Hobbytown of Boston; a Couple of Surprises

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

A couple years ago I scored an ebay deal on some Hobbytown stuff, which included a single power truck mechanism. I played with it enough to see potential for interesting drives in odd locomotives. So recently I picked up another complete chassis for it’s gears on the 'bay, a PA-1, 6 axles. No body shell. The plan is to part out the trucks onto other projects.

Today it arrived in the mail. The package was heavier than I’d expect for just a drive chassis. OK. Well see what’s in there.

Opening it up, 1st surprise. I didn’t expect to see such a HUGE MOTOR! The pictures on ebay don’t seem to convey the massiveness, either.

This is next to an MDC Boxcab drive:

Here’s a standard Mantua motor above the Hobbytown.

I know they don’t make stuff like they used to, and that’s not always a bad thing. A little reasearch on the 'net revealed it’s a DC-90. I’d never heard of it before, I imagine it would have been popular in larger scales on DC.

The motor weighs just over 7 ounces, compared to the mantua’s 1 1/3. It only pulled about 1/2 an amp, before any cleanup and lubing. It has 7 poles. No flywheels, but with almost a half pound motor, why bother, eh? The whole thing ran pretty smoothly right out of the mail package.

2nd surprise, how quiet it runs. I already expected, or at least hoped for smooth, but with open, spur cut reduction gears, it’s just gonna be noisy. It’s not! Ya don’t hear any whine or other loud gear noises. and it can run at switching speeds, nice and slow.

I like modern technology when it works well, and it has done incredible things f

2

I have several old Hobbytown of Boston locomotives from eBay and I had the same reasoning as you had. They run so good I kept them as is. I used NWSL universals and they run as good as any locomotive I own. Very quiet and powerful.

My thing is restoring old stuff and I have several old Model Power locomotives that look and run like new, newer is not always better than old.

Mel

My Model Railroad
http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/

Bakersfield, California

I’m beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.

3

Nice find! The motor you got is actually the Pittman DC-91, which Hobbytown offered as a premium option for a while. Their own DC-90 motor was the same size, but it was 5-pole instead of 7-pole, and the manufacturing precision wasn’t quite as good as Pittman’s at the time. It was cheaper though, making it more common in the Hobbytown drives than the DC-91, so you actually got one of the best and least common versions of the PA chassis!

Hobbytown still makes the PA body. It’s had some changes over the years, so the modern version might need some minor modification to fit your chassis. http://hobbytownofboston.com/

4

Hobbytown of Boston had some very good stuff, back when there wasn’t the variety of motive power that later graced the hobby shop shelves. Their Diesel mechanisms–aside from having 33" drivers instead of the prototype’s 40"–were designed for multiple unit running. A single powered unit, coupled to a dummy or two, could still pull a respectable train, but if you needed more power in those days of Zamak loco and car underframes and often poor rolling trucks, Hobbytown of Boston had the answer. You didn’t need to buy more powered units to pull long freights, hoping multiple mechanisms would work well together in a “lashup” (the prototype called 'em “consists”). With a BIG motor in the middle of a single powered unit, with gear trains putting the power down to truck level, you connected geared trucks together with shafts and neoprene tubing–and drove all axles with that big “O scale” motor!

I didn’t know anyone who did this, but I’m sure that owners of big model railroads, who wanted to run long, long freight drags, didn’t mind permanently coupling together an A-B-A OR A-B-B-A “locomotive,” the way the Big Biys did. (It was common practice for some roads to sort of “permanently” couple together such sets, giving all units the same engine number, such as “103A-103B-103C,” where “C” was actually and A unit.)

I often wondered how long it took to get all those little shafts and neoprene “universals” working together…

Deano

5

Thanks for the replies, gents. I can see how a consist could be linked by the drive shafts, cool idea. Also, it’s neat to know about the DC-91. Further adding to the idea of just keeping it now is that the side frames are in perfect condition. Even the ends of the brake rods are in tact. There appears to be low milage on the actual mechanism, too.

Someone did a messy job on rubber cementing the motor in once, (cleaned up now), and a few other items need cleaned up, but it’s a solid start. I can make a generous flywheel for it. I’m not going to get all purist on this one. I don’t mind using an Athearn shell.

When I bought it, I didn’t catch that a PA truck’s wheelbase is different than an EMD’s A-1-A and that throws off my original plan too, I wanted the closer axle spacing. Not gonna sweat it now. [:)]

That big honkin’ motor just looks so surreal! Dan

Dan

6

I actually did this for my A-B-A set of Athearn D&H PA-1s. I used my own motor, but the set turned out great! Tuning the set to run well was no more difficult than building a single chassis, and the motor I put in has enough power to slip all 24 geared wheels! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBrE2FHsOhw

7

The Hobbytown of Boston E7 (Also the DC-91 motor) that got me started had me looking on eBay for more. I found several cast metal shells on eBay so if you want the original metal shell keep looking on eBay.

This is the first pair of E-7 metal shells I found. I installed this pair on Athearn SD40-2 frames, I haven’t been able to find any more Hobbytown frames.


Before


Stripped and cleaned up


After
Very Powerful, the pair have 17 ounce

8

Darth, I’d seen that video before, but now watched it with renewed interest. Nice work! Then I got distracted and watched a half dozen of your other videos… I see NS wheels throughout on the PAs. Your own modification?

Mel, beautiful work on the restorations. I like SP too, but if I have to paint, I’d like to go with the red and gray scheme, since I don’t have passenger service. I know PAs were passenger engines, but I read in the MR Cyclopedia vol II that since Alco put heavy duty traction motors in PAs, many of them finished out their years hauling tonnage. SP did have PAs in the bloody nose scheme. (p 84 of above)

I just lowered current draw by about a third and got even lower speed by reducing the brutal force on the brush springs. Dan

9

Thanks! I replaced the wheels on my 50’s PA kit with NS wheels from Athearn (I had to make my own little bushings to fit the wheels), but they’re standard on all the modern kits.

10

Y’all might not know this:

When I bought my first Hobbytown drive, an RSD, Hobbytown was on a money-saving toot. For the insulated wheels, they used entirely plastic. How long do ya think they would have lasted? I replaced them ASAP.

Ed

11

Those old Pittman motors will literally pull the wallpaper off. When put in a Hobbytown of Boston shell (most of which were metal and weighted a ton) they will out pull any thing else around. BTW: John English of English’s Model Trains in Montoursville, PA owns the Hobbtown line.

12

Yup, I plan to, and already have the NS wheels to replace the brass and the plastic ones. And delrin rod for isolators

Also I mentioned earlier in response to Mels post that SP also painted these in gray and scarlet. Then I thought later, who’m I trying to kid? Mel probably knew that before I ever knew what a PA-2 was![;)]

13

Unless the company was sold recently the Hobbytown website says Hobbytown owner is Nick DeBenedetto in Manchester, NJ.

https://hobbytownofboston.com/

14

Yea, I grew up in SP Country, I spent my early teenage years during the 1951 to 1955 summers in the El Paso SP Yard.

Mel

My Model Railroad
http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/

Bakersfield, California

I’m beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.

15

I have one of these on my to-do list. I picked it up for two dollars at a white elephant table. It needs a repaint and I have to replace the tubing connecting the gearboxes. I had not tested the current draw yet but figured that the motor would pull more amps than that. Pretty amazing a motor that old and that big only drawing a half an amp. Sound like that will convert to DCC.

16

I think that you may be confusing John English, who offered several die cast locomotives in the early '50s, like the one shown below…

…and apparently, at the time, may have had some connection with Hobbytown, with the English family in Montoursville. Lew English Sr. bought Bowser, and eventually passed it on to his sons Lew Jr. and Lee English.

As far as I’m aware, Lee is currently running English’ Model Railroad Supply, and is not affiliated with Hobbytown of Boston.

Wayne

17

Here is the current Hobbytown site.

https://hobbytownofboston.com/

The new owner has been running Hobbytown for a couple of years and has been producing kits for about a year;

I just received 2 set of Alco FA multidrive chassis. The current line of kits are all flywheel drives as they have been for years. I have a lot of Hobbytown drives I think they are great. After you build one or two the are very easy to build. A nice thing about the flywheel drives is that you can get a couple different gear ratios for a little performance variation . I like the flywheel drives over the older non flywheel drives that are discussed on this thread.

Ron High

18

I learned through this experience that Hobbytown is still in existence. I can see adding another engine or a b unit to this one from the new stock stuff. But originally, this was going to be a parts cache, not a whole new project. So it will rather have to wait it’s turn now, but at least in a safe place.

Even on the old chassis the wire connections on the motor are already isolated so adding a decoder wouldn’t be difficult. At least on this one. Dan