I came across a photo of a guy who was running a big vintage gauge I Buddy-L trainset on an elevated track around his garden. The caption said it was a reproduction set and looked very good condition so I assume no one would run a very rare train outdoors so I assume it was a repro. The size and quirkyness of the train appealed to me and I wondered …
Dr.Fu-Manchu The Train Guy with an answer: I recall seeing a ad in CTT for a company
called T-repoductions that were making Buddy-L lookalikes some time back. Check
the Want ad sect. of CTT. You never know. They are common(i think) also, I think that
they made some with elect. motors. Good luck in your search.
I think Buddy L sold out. You might want to check the index for CTT for older issures. A few years ago they ran an article on Buddy L showing a 30’s layout. These are very expensive.
Well, I don’t think that they are that common and they do command very high prices. I see them on ebay from time to time and individual pieces of rolling stock usually sell for $250+ and engines go upwards from $1000. There is a great deal of collector interest in them and even ones in very poor condition always receive lots of bids on ebay. To my knowledge, none were ever originally produced with motors, they were all freewheeling and meant to be played with outdoors.
The little information I have found so far and the few items I have seen on the web lead me to believe these are now pretty rare, with most remaining items already snatched up by collectors. I also found out that some models did have electric motors back in the 1920’s and 30’s and could be run outdoors but I also believe they were larger than Guage I and ran on their own track. I have seen some of the freewheeling items, and they are interesting, but I’m more interested in the powered items. I want to add a set to my collection but I doubt if I will ever afford one by the look of things. More research!