Hey does anyone know if American flyer made trains similar in size or looks to joy line?
Seems like you’d have more knowledgeable responses on the Toy Train sister forum.
Agreed. I’m moving this thread over there.
A lot of tinplate looks good together, regardless of manufacturer. Lionel and Flyer were really most responsible for creating what we think of as O gauge in America. Ives may have started here first, but Lionel and Flyer were the ones to make the trains larger when they shifted from cast iron to stamped steel locomotive shells. Before them, manufacturers were following the european ideal of what O gauge should look like. (Bing, Maerklin, Fandor, Bub, Krause) So small locos with short 4 wheel cars were more common in sets on both sides of the Atlantic in the early days.
Here’s an AF 3195 cast iron electric along side a Marx clockwork 0-4-0 which has many similarities to Joy Line locos:
They look good together, but it’s the Marx loco that has the boiler length we’ve come to expect for an O gauge loco.
Here’s a German clockwork engine along side the 3195:
And again aside the Marx loco:
See how much smaller european trains can be? Both run on O gauge track but the German engine is more like S gauge in size. (BTW if anybody knows who made that German engine I’d love to know!) Hornby O is a bit bigger, especially pre-war Meccano. But still very small and very short compared with what Lionel, Flyer and Ives were making in the late 20’s.
Unfortunately I don’t own any Joy Line equipment to show side by side pics with. I’m sure somebody does, let’s hope they see this and post! [:D] But I do know that Marx, Hafner, Overland Flyer, American Flyer and Joy Line share ancestry. So I’ve always assumed (correct me