At a thrift store I picked up some odd scale of a toy train I know nothing about. It consisted of a diesel engine and 3 cars. No track.
I compared it to some O27 cars and those (the O27) was, say 25% smaller than the ones I bought today. It has ‘Atlas’ embossed underneath the cars. I don’t know if that was the same ‘Atlas’ that makes track,rolling stock, etc.
The engine itself must get electrical current from the tracks-not battery powered like I first believed.
I was surprised to find out the wheelsets matched the O27 track. Could this train run on “O” track?
I don’t think it could be G scale since that scale is much larger.
Atlas made two-rail full-scale O-gauge equipment (freight cars and diesel engines) some years ago (the 1970s, I think). Soulds like that’s what you might have found.
The cars can probably be adapted to three-rail O-gauge track, possibly be changing trucks and/or wheelsets. Getting the engine to run on three-rail would be a challenge.
An alternative would be to set up a loop of two-rail O-gauge track and run your new train on that using a DC powerpack or the full-wave-rectified output of an AC transformer.
Good luck with these. Please let us know how you make out.
I just picked up a caboose from that era. it is scale size so that is why they look larger than your non scale cars. real nice detail on them, now have to find a coupler. atlas doesn’t have them anymore. anyone have an idea?