Weekend Tinplate photos 📸 and videos 📽 5/28/20!

I put this up on the Milwaukee Road thread this am, so why not here as well.  

This is all part of set #26, c. 1924?  

NWL

French HORNBY set from 1925, all original. Very different from the box illustration....

Have a nice weekend,   Daniel

Picked up a ratty No.2 special LMS "psychedelic" Breakdown wagon ... called "psychedelic" these days because of the contrasting factory paint lining and colours ( The LMS is the most boring example of them lol )

As opposed to the rather staid looking earlier versions

@Fatman posted:

Picked up a ratty No.2 special LMS "psychedelic" Breakdown wagon ... called "psychedelic" these days because of the contrasting gactory paint lining and colours ( The LMS is the most boring example of them lol )

As opposed to the rather staid looking earlier versions

Always enjoy seeing what you manage to come up with.

Do you clean them up and run them?

@Mallard4468

Yep I give them a wipe up and lubricate or swap wheels/axles out depending how they go , I dont restore much as I like them to show the lives they have led and the enjoyment thay have given to others over the years

About the only ones I am hesitant to run are my early Lionel Clockworks , because once you lunch the whistle gear on them , they are toast unless you fabricate new ones ... I have a couple of other locos that do laps only on special occasions , being my "Bing British " set from 1934 ( very rare, as it was made by Stephan Bing in his transitional years before creating Trix and made by him in Britain , not by Bing Germany.. only seen another in one book )  and my Ernst Planck from the 1900's

My aim is to amass a decent cross section of mainly clockwork locos from many countries and eras as well as  related rolling stock and ephemera to eventually fill the front room as a kind of private museum lol ...

Currently I dont have a fixed layout for them as such , but in being true to the tradition... a fat old man on the carpet gives me the same experience as most of the kiddies had way back when

Plan is eventually to have a nice test track in place in the room as well but till then its "On the floor " for me

While not tinplate, per se, thought I'd post a pic of this cast iron Arcade 3980 tank from 1941:

This is the second one of these I've found in the last ten years or so, this from a local flea market back in January. Firing mechanism still works, rubber tires in good shape, and the original pink paint is substantially intact. Why pink? No idea.

PD

Milwaukee Road Olympian at the station as a Shasta crosses Main Street.

Hafner Baggage Cars

The common

...and the not so common

The news in the collection.

Bing tank car 9176 around 1910

Bing crane car 13806 around 1910

Bing loco 210/2560 around 1915. Needs a lot of repair.

And I have repaired a American Flyer Hiawatha loco.

Was missing the key and the screw thread is really uncommon in Germany. Now I had found a screw had changed its head, now it works with a clockwork key.

The spring was broken too.

Now it´s a good runner again.

Arne

Great job, Arne. Gotta keep those Flyer clockworks running whenever possible. Hiawatha is one of my personal favorites.

My goodness fellows, its  not even Saturday and the tinplate thread is really going strong.  NWL the MLW cars are neat but the matching bridge is truly unique.  Frenchtrains - where do you come up with these sets, this one is magnificent!!  Fatman - always got some cool stuff, a psychchedelic breakdown van.  By the way, I liked your comment on your restoration philosophy, I fully agree...over restoration takes away from some of the historical perspective and removes the witness to the play that many of these toys have seen. PD - a PINK tank!  my military friends are going to have an issue with Arcade! cool toy though.  Robert S. Butler - an "Adams Express" baggage car, never saw one before...really cool!  Arnie - what a great tank car.  I am about to post a tanker as well, not nearly as vintage or rare but fun.

My find this weekend comes from acquiring a few Mettoy Ltd goods wagons- alas no engine.  These all date from the period of around 1949-1951 as best I can place them, using Michael Fosters series on English Toy Trains, Vol 5.  IAW Foster's illustrated book, all these cars were introduced in the Trade Catalog of 1946 but Mettoy moved its factory in 1949 and this (for some reason) caused a change to the stamping of the common base...the area between the embossed brake mechanism  in the side frame between the axles was no longer punched out, the material was left in place giving the frame a much more solid look. 

Here is the "Open Wagon" which because of the solid frame dates from 1949 and then continues with the pre-nationalization Railroad names until about 1950-51.  After that, the wagon continued but the lithography was either no namewith  just the detail of the sides and the reinforcing ribs lithographed in a contrasting color to the sides or all one color (typically a pale yellow) and labeled British Rail across the width of the car.   According for Foster, for all of these cars, the base frames came in Yellow, Grey, Dk Blue or Red, were used for all the car types,  and were interchanged constantly as far as color is concerned. 

Here is the Stanchion car, the uprights came in all of the colors of the base but were always colored in contrast to the base color.  Note that this base, is simply the standard car base used by itself, with the uprights just riveted in place.  They were offered both loaded or unloaded and sometimes with a chain across the top of the uprights.  There is a quite rare one that came with a tin auto as the load - no such luck for me.  The most common load was a cargo box of some type. 

And here is my TANKER!  The Shell motor / spirit tanker from the same period.  Mettoy made two tankers postwar, this SHELL in red and an ESSO in Yellow.  For either car the base, lettered the same way, could be various colors.  In this case, my tanker was made in about '49 and I could not find any tanker's offered in sets post about '52 but I can't confirm that end date.  According to Foster, the last Mettoy track trains were made in 1959.  This tanker did appear in Goods Sets 5404/02 from 1946 through 1952 (although the only pictured example in '52 is of the ESSO tanker but I am assuming that the SHELL tanker would have been uses equally often).

Happy Tinplate Weekend Everyone!  Good hunting!

Don

How many 2816 hopper can an mth tinplate J1 haul?  Alot!!  Train occasionally slowing down is due to track elevation changes. (sorry the video quality isn't better.)

FEF, Bing style.

Steve

Had some fun recently with Ives trains.  I had bought a 132 observation and 130 Buffet for really short money.  One side of each looked pretty good but the other side was dreadful.  So they sat on a shelf with the good side facing out. 

Lo and behold I found on Ebay  3 Ives cars -- 132, 129, and 130.  The 130 had one good side and one not so good and by some miracle the  130 good side was just the one I needed to replace the dreadful one. I soon learned the sides of the Ives cars could be taken apart separately.  To make a long story short, I now have 3 cars with nice sides and two cars with poor sides.  And to top it off, the good cars have repainted brown roofs that look quite nice.  So here are the photos showing the Ives Express passing a similar American Flyer passenger train.

OK I agree I already posted to this thread today, but I could not resist another subject area.  Robert S. Butler posted some really neat Hafner baggage cars including one for "Adams Express" that I had never even seen before.  What continues to draw my interest though is the close connection between Hafner (Mr. Hafner was one of the founders of American Flyer but left  in 1914 to start his own toy company) and American Flyer cars of about the same period.  So here are a few examples that I have of 4-wheel baggage cars.

Here is the earliest I have and it dates from about 1918 through 1920.  You can see it strongly resembles the configuration that Robert labeled as the more common Hafner Overland Flyer car including the "American Express Co logo" in the white squares.  This car also has a 5 panel litho door as does the Hafner car only it is 3 over 2 instead of 2 over 3 but otherwise the doors appear very similar.  It has no mention of  an RPO.

Later, around 1920, we have the  AF 1205 baggage, which has now lost some of its similarity to the Hafner car.  The roof has a more rounded end and the door (although hard to see) is now 6 panels.  In addition, the logo now reads, "American Flyer Electric Service" but it continues to be labeled "Express Baggage" and it continues to have an absence of any mention of an RPO. Yet at this point there is still some resemblance.

One final variaton of this car dates to much later, around 1934 and its lithography is very different and the door is just smooth green sheet metal, no panels.  We now have a clear designation that the car represents an RPO but we have the absence of any of the earlier logo's and at this date it does not mention "Express Baggage".

Well who knows, it seems clear that at least in the early years American Flyer and Hafner where Mr. Hafner himself was  clearly a key part of both organizations for some time,  shared (knowingly or not) information and maybe even parts.  Later, they drifted further apart.

Have a good weekend everyone

Don

I'm sure NWL will have more to add to this Don but since you brought up the subject of early Flyer 4 wheel baggage cars, here's a few more.

No doors - from a Butler Brothers set ca 1916

Herald Car - Northwestern - woodside ca 1915

Early litho overprinting pattern/practice - note the plain green"boxes" around the printing "American Flyer Line", "U" ."S". "Mail", and "Express Baggage" 

....and the famous EMANON (read it backwards)  nothing expressed

Hi everyone,

This week I am a happy camper! A box of prewar Marklin arrived including a CS 920 electric, and two 40 cm coaches, a 1942 and a 1944. I photographed them on my two rail layout and actually, photo wise, I think they turned out fine.

Miketg

Amazing set there @Miketg 

Very green eyed here lol .. the CIWIL and Personenwagen is to die for and the loco is a peach as well....

There are just so many options for American Flyer baggage cars.  It appears that the American Flyer baggage car was first introduced in 1914, as there are no baggage cars for the "Chicago" car series.

Here are two c. 1914-1915 1108 cars with the wood litho design.  Note the American Flyer road name above the doors.  I believe the earliest version is shown first.

A note to Fatman, since he is in Australia, this car came to me from down under many years ago.

Since there are so many options for baggage cars, I will just highlight a few of the more unusual ones.

Continental Flyer Line c. 1916

Imperial Limited Line c. 1916

An unusual gray 1108 from 1918

Some Road Name cars

Penn RR in maroon

Penn RR in brown

and one of the toughest road name baggage cars

To expand upon Robert S. Butler's post of unmarked cars, he posted the green car (as shown below)

but there was also one in red

and one in maroon

coincidentally, there is a maroon un-lettered car on the bay at the current time.  

It we go to the larger series cars, the first baggage cars are this 1105 which I believe is c. 1914 or 1915

and this very rare 1104 c. 1915 or 1916

slightly later 1104

And two seemingly identical 1202 cars.  First this one with the slots and spreaders at the top of the car (tabs for the spreaders are just to the left of the A in American Flyer and covering the E in Line).

And the slightly later one that does not have the tab and slot design for the spreaders

Note the slight difference in the lithography in the two 1202's above.  The first one has larger 1202 numbers and no "Express Baggage" lettering, as compared to the second one that has smaller 1202 numbers and the "Express Baggage" lettering.  

NWL

@Miketg posted:

Hi everyone,

This week I am a happy camper! A box of prewar Marklin arrived including a CS 920 electric, and two 40 cm coaches, a 1942 and a 1944. I photographed them on my two rail layout and actually, photo wise, I think they turned out fine.

Miketg

Nice catch Mike, very good taste for great models. Enjoy, Daniel

Well I cannot come close to the rarity of the baggage cars shown by Robert and NWL but here are two 8 wheel cars that at least have not been posted this weekend.

Here is the 1200 "lightening bolt" baggage in red from 1918-1919

Considerably later, around 1923, we have the "3-window". 1205 Baggage

Respectfully, Don

Three different gauges of Ives on the layout- National Limited set in standard gauge, two of my Ives one gauge electric locos on display (3239 and 3240) and on the elevated line an Ives 3255R with a 130 Buffet Car and two 129 coaches.

Hi  John,

Wonder how many others out there are operating Ives trains running past Hornby signal cabins?

Beautiful movie.

Lew Schneider

Track cleaning, STD Gauge style.
Cool piece but it does not really function.

Steve

MTH Tinplate

@Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

Track cleaning, STD Gauge style.
Cool piece but it does not really function.

Steve

It needs snow to function properly, which I suspect you are in short supply of out there.

Glad I got busy at work and missed bidding on that one Steve! 

@lewrail posted:

Had some fun recently with Ives trains.  I had bought a 132 observation and 130 Buffet for really short money.  One side of each looked pretty good but the other side was dreadful.  So they sat on a shelf with the good side facing out. 

Lo and behold I found on Ebay  3 Ives cars -- 132, 129, and 130.  The 130 had one good side and one not so good and by some miracle the  130 good side was just the one I needed to replace the dreadful one. I soon learned the sides of the Ives cars could be taken apart separately.  To make a long story short, I now have 3 cars with nice sides and two cars with poor sides.  And to top it off, the good cars have repainted brown roofs that look quite nice.  So here are the photos showing the Ives Express passing a similar American Flyer passenger train.

What an interesting coincidence.  A few weeks ago I got an email from Lew with photos of the junk 132 and 129/130 inquiring as to my interest in acquiring them.  After my first no, he made an offer I couldn't refuse, knowing I'll always buy junk if the price is right :-)    [we live close to each other]

So I thought maybe they'd go with the Ives 129 and 130 that I've been restoring.  Doesn't work - they're genuine junk.

By pure coincidence, last night I was looking through the Tinplate Forum just to pass the time and happened on this one.  So what I'm about to show is the sequel to Lew's story.

I'll begin with Lew's rejects - not really awful at first glance.  Here they are.

With the 129 and 130 that I'm restoring,

why not a four car train ?  Typical 30's train.  Two coaches, buffet with dining section next to the parlor observation.

Then I thought it should be a real train, so taking a few NYC S motors off the restoration track, now we're ready to run.  One of those looks too small for that train so two units.  The first is a 153, the second a 152 made in 1918.  Sometime later this year you'll see that one fully restored in the original dark green lettered NYC.  BTW, if it's NYC it has to be good - great time working there in the 60's.

But then on closer inspection it became clear that I really had bought junk.  Sometime soon there will be eBay listings for two pairs of Ives trucks and two pairs of couplers.  As for the frames and bodies,  maybe some other junk collector would like them - thinking of starting the auction at $5.00.

And now for the good stuff.  I think I've done a pretty nice restoration job on the 129 and 130 and will post that on the Tinplate Forum as Ives Buffet and Saratoga restoration - tomorrow.

I finally found the one McCoy circus car I knew I was missing. Great stuff as always guys.I always look forward to the great stuff everyone posts on this thread!

DANIEL: Stunning 1925 set! PD: Amazing pink tank! Definitely a strange choice of color for an armored vehicle!

It’s taken a few years to put this together, now with an extra coach. Spent some time today swapping frames and roofs to make a decent Vagabond+ set. Somewhere I have a repro pilot for the engine.

Steve

@Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

It’s taken a few years to put this together, now with an extra coach. Spent some time today swapping frames and roofs to make a decent Vagabond+ set. Somewhere I have a repro pilot for the engine.

Steve

 

Surprisingly consistent colors across this set. Excellent.

@Jim O'C posted:

Surprisingly consistent colors across this set. Excellent.

The one parts car was quite a bit lighter. These aren’t perfect, but are a decent match.

Steve