My Father was talking about a station he had when he was a child- early 1950’s. It was with his American Flyer trains. It had a button on top and played announcements like “All aboard to calamazoo” or other places. Anyone know of anything like this and the number of it?
Hi trainsfan,
It is most likely American Flyer’s S gauge #755 talking station. It was cataloged from 1948-1950. There are several recorded messages on used in the station, but my memory says the recording has steam train sounds on it and the conductor calling “All Aboard! American Flyer, through train to New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and all points west! Boaaaaard!.” I am sure that Sturgeon-Phish has one on his layout and post a picture for you.
Hmmmm, just re-read your post. Maybe this wasn’t the Flyer version. Did the Marx or the Noma station have the activating button on the top? Flyer had a seperate control button.
Enjoying the World’s Greatest Hobby
Northwoods Flyer
It sounds like a Noma Talking Station. The Noma stations were powered by two D cell batteries, and were activated by a button on top.
Although AF made a talking station(755, 799, and one other one whose number I can’t remember) it was powered by the transformer and had its own separate control button.
The AF talking station record said “All abord-this train for New York, Washington, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, and all points west” followed by steam sounds on one side. The other side of the record had a similar listing of cities, but said “all points east” and ended with diesel sounds. I don’t remember the listing of cities, as it’s been a while since I played that side of the record on mine(and it’s not really in a position where I can get to it to change it).
Both of the previous answers are complete and very accurate. The only thing I can think to add is the 755 was also known as Mystic Station, footprint is about 12 X 7.5 inches. And the 799 was called Union Station and measures 16.25 X 8.5 inches. I have 755 on my layout, which may be visible in my Avatar.
George
AF had three talking stations as mentioned, the 755, the 799 and another 764 Express Office. One of the things it di that was really neat was, on an isolated section of track usually in front of the station the train would stop, the record would start with the All aboard . . . and when the recording stopped the isolated section would re-energize and the train would start up. The timing was accomplished with an intreging cam timer. Very cool.
755
This is a 793, the non-talking version. The 799 looked just like the 793
Jim