Hey guys, I saw a history channel program called Toy Trains from the Trains Unlimited series, and there were a few segments of black and white footage showing some vintage HO steamers running around some monster layouts. Very vague question, but from the late 50s to the 60’s were HO steamers mostly brass or were these probably Lionel’s HO line. Some of them even back then had wispy trails of smoke coming from the stack, I’m not sure if that helps narrow it down, did brass owners ever install smoke units?
Second question, if I were looking to aquire some vintage HO models from this time period for collecting purposes, what brands should I look for, and as a whole, how did these older models run compared to the newer models of today? Were the motors extremely noisy? Were there lighting systems in the models? Finnicky about track work? How reliable?
Does anybody here have any Lionel HO steamers from that time period, and if you do, would you mind posting pictures? Btw, whats the price range for these kinds of vintage locos?
There were a number of USA-based manufacturers (Mantua, Penn Line, Bowser…) which manufactured cast metal models. I believe they were more numerous than the imported Japanese brass locos. Lionel didn’t really get a good foothold in HO until the '60s. There were also numerous European manufacturers who produced a variety of locos in a variety of materials. I remember seeing a really nice model of a French 4-6-2 - the light plastic locomotive was unpowered and free-wheeling, while the tender was the power unit, heavy and quite capable of pushing the locomotive and pulling a substantial train.
Some were quite reliable, others were of canine persuasion. I own a Mantua 0-4-0T (Pennsy prototype) which was very dependable when purchased, and is still an adequate performer, open frame motor and all. I also own a Tenshodo 0-6-0T that runs like a Rolex but sounds like a sewing machine. Since I stopped buying US prototype locomotives (for other than kitbash fodder) in 1960, I can’t write anything meaningful about that aspect. My Japa
I still have some of the first HO steam engines I bought or built in the late 50’s and early 60’s. The Mantua Pacific (4-6-2) I built from a kit in the 50’s is still a very smooth running and powerful engine. I am now planning to detail it although I may not convert it to DCC. I also have a Model Die Casting (Roundhouse) 0-6-0 switcher that I also built from a kit and it too is still a good runner. I have a John English Pacific that I bought at a LHS in the 60’s that still is running but no where as smooth as the Mantua.
If I were looking to buy any today I would most definately recommend the Mantua engines. They are all metal (although at some point they went to plastic tender shells and some engine cabs), heavy and very smooth running. There are some can motor conversions available on Ebay that could be used to convert to DCC. My Mantua Pacific is as smooth running as most modern can motor powered steamer like the Broadway Limited and Spectrum engines.
Other brands back then were Penn Line, Bowser, Kemtron and of course the brass imports. The Mantua engines are available on Ebay for about $20-$40, not much more that when they were new. I paid $19.95 for mine in 1959.
The best known steamers of the 50’s and 60’s were Mantua, PennLine/John English/Bowser, Roundhouse, among the diecast locos. These ran well as long as you were willing to tinker with the mechanisms a bit - an expected part of being a model railroader in those days. These examples could pull walls down and for tractive effort still far out weigh most of today’s steamers.
Of course, there was also a selection of less desirable diecast and plastic steamers, including Aristo-Craft, HO Train Co., AHM, Life-Like, etc. Lionel and Flyer also had some HO, but (except for Flyer’s famous HO Hudson) these were rather low quality toys for the most part, the earliest Lionel HO being pure junk.
Then, too, by the mid to late 50’s, a whole host of early brass companies were entering the marketplace. International, Austin, Gem, Red Ball, LMB, et al., were all producing nice (for the day) prototype locos. Like the diecasts, they needed tuning and also added weight. They also came cheaply as screwdriver assembly models.
As already alluded to, many locos of the era needed a little work by the hobbyist to get the most out of them. They usually didn’t start as smoothly and slowly as today’s and were noisier but in my opinion were every bit as state-of-the-art for their day as what’s offered today.
I have a recollection that the Gilbert/Flyer HO steam had smoke units.
Varney also had die cast steam in HO in the 1950s. Fleischmann had European steam that was slightly Americanized for the US market.
If you want an early example of HO steam from the 1950s more or less as a conversation piece, I’d go to swap meets and try to find a Mantua 4-6-2 or 2-8-2. They are likely to still run well. Over the years Mantua introduced more and more plastic into the steamers – at one time both cab and tender were metal. I think the plastic cab came first, then plastic tender, while the boiler pilot and frame remained metal.
Penn Line and Bowser steamers are also durable and you might still be able to get needed parts from Bowser.
What you sometimes find at a swap meet is a Bowser, Mantua or Penn Line chassis with an unfamiliar boiler, that might be from Cary. They created a line of boilers intended to more or less drop right onto a Mantua or Penn Line chassis.
From a strictly “collectible” standpoint, an even better choice would be the models from Mantua’s somewhat earlier Master Model Builders series, particularly the burly 4-4-2, 4-6-2, and 2-8-0 , mostly brass models. I wrote a detailed account about collecting these and the rest of this unique series of Mantua engines, in RMC about 10-15 years ago.
Regarding Lionel in HO; first and second attempts were with Athearn and Rivarossi - sorry I don’t remember the order, both in the late 1950s / very early 1960s. Lionel’s third attempt was with Kader (Bachmann’s parent) in the 1970s.
Nice historical references: “Company History ( Bowser) 1961 to Present Thirty five years ago, May 1, 1961, Bowser was purchased by Lewis and Shirlee English and moved from Redlands, CA to their basement in Muncy, PA. The original Bowser Manufacturing Co first advertised in the model railroad magazines in November 1948. At that time, the company had only one engine, the Mountain, which had a cast brass boiler that is no longer available. It was sometime later that Bowser (Redlands) developed the NYC K-11 and the UP Challenger. The molds were made by K. Wenzlaff who introduced himself at the MRIA Show in Pasadena, CA in 1985 These two locomotives are still current production.” Here is a picture from of one of Bowser’s old catalogs that I still have:
I’m going to try and DCC motor decode (at least) my Mantuas. I’m concerned about using the old open frame motor but I guess that’s done reasonably often? Anyone here used their old frame motors with DCC? I had tons of Tyco (better than people make it sound these days) and Rivarossi/AHM imports, in the '60s. Also a few Roundhouse loco kits. Model Die Casting (MDC). I didn’t have the kid skills to tackle Bowser and Penn kits. It’s my late (plastic shelled) Camelback and the Rivarossi Cab Forward, both with frame motors that I’m thinking of decoderizing. Any caveats or advice? Jake, you’ll find any or all of the above locos at many used tables at train shows relatively cheap.
American Flyer made HO steam engines with smoke back then (1955 and later). They made an NYC Hudson and a Pennsy 0-6-0. The two also made a “chuffing” sound. There was a piston and cylinder in the boiler that did this. Oh, yeah, they were RTR, too.
I’ve got the 0-6-0. It’s a long way from a great model, but it’s kinda fun to run once in awhile. It’s got a Pittman DC70 motor hanging out the back of the cab (sorta good news/bad news). I never tried the smoke, as I’ve got a Lionel “O” Berkshire that handles that task for me.
If you are looking at them for “collecting purposes” the condition of the box it came in is much more important than how it runs. Also if one is running it the collector’s value is going down, not to mention the chance of an accident, oil from fingers getting into the finish, etc. An ideal collectors piece has been cleaned of all lubrication and would not be expected to run well just for that reason.
I remember Varney, Bowser, Roundhouse and Mantua from that era, that was when I started seriously in HO and VERY serious about choosing steam over (boring for me) diesel. I had a Varney “Old Lady” that ran extremely well, and I built a Mantua 2-8-2 (very carefully on the eccentric gear) that was a nice, smooth runner. I only tried one Bowser loco, a USRA 4-8-2, and I have to admit that I was too ‘anxious’ to get it running, so it was never built properly and never ran well. My fault, not the Mfgr. I acquired a stable of Roundhouse locos that were relatively easy to build and ran fairly well.
All of these locos needed ‘tinkering’ to get optimum performance, but at that time, it was expected that the owner-builder would have the skills and the patience to do so. And as I matured, I found that patience. However, during the early 1960’s, I found a railroad that I wanted to model, and the only way I could get accurate locomotives for that railroad was to go with brass (which at that time was NOT that much more expensive). Some of the brass ran well right ‘out of the box’ others needed ‘tinkering.’ Luckily, my experience with cast locomotive kits came in extremely handy for ‘tinkering’, and I’ve continued since then with (mostly) used consignment brass models of the railroad I operate.
But I certainly remember fondly building the loco kits from the 'fifties and 'sixties that taught me how to ‘tune’ the brass locomotives that I keep acquiring. They were good kits, good lokies and if nothing else, an extremely VALUABLE ‘teaching’ tool.
Okay, they were spare on details and all of the ‘Bells and Whistles’ of current steam models, but they were solid, dependable, once you got them built and running, and NONE of them ever needed ‘traction tires’ to pull the paint off of the walls, or raise and lower the garage door. Those babies coul
My first HO loco was a Mantua Booster 0-4-0 T from a kit. Not bad, for a 9 year old to be able to build up a steam loco kit and have it run for years. In fact, I wore out the worm gear and brushes on the motor. I think I have about 9 of the Mantua-Tyco Zamac locos, not counting several of the newer Chinese made Mantua locos. I also have an early Mantua All-Metal Shifter (0-4-0) kit with cast arch bar tender trucks.
I believe at one time Mantua and Tyco were the same family business. I think the RTR were under the Tyco name, and the kits were under the Mantua name.
Shortly before I went into the USAF in 1964, I had converted most of my freight cars to the then new Lindberg Delrin RP-25 trucks, and was able to couple everything I had to one of my Mantua/Tyco Mikes. Pulled over 52 cars on mostly level track on the basement floor.
I still have an Athearn Pacific, but it needs some work on the outside. Ran well with good power, but the Athearn motor kept burning out on me. I replaced it with a Mantua motor. In the late 50s/early 60s, Athearn had a tank switcher and the Pacific using their original motor. Also I have several International screwdriver kit locos from that period, including a rather plain MKT 0-8-0 switcher that can run at a very low speed, sometimes taking 30 seconds for one driver revolution.
Aristo-craft also had a small line cast locos that had some unusual wheel arrangements, including a Columbia 2-4-2 and IIRC, a 4-2-0. I knew a store in Columbia, SC that had one of the Columbias for sale, and I passed it up when I was down for my grandaughters birthday in September to get a Tyco 4-8-0 and a couple unusual cars, and when I went back for Christmas, they had closed shop.
In that time period, there were also a few short lived smaller companies besides the bigger ones already mentioned with cast
I acquired one of the Athearn Pacifics off E-bay recently. It’s in the shop right now getting the front end rebuilt. It must have taken a trip to the floor head first, the pilot, pilot deck, air pump[s] and ladders are missing. I’m got a pilot, and air pumps from Cal Scale and made a pilot deck from brass. I’m getting ginned up to scratch build the steps from brass strip.
Sounds like the one I have. Cal Scale and Kemtron parts. The pilot area was kind of week. When I had it running, especially with the Mantua motor, it was a powerhouse.
Be aware that if you find a truly old old HO steamer from the late 1930s or 1940s, that the motor might be rated for just 6 volts. I have some recollection that the very oldest American Flyer HO Hudsons were 6 volt engines.
That was the original norm until 12 volts DC was agreed upon. I think the 6 volts originated in the output of old car batteries. I am relying on my memory now but I think around that same time automobile batteries also went from 6 volts to 12. Using a car battery (hooked up to a pot or other voltage control) for basic power used to be the rule.
I have distant and ancient memories of reading in Popular Mechanics as a kid that you needed to be careful about using a “modern” auto to help booster cable start a very old one due to the voltage difference.
I didn’t enter the die-cast kit era until 1968 when I assembled a Bowser K11 Pacific. It went together smoothly and ran almost–more on that shortly–perfectly right from the git-go.
That turned out to be a very deceptive beginning! On one occasion circa 1976 I spent the better part of two months trying to get a bug out of a Bowser Mountain that had difficulty even moving itself. You can’t know the number of times over the course of about thirteen years that frustration sorely tempted me to propel with great force one of my Cary/Mantua assemblies against a wall. Some problems were immediately obvious . . . . . others sorely tried one’s patience. In the example of the K11 it ran with a vibration. The mechanism was very smooth with power provided by an 0-5-0 switcher but the vibration became obvious with the motor installed. I soon isolated the problem to some kind of mismatch on the worm/worm gear mating. I took the assembled loke back to the hobby shop from which I had purchased it and happened to do this on the day that the maintenance person was there. We had to order up a new driving axle–out of round worm gear–and from then on that unit was a stellar performer.
They would pull the walls down!
About the only real objection I had to assembling die-cast lokes was that by the time you ordered up items for superdetailing the units the price could be just a little discouraging. Then again I guess it’s six of one . . . . . half-a-dozen of another; using one of the bill-of-materials from
