Does anyone know what happened to this company?

Garden Railroading
1

p.114 Garden Railways, August 1999

1:20.3 scale, gauge 1, side-dump ore car kit
by Trail Creek Models
18746 McFarland Ave.
Saratoga, Ca.

Am looking for some plans that they had on this page and can’t find them anywhere. Does anyone know where they went? Did they change they’re name or how I could get in contact with someone from this company?

Really appreciate any help that you all could give me one this.

Thanks.

Melissa

2

No…sorry, I can not find it! [banghead]

3

Thanks for trying.

Hugs

4

I am not aware of this company’s status, but since it’s from 1999, it’s entirely possible they are no longer in business.

5

Trail Creek is long gone. If you’re looking for the Stratton side dump plans, I might know someone who can help you out.

6

Lot of garage industries have come and gone in LS over the years, anyone remember “Great Trains”?

7

Robert,

That would be great, and I would really appreciate your help. Can you put them in contact with me?

Thanks for replying to my post. I was wondering if anyone could help me.

Vic, who was Great trains?

8

Great Trains was a small manufacturer that had a brief but big impact on the hobby, they were 1/32 standard gauge , perhaps the first on the large scale market to offer affordable modern rolling stock. This was way before LGB offered any US profile diesel, and Bachmann was only offering the battery powered Big Hauler. In an old 1989 Walthers large scale catalog they initially offered an F40 in various roadnames, along with a set of streamline passenger cars, they followed this with a set of superliner cars, then later with an F7 A & B unit long before LGB ever offered one. What did them in as I understand it was poor sales and high manufacturing costs, large scale was overwhelmingly narrow gauge oriented at the time and few really wanted modern standard guage rolling stock, so it was sold a few times then dissappeared. The trains show up on Ebay now and then, and tend to sell for a bit today, funny thing, if they were to offer the superliner cars today they’d sell like hotcakes!
I’m still kicking myself as I could have picked up an Amtrak F40 and 3 superliner cars at a trainshow last year for only $300.

9

Sounds like that would have been a great deal. Sorry that you missed it. Maybe next time.

10

I talked to him today and he still has the plans. He’s going to get his wife to scan them. I will send you his email addy in a pm. Tell him I sent you. I think he said the plans are not to a specific scale, but just use 1/2" scale, and you’ll be fine. They are the original trail creek plans, though. While yall are trying to get together, check this out. It’s a build he did on that very car converting it to 7/8n2. http://tracksidemodeler.com/index.php?topic=1007.0

11

Heres a web page showing the 1989 Great Trains catalog pages
http://www.mylargescale.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=44371&SearchTerms=great+trains

12

Wow, thanks for sharing. That is so cool looking. You’re wonderful.

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Thanks Robert, that’s great. I appreciate your help.

I’ll get with him and tell him you sent me.

M

14

Good deal. I was wrong about the scale, though. It’s not 1/2". It’s 1/22.5. Just use a G scale ruler, and it’ll be easy.

15

I went to the site, and it looks wonderful. I never would have thought to do that with kitty litter though. that is a great idea. I’m so excited about this. I can’t wait to get started on it.

Thanks so much. Hugs.

M