Please use this thread only for prewar American Flyer 3/16" O gauge trains manufactured by The A.C. Gilbert Co. as offered in the 1938-1941 catalogs. Pictures, stories, repairs, discussion, opinion.
(although some of these pictures are in Northwoods Flyer’s superb thread I felt it was time to give the Prewar 3/16" their own space)
CHECK BACK OFTEN, I WILL BE ADDING PICTURES THROUGH OUT THE THREAD AS I ADD PIECES TO MY COLLECTION. I’M TRYING TO KEEP THEM ORGANIZED.
ALSO A THANK YOU TO THOSE THAT HAVE CONTRIBUTED AND THOSE THAT WILL!
The thing that amazes me and surprises me is how little is known about these trains. They were really only manufactured for 4 years. They are not well known and not seen for sale that often. I would like to get this thread going with any pictures, information or discussion about ONLY 1938-1941 era Prewar American Flyer 3/16" trains…
I have been an American Flyer S gauge collector for more years than I care to remember. I’ve read “The Man Who Lives In Paradise” at least a few times and each time I do and as more time goes by I’m more and more fascinated by A.C. Gilbert and his accomplishments. Recently I discovered prewar AF 3/16" gauge trains almost by accident. I wanted a smaller layout to display some trains in a game room until I completed my large S layout room. I started out with a simple 5 by 9 layout and found that I just couldn’t squeeze enough Flyer S onto it. SO I did the layout in O. First with Lionel… that didn’t last long as it always felt like I was cheating on a spouse or something like that. I moved over to Chicago Flyer since it was “American Flyer” and although nice it just didn’t have the same appeal to me as S gauge. Well quite
This is the 534 the remote directional control version of the 4-8-4 behemoth of the American Flyer line. This engine is rubber stamped with 571, but the RDC makes it a 534. The Remote Directional Control allows the reversing unit to be cycled with a special control button that sends a small DC pulse over the AC line to the track. The engine can stop and start all day long in forward until the control is activated and the reversing unit is sequenced. This is especially useful with accessories like the talking station or toolshed.
This engine is part of set no. 4023 Union Pacific Freight set that I acquired this year. Unfortunately the cast 510 stock car was missing and in it’s stead was a sheetmetal 534 box car. I’m on the lookout for a nice 510 to make this set complete
There was also a 572 with RC (standard reversing unit, lever through top of boiler casting) that was catalogued and stamped 571 or 572
There were a few incarnations of the 4-8-4. The earliest one had a spur gear motor, which drove the wheels from a small gear on the motor to gear sets on the drive wheels. This wheel configuration also came as part of a “kit” to be assembled at home. This one is particularly rare and I’m sure expensive to buy now. I’m anxious to see pictures of these various styles surface here.

This image below shows the engine with Remote Directional Control unit on top. A DC pulse pulls the solenoid in and that sequences the reversing unit. (this whistle controller on a Lionel transformer will do this). There is also a small toothpick sized hole in the casting above the solenoid plate. I imagine this was so you could manually cycle the reversing unit should it become stuck.

This is the Remote Directional Controller… it’s a simple momentary contact button with a rectifier to
This is a picture of the American Flyer Hudson 570 with standard reversing unit. This has the reverse lever through the boiler casting as found on early production postwar engines. This could be used to manually lock the reversing unit in forward, or reverse if you chose to do so. The 531 was advertised as the Hudson with remote directional control. It was priced at $20.00 in the 1940 catalog, $2.50 more than the 570

This is a picture of the Pennsylvania K-5 (pacific) 561 standard reversing unit. All of these engines have superb detail and especially the valve gear workings.

This is the 545. It uses the same casting as the 561 Pennsylvania K-5, however it is not a Pacific wheel layout nor does it use the scale type tender casting. It also has less detail in the valve gear than the K5. This engine uses the Coleman (Chicago) Flyer tender. This train has an engine that although is technically a 3/16" casting was not advertised in the catalog as such. It was sold as a lesser priced set or solo engine than the K-5


Here is Gilbert’s Royal Blue. A torpedo engine, based on the Baltimore and Ohio’s flagship. It is quite accurate. Gilbert continued this engine postwar in the S gauge lineup, but curiously discontinued the blue passenger cars and offered it as a freight only set.

Here is the diminutive little Atlantic. It has great detail and complicated valve gear that later disappeared as this engine evolved into the later S gauge. I have since acquired a number of these and a few of them actually have a Chugger! in the tender…
(also of note you will see that there are no journal covers on the tender trucks. This Atlantic was part of a set where none of the rolling stock had journal covers either. Not sure if these was a budget set for a department store, or I believe I read that some early sets were sold off like this after 1941)

Here is another tender that has been repainted and decaled. This one is a “Chugger”. Gilbert designed a motor power unit to mount inside tenders and other rolling stock. This unit has a leather cupped piston that forced air through a small hole that would “resonate” to emulate the chugging/choo choo sound. I just restored this unit and it now works surprisingly well. It adds a whole new level of play value to these trains. This chugger would later be refined to become the first smoke in tender units seen postwar.


Link to youtube video showing chugger in action…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_Qi3pCpU4U&feature=plcp
Gray Cat,
This is an excellent topic as the Flyer 3/16th O gauge era was such a short period of time and also included the transition of Chicago Flyer to Gilbert production.
I have to admit to not actually caring for the 3/16th O gauge flyer items and having only some of the accessories. Although I think the die cast freight and passenger cars are nice, I have never persued these items in my collecting interest. However, I like the Gilbert pre-war buildings.
This first item is a transitional piece from 1940 and was cataloged under the Chicago number 97 Freight Station Set. This item features the Gilbert produced crane and a green crackle painted roof with the rest of the item being from leftover Chicago era production. Some of these stations are found with the earlier Chicago era lithographed roof.

I believe that the next item dates to 1941 and represents the first year production of the 612 freight station. Note that the item has the red painted base similar to the 1940 97 freigth station set pictured above. The building also has the brown trim instead of red trim, which is common on the pre-war tool shed and mystic stations (which were brown and yellow painted). There is also a black crackle painted roof and red mystic station letterboards.

A.C. Gilbert changed the pace in model railroading before WWII, then after the war he set the pace! I have very few pre-war pieces, but do have some.
http://www.rfgco.com/americanflyertrainscatalogs/catalogs.html
Nationwidelines, thank you for contributing to the thread. The no. 98 Freight station with Crane (as listed in my 1940 catalog) is a unique piece as you noted with the Chicago building and the Gilbert crane. I have a 612 now but it is the red white building with green roof. I’m on the lookout for a more “prewar” version with brown as you show. Great pictures!
Here are pictures of the no. 597 a-Koostikin Talking Passenger and Freight station. With the Prewar brown and yellow paint scheme. Post war the “Talking Station” as it was later renamed came in the standard red and white paint scheme.


Gray Cat,
Great thread.[tup] A rot free 561 is a piece that I always wanted. Looks like all of your steamers are in great shape. Do you have the 0-8-0 switcher?
Jim, thanks for the thumbs up… over the months to come I anticipate this thread becoming a great source of information for these (dare I say?) rare American Flyer trains.
I don’t have the Prewar O gauge 0-8-0 switcher yet. Now there’s an engine that doesn’t turn up for sale often. I wonder if I write a letter to Santa?
At this time I can honestly say I’m fortunate in that all of my castings are solid. The only problems that have shown so far is the tender floor on my Northern had to be replaced and on my Royal Blue the motor casting is actually swollen lengthwise ever so slightly. It runs and looks fine but the drive rods had to be ground down just a little to stop them from knocking (and I do have a spare motor casting complete when needed)
Action cars. One of the things Gilbert started to do prewar was add items of play interest to the line. Here are a few of the remote controled action cars. Most of these needed a special pickup track section. A spring on the side of the action car would contact this “third rail” and when the control button was pressed it would supply power to a coil that activated the mechanism in the car.
First up is a 474 coal dump car. Prior to this car the coal dump was a little boys hand!



Next action car is the auto unloading car. This featured an armored car that would automatically roll off a ramp that would swing out when the button was pushed. There were variations, this particular car has a red frame and dual spring contacts.


Today at a local train show I found this variation, the more common with black frame. The Armored car is a treat though since it’s all original with it’s original turret guns, these are almost always missing.

Here is the 490 Express Whistling car. This should have a special whistle controller which has a small rectifier to convert the AC of the transformer to a DC pulse that would be sent over the AC rails to activate a DC relay. The whistle in this car was designed to work through a stepper type activator similar to a reversing unit. It was On-Off-On-Off. So to activate the whistle you would push the button down once (don’t hold it down), to deactivate the whistle you hit the button again. Each button press would cause the DC pulse to pull in the DC relay and activate the stepper unit cycling the whistle either on or off. The 490 cannot be used in conjunction with a Remote Directional Control engine. The DC pulse that is used to activate the whistle would also activate the RDC! Actually it was the same control with different decal for Whistle Control or Remote Directional Control. The Whistle control on a Lionel Transformer will work also!

Although this rail contact came in the box I’m not sure of it’s purpose. It looks like copper that is insulated inside and designed to slide on top of the rail powering the whistle or something when the car goes by. Looking for more information on this piece.

Another action car is the mail pickup. This is a baggage car with a special track section that has a short pickup rail and a mail bag post. When activated a solenoid causes the pickup arm to come out and grab a mail bag. On the next trip around you can pickup a different colored mailbag and eject the first one at the same time. The pickup rail is designed such that you really can’t get the timing wrong. The arm retracts as soon as the pickup spring loses contact of the rail. With practice you can hit the button just right though so the guy in the mail car doesn’t toss your mail halfway across the la
It appears that there is some way for a person to set up a link to a specific post within a thread (I see that this has been done over on the Marx thread). I don’t want to clutter up your thread with non-specific posts so I’ll only mention that if you know how to do this you might want to build links to a number of posts on 3/16" flyer that are on pages 37 and 38 of Northwoods Flyer’s thread on pre-war American Flyer.
Here is a 585 non-talking tool shed. The prewar version, other than being painted brown and yellow, has a steel roof instead of the postwar plastic roof. I have noticed that the non-talking tool sheds typically have a smooth painted roof in a slightly darker green than the talking versions which are found with a lighter crackle green roof. Not sure if this is true for all, but I have noted this difference on more than one of these items.

Here is a 577 Whistling Billboard featuring the Royal Typewriter advertising. My boxed version came with a doorbell style button, similar to the Chicago era 2029 Billboard that was cataloged from 1937-1938.

Here is another transition item. This is the 416 Wrecker car from 1939. This item was sold with the Chicago era freight cars in 1939 and was included only in the top of the line freight set that featured the 447 O gauge hudson in 1939. It was also available for separate sale. The car features the Gilbert crane body and boom on a chicago era frame and trucks. The crane body is unlettered, as opposed to postwar cars that have lettering on the body.

I might add that there are a few things that tell a prewar billboard for sure. Your billboard has screws at the top corners that hold the framework together. These can be removed and the cardboard “billboard” can be removed. The side frames are also screwed on from behind. Postwar it was a stamped steel billboard frame that was riveted to the whistle body and sticker applied. Cloth covered wiring was prevalent prewar.