The president of our local club gave me a pair of old hobbytown of boston Alco PA1’s to rework. They have been sitting in a drawer for 25+ years unused. They have huge Pittman DC91 motors in them and all wheel drive with all brass gearing. They ran very quiet by themselves, but the ancient rubber shaft couplers failed under any kind of load. I took them home and tore both down and cleaned out the ancient thick lube and relubed with fresh grease. Polished the communtators on both motors and replaced all the rubber connectors. Now they both run smooth and quieter than most Athearn BB engines. They weight around 3 pounds each and draw around 1.5 to 2 amps combined or from 1/2 to 1 amp each prior to rebuilding. They are unpainted and unlighted as of yet. Waiting to see what he wants to do with them. I believe we are going to paint them for the club home road. He may turn over ownership to me, not sure on that part yet. I have a good plan how I will paint them for the club railroad though! Anybody else like running these antique engines like I do?
whadya mean “antique”? I resemble that!
Ed
I am only half way to antique, turn 37 this coming March. The more I run the old ones(once they are running good again), the more I like them over the new stuff. Something about a heavy, all diecast metal engine, the heft, lack of fragile details getting constantly broken or bent from handling. I have 2 PA1’s in my collection, an old Athearn NKP Bluebird and a newer Trix UP that is being repainted to NKP. The Trix is all diecast but only 2 axles are powered on the front truck, more than enough to pull my light weight NKP passenger train. But these old hobbytowns used to hold down one of the unit coal train assignments on the layout, just long before I joined and I have been a member since I was 16. The bulk of our power for coal trains are Bowser Challenger class engines and several lashups of Athearn SD9s in the home road colors, but with Proto Power West drives in them.
On that vein:
I am so looking forward to finishing (or is that starting–I’m confused) my Cary/Hobbytown SW1500. With maybe a little weight added. It’s the slow speed version–35mph–about the same as the “horrid” Intermountain cab forward.
Yeah, people, I got yer switcher right here…
Ed
PS: One thing for sure, it WILL have all wheel pickup.
Climaxpwr:
Among my collection of Rio Grande steamers (mostly brass) is an older Oriental Limited “Powerhouse” Rio Grande series 3500 series 2-8-8-2, based on the D&RGW USRA clone compounds built for that railroad in 1927. The boiler is solid cast metal, the mechanism is powered by a large can motor. It outpulls anything I’ve got on the railroad. The detail isn’t up to brass (that can be taken care of by castings, which I’m doing) but the mechanism is smooth as silk, and I haven’t yet found enough cars for it to haul, even up my 2-2.4% grades.
It’s simply a honey of a loco. For sheer hauling power, I can’t find anything current that beats well-weighted and balanced brass or heavy metal.
Glad those Hobbytowns are working for you. They’re pretty well indestructable in my book. Frankly, we can have all the bells and whistles that we want these days with all of the new computer gee-gaws, but when it comes to actually getting down and HAULING trains–which for me at least, is what I want my locos to do–there’s nothing in the world like a well-motored, well-geared and heavy metal loco.
Tom [:)]
You got that right Tom, I have a couple with all the bells and whistles, and while my BLI PRR I1sa looks awsome, sounds awsome, with all metal drivers installed, it cannot hardly pull my Bowser PRR M1a Mountain that is a free rolling engine till the motor comes from Bowser for it. The Bowser rolls smooth as silk and weighs 2 pounds for just the engine without the motor installed. Our club runs several Bowser Challengers, Penn Line I1 and L1 class PRR engines, a fleet of Athearn SD9’s with Proto Power West chassis and extra weight. We are there to move long freight trains and prefer power that will pull! Cheers Mike
Nice to hear that a couple Hobbytowns are on the tracks again! And you say the all brass gears are quiet? I hope my Cary/Hobbytown E6 will be like that eventually, because right now that brass gear tower makes a whine that’s noisier than most everything I own![:O] Does anyone know how much run time it takes for the Hobbytown gears to get worn in enough to be quiet?
i haven’t run mine in years but i can tell you now you need to buy some more cars if you want to really make them work. i had an a-b-a combo of the alco freight engines with the big motor in the b unit and some lead type slugs in the a’s.
i did have to pin the universal couplings to the round shafts to keep them from slipping and fabricate sliding pick ups under the trucks for obvious reasons. when i widened out on them it was as if the house lights were going to go dim.
dumbest move was using them as pushers on a club layout one time behind a long coal train. most of the cars had loose loads in them and when the lead power hit a dead block, the train folded up like an acordion spilling coal all over the layout. by the time it was over we had about 20 cars piled up in a space 2 feet long.
anybody remember the “clutch” option they had for these? it was a big rubber stopper split with two crosscuts and it expanded inside a drum when you increased the rpm’s. i never did get it to work right.
grizlump
From what he remembers this pair of PA’s did thier duty pulling 18 car unit coal trains, mostly Athearn and Ulrich 4 bay hoppers filled with real coal dust from the tailings pile of Clinchfield 24 mine. Talk about heavy loads! The brass gears have a very minor sing to them, not even close to the howl from some of the early brass tower gear drives. I believe he said he hand lapped the gears prior to them being run for the first time. He built both during his years in the service over in Korea flying transport planes. So on his down time he built these kits, nothing else to do. Cheers Mike
I have not done it, but a couple of Hobbytown gurus from my past said to hook up a Dremel tool to the drive train and the 30,000 rpm will break in the gears quickly to quiet them down.
I have a Hobbytown F chassis with Cary F3 bodies on them that will pull plaster off the wall! I also have under construction an E Chassis that will have Cary E6 bodies on them. In addition a couple of GP20’s, GP9,s RS3 and RSD5.
Rick
Rick
A couple of Hobbytown gurus from the past told me to hook up a Dremel Tool with its 30,000 rpm to the Hobbytown Drive train in order to break in the gears.
I have a F3 Hobbytown drive with Cary body shells, 2 GP7’s, and an RS-3. Under construction are a E6 with Cary body shells, 2 GP20’s and an RSD-5.
Rick
I have a cary E7 A-B set with PPW/A-Line drives, that I think could pull a real train, and I also roster a Hobbytown E7 A-B set with the open frame motor and spring belt drive, but I am rarely allowed to run those because when I do, every tv on the block goes straight to snow!!!
I have three of the old Mantua die cast metal Baldwin Sharks with the Hobbytown drives. One has the old Pittman motor and is lettered for the New York Central, and two I got right before Hobbytown dropped from sight and built myself. They’re painted and lettered for the Pennsy. They do have a bit of a growl when pulling a load, and I’ve heard people say that they’ll pull the paint off the walls, and these two will. Double headed, they’ll stringline a train on the curve (30 inch radius) before they’ll stall.
Now that I’m in a position that I can afford these (and Bowser kits), they both go out of the business.
The traditional advice to get gears to quiet down was to apply some jeweler’s rouge (an abrasive suspended in a sort of gummy mush that had some lubricant in it), let the gears run a while, and then thoroughly remove the jeweler’s rouge. Some people recommend a mix of lubricant and toothpaste or lubricant and Arm & Hammer baking powder as a substitute for jeweler’s rouge. The important thing is to remove the stuff before final lubrication.
I’ve always assumed this advice is for metal gears and worms.
Dave Nelson
I think most of us here qualify as antiques ourselves thats why we identify with these old products so well, go ahead and try and deny it but you know it’s true. If it were in the “real /1:1 world” it would be like remembering when black & white TV came on the scene or when you were handed the keys by the dealer to your brand new 57 Chevy…lol I have some old Varney Switchers that if you drop em on your foot you’ll need a ride to the emergency room that I’ll never part with. Can’t say if I even want to convert them over to DCC or just let them sit in retirement up on a shelf.
“Convert them to DCC” or “retire them to a shelf?” I have a lot of these locomotives on my layout, running on DC, that are still pulling trains. In addition to the Mantua/Hobbytowns, I have Mantua, Bowser, Tyco, MDC, old Athearn, even one Penn Line.
Bowsers newer DC71 motors are set up for DCC with isolated motor brushes and a skewed armature. The amp draw is well within the range of most DCC decoders if the chassis is built properly and free of binds.
Here are a couple of pictures of my Cary Hobbytown Multidrive F3. On a fellow clubmembers layout we cleaned out his yard and hauled 157 cars with the engine about 1’ behind the caboose.
Rick
You should finish painting those F units up! Its fun to break out the old vintage power and show these new upstarts from China how to really move freight. Those would look awsome finished out with horns, grab rails and window glass installed. Along with a super bright golden white LED in the headlight opening. I got my heavy metal Bowser M1a PRR Mountain class running this morning, FedEd dropped of the correct motor for it today. I will take a pic of it running on the hobby shop layout later today and post it this evening. Mike
I had several Hobbytown chassis locomotives through the years. The ABA multi-drive with that big Pittman motor sure could pull wallpaper off of the wall. Since it had to stay coupled, a friend referred to it as the ‘fish’. The noise was an issue, and laping the gear train/lubing made the drive just ‘sing’. The big issue was no all wheel electical pickup and brass wheels. At least the ABA set has jumper between the units. I understand that the last of the Hobbytown chassis could be had with n/s wheel sets(Bear Locomotive Works??). I also had a AB set of Cary E’s and a SW7 with the low speed gears. I had bought a AA set of Cary F’s, but would up using Athearn BB drives in them. Back in the 70’s/80’s we sure built a lot more model than now. My airbrush was always busy. It seems to be used only for weathering /flat finish now. I asembled a Walther concreate coaling tower(the round one) and had to break out the air brush and used Floquil ‘concrete’ - the smell just about knocked me out. I can still smell it two days later! And I used to breathe at stuff all the time?
Jim Bernier