I’m looking at an EMD SW600 switcher on eBay that’s a pretty reasonable price. No road name - it’s painted but unmarked. The seller says the brand name is Lindberg. Has anyone ever heard of this product or know anything about it? Thanks.
Yeah. They make plastic models. Lindberg entered the model RR market in the 60’s. I don’t recall how long they produced model RR equipment and I can’t vouch for the quality. OTOH, the stuff is around 35-40 years old.
ANdre
I don’t know if Lindburg ever made any powered locos…they did make for a while, plastic kits in HO for static display
This is an old engine from the early 60’s, brass wheels and a spring belt drive. Do not wast your time or money on it with it! A good P2K switcher will be a much better investment if you are looking for a small 50’s era switcher.
Jim
Agreed… no amount of work will make it run decently. I will give you a tip though. If you ever come across any of their sprung freight car trucks, do whatever is neccessary to buy them. Sell the house, dog, anything.
Get anything but that one. A P2k or even an Athearn BB will be much better. Don’t walk, Run.
Jim
They made the best rolling trucks available, then or now. They were sprung, came in a plastic box that was great for parts, and if you put one on a piece of glass, it would roll off the end. Back then when you would test some trucks you’d put one on a piece of track, give it a little push and see if it would roll 2-3 feet. With Lindberg’s, if you did that they would be on the floor before you could reach out and grab them. Actually they made switching a little difficult(hard to get a car stopped), and they would find every dip in the track, but they were great for long trains.
Bob Hayes
Never heard of it.
OK, folks. I have been illuminated by your knowledge. Thanks to all for their input.
the goat
I don’t know whether Lindberg trucks were better than Central Valleys or not but they were certainly cheaper. I believe I read somewhere that these trucks represented one of the first offerings in delrin®. They did certainly roll smoothly and they were very efficient at spotting even minor imperfections in trackwork as the following cameo will demonstrate.
When I joined a club in Taxachusetts in 1965 they were doing some extensive modifications to the trackplan and, where possible, were trying to eliminate some of the brass track. There was an individual in the club who was replacing the out-of-the-box wheelsets with Lindberg’s and on one occasion he spotted a long cut of cars on a (newly laid) length of track and took his motive power and a cut of cars off to do some switching. About a minute later someone sang out, “Hey, Jack. Your train’s running away.” That length of track was perfectly flat, or at least so it seemed. Those Lindberg trucks sure pointed up the fact that a minor grade existed at that location. The club put Lindberg trucks under some test cars and used them to spot the location of “hidden” grades.
Now a little vignette about the Lindberg SW600. The most common vernacular expressi
I built many of their ship and aircraft models when I was little…didn’t know that they ever made trains.
underworld[:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]
They offered those trucks in both black and iron oxide red if memory serves and yes they rolled and rolled. At that time Athearn trucks rolled rather poorly; later Athearns had similar rolling characteristics to the Lindberg. I still see Lindberg trucks being sold at swap meets such as DuPage near Chicago. I think they were among the first to adopt the RP-25 wheel profile.
I have one Lindberg car, a reefer, that is rather a nice looking model, in Santa Fe paint, but I seem to recall reading on an authoritative website that it is one of those totally generic models with no true prototype at all. Anyway it is a nice enough looking model for the era – early 1960s. The packaging says Lindberg was established in 1933 and that this was a model by “Paul Lindberg.” The packaging – a really nice painting of a C&NW SW switcher at night – also shows a complete line of freight cars but I think the SW was their only locomotive.
The reefer cost $1.44. That might have been six cents more than an Athearn car cost at the time!
Dave Nelson
Same here. Never knew they made trains until now…
Tracklayer
For what it’s worth, the Mantua Heavyweights are the old Lindberg tooling.Also someone bought the truck line and it has been around under more than one name. Don’t know where they are right now.
I actually had one of those. I liked their looks and thought to give it a try. It was sure to end up in a special place in my train room. It did…the trash can. It ran about as good as a gasoline engine with a tank full of diesel. [xx(]