Varney to Life-Like to Walthers: In your opinion, did the quality of rolling stock (boxcars, gondolas etc) get better, get worse or remain the same under each progressive company? As always, many thanks.
Better, without a doubt.
But, you are also looking at not just companies, but years, even generations. The Varney stuff that I have is heavy, cast metal. Walthers models are plastic, and the detail level found in today’s models is just much better, even for their “value” Trainline models.
I was out of the hobby for 40 years, and when I came back I saw not just change, but a revolution in almost every aspect of the hobby. We’re better off for it, IMHO.
One has to look at the history of what happened to the old Varney dies through the years. They seemed to have been passed around and various company seemed to have produced runs of they from time to time. I remember seeing 99 cent ‘blister’ packs of what appeared to be Varney cars on spin racks at discount stores through the years.
Eventually Life-Like acquired them and along with some other model train items, produced inexpensive ‘train set’ quality model trains. They added several new locomotives like a GP38-2 and F40PH to the line, but it was still cheap stuff. One has to remember that Life-Like’s core business was producing foam products like coolers.
By the early 90’s, Life Like introduced their Proto 2000 line of locomotives with the BL2 and GP18. That success started the present trains we see. I remember talking to a Life-Like rep at the National Train Show one time. I asked why they still produced the cheap train stuff. His answer was that they made a lot of money off of those models, and it helped pay for the neat ‘scale’ stuff we were looking at! Eventually Life-Like sold the model train and slot car business to Walthers.
One has to remember those old Varney cars are 50’s era technology…
Jim
Mr. Beasley: Jim: Thanks for the replies.
I have a soft spot for Varney as they were the first HO set I got for Xmas 1958 when I was 13. I had Lionel but it was a mere kludge compared to the Varney. Three rails got old when you kinda noticed all trains ran on two rails and then there were those 4 inch radius curves! (joke)
I got hooked on HO and the old Lionel stuff, madison cars and and all, is still trapped in the storage space I rent, having never run since 1958.
I love to buy up (real cheap) old varney kits at train shows. I just picked up a paper tape sealed 1/4lb box of Varney HO spikes made is “Western Germany” for $2.00. Sure, it’s just a name and all nostalgia, but there is no doubt that all MR materials have gotten better through the years whereby stuff just 5 years old is already “for the birds” in many folks minds.
The industry is out there to keep us buyin’ and to make that happen, the stuff has got to just impress the dickens out of us to get us to put down what we just bought from them three years ago and go back for even better stuff. Not much sells that stays the same (except for the old VW beetle). And, nothing sells that regresses.
If you’re speaking of specific Varney cars, I had some when I got my first HO trains in the '50s. At that time, they all looked pretty good to my young eyes.
The boxcars, metal, disappeared, perhaps even before Varney disappeared, but the hoppers were essentially the same, although they lost their sprung trucks and separate brake detail. The tank car definitely got worse under LifeLike, with moulded-on details replacing separate parts, but it improved somewhat under Walthers. The other cars I got at that time were from manufacturers now long gone: MDC/Roundhouse (a cast metal gondola), Athearn (a stamped metal flat car), Authenticast (a cast metal depressed centre flat car), and True Scale (a wood, paper, and cast metal caboose).
I still have all of those cars with the ones still in-service upgraded somewhat and re-painted and re-lettered.
The Varney boxcar:
Varney hopper:
…and the Varney tank car:
Here’s the Walthers version of the tank car, re-detailed somewhat:
…and a Varney tank (not a complete car) which I picked up at a recent train show. I shortened the tank by a couple of feet, then mounted it on a modified Tichy (Gould) underframe. The trucks are, coincidentally, from Proto (LifeLike) and lettering is Black Cat decals:
Wayne