was the trademark used by by the company La Société Rossignol-Roitel, a toy company that made toys from 1868 - 1962. They are indeed famous for their lithographie, but not for their quality. The CR toys were made as cheap flimsy toys that were made from very thin tinplate. A French boy that wanted a JEP or Hornby train for Christmas and received a CR train was really disappointed. CR did not have a system, like all trainmakers (Lionel, Marklin, JEP, Hornby etc...) but just made train sets in a number of gauges, not thinking about compatibility at all. CR toys are in general more collected by vintage toy collectors than us tinplate train guys. A very beautiful illustrated book on CR is written/compiled by Mick Duprat (Les Jouets C.R., Inventions et Fantaisies):

Regards

Fred

FATMAN:  Thank you for the info on CR trains... This is why I love this forum.  From Arne, I learned information on a little baggage car I had in my display case for likely 10 years knowing nearly nothing about it.  From You, SNCF231E, &  Jim O'C,  I learned about a type of trains (CR) I never even knew existed...for a former Research Scientist (read nerd) , that was quite a Saturday!! By the way the engine you pictured is really neat, I loved how they simulated the last days of "speed" for steam by contouring the top of the tender to meet closely with the cab roof. 

STANNUM - While I have one of those Powell St Cable Cars I never thought of powering them.  Your video was really neat and those guys seem to take to the power really well and look cool.  I thought I even detected a "bell ringing" in the video, did you figure out how to make the bell ring?  Your controller is beautiful, like a piece of furniture.  Exceptional craftsmenship is clearly in evidence.

NWL : As usual, your AF pre-war items are really great.  I had actually never even seen a #92 Tower before.  I am afraid all my layout towers are MARX...luckily they made them in several lithograph schemes but none as nice or as detailed as the AF tower you pictured.

Great pictures and thank you all for your responses.

Don McErlean

Don McErlean posted:

Guys what a great thread of pictures.  SNCF231E / FRED :  Wow between your pictures and those of Jim O'C on CR trains (is CR correct for the maker?) I saw trains that I had no idea even existed.  FRED - whenever you publish or make available your Streamliner e-book please let us know and I certainly want to see it and gain a copy.  Arne - as usual your Bing trains are superb, the "Kulh" Wagen was most interesting, and since I saw it as an example today I decided to post for the first time my "PioneerExpressen" KOLE VOGN from Denmark (note Denmark is where I purchased it, I do not know if that is where it was made) .  "PIONEEREXPRESSEN" is apparently the maker or manufacturer as I have at least one other car marked the same way on the bottom of the floor.  In addition, I have included what I believe to be a French Baggage/Mail car. It has no maker's markings on the car, however it does have the typical green & yellow paint / trim of SNCF cars and it contains lettering that is very similar to that which I can see on FATMAN's French Hornby Carriages...the yellow lettering says..."SN 70541" and there is a simulated plate that says "LIACI" over the top of "AIVIC" which I am speculating are two French words but my HS french cannot translate.  It is much smaller than FATMAN's coaches of course  being 4 wheel and only 14 cm long with tab/slot couplers.

These two are part of my very eclectic collection of bits and pieces that I picked up as I traveled the world for my DOD job and I tried to get some piece of "toy trains"  wherever they sent me. 

These are probably not either rare or unusual but they were fun to collect.

Don McErlean

 

Door opens although it is very stiff to slide, does not seem to be a very precise construction. You can see the tabs for making the car ends are simply folded over the sides.

The baggage door opens but obviously the personnel door does not.  The slider is very easy to work indicating some care in its construction.  There is also an end door in each end, lithographed into the design, but it is simulated only. 

the Danish boxcar is Cepas or Pioneer Expressen. More listed on the Binns Road website. Funny aside to this manufacturer, if you look at the Karl Bub page on the TCA website, there is a Bub loco and tender towards the bottom of the page shown with Cepas freight cars behind it. 

Here is my small inventory of Cepas.

here is one of their locos with track (not mine)

Jim O'C ...THANK YOU, as I said in my post, I bought the "Kole Vogn" (which I interpreted as cold wagon, perhaps refrigerator car or at least a ventilated box car cooled with passing air in Denmark but had no idea if in fact it came from that country or was manufactured by a company in Denmark.  Do you know anymore about Pioneer Expressen (note I figured out that yourl keyboard problem was likely the "p") or Cepas?  Not sure I know what the "Binns Road" website is but I will try to find it. I have one more car labeled for Pioneer Expressen, its a very small, passenger car that carries the Pioneer Expressen label on the side of the car like a train name or RR name.  It is very plain, red, 4 wheel, with only the name Pioneer Expressen as marking.  I will try to post a picture of it just for fun.

Thanks for the data and the response

Don McErlean

This might be be the last run of the season.  Got my gf back and she wants the dance floor back.  Mosh pit.  Just kidding,  Fact is, the batteries in my Cab1 are dead and it is time to roll up.  A moment of silence please.

Keep going guys!  I think all I desire is a 514R, cream side with a maroon roof.  No hurry.  Thinking of display shelves.  These trains are too cool to keep in a box 11 months a year.

Cheers,       W1

W1 :  Tears for sure at the "roll up" of a great standard gauge floor lay out.  I too have to run my SG on the floor, usually over Christmas, as I can't stand the 42" radius and the spacing on my layout (0 & 0-27).

For your information, "Trainworld" on their site is showing a "Tinplate Sale" which includes a couple of 514R's, one of which I recall may match your desire.  Their prices seemed fair (not "give away" cheap but fair).  Anyway take a look and see if that might work for you.

Thanks for the video

Don McErlean