I’ve noticed a trend. Whenever a newbee ask how to fix/restore/convert a TYCO train the most common reply is, “It’s junk” or something of that nature.
I will relent, they are noisy, rough running, and prone to breakdown, and burnout. But slamming TYCO is not what the poster asked for.
A lot of us had child hood memories tied up in TYCO as they were our first trains. So they hold a great deal of sentimental value even if they are “cheap toys” Hey the early lionel’s were junk compared to today’s O scale engines. Yet look at what they are worth because of their sentimental value.
Perhaps a better suggestion would be to look at possible alternatives if they don’t have sentimental value to these pieces.
(BTW: I have plan on having my old TYCO Golden Eagle and Spirit of 76’ set carefully hidden on my new layout for sentimental reasons…maybe in the RIP or roundhouse.)
Junk PAH! If it makes you happy, do it!
Not trying to start a flame war here, it’s just food for thought for those who insist on poo-pooing the idea.
Alright everyone. What I believe most of the posters, especially the more expeirenced ones are saying when they “ba***yco” is that for your buck, restoring and upgrading an old Tyco engine is not worth it, unless there are sentimental reasons.
I reciently restored two of my grandfather’s Athearn rubber band drive RDCs with NWSL power trucks and quite a bit of shell work. Wouldn’t it have just been easier and cheaper to buy some more P1K RDCs? Yes, it would and I’ve already got a good fleet of them, but these were directly from my grandfather’s layout and I wanted them to be part of mine.
I’d imagine it’s the same for some people with their Tycos. However, if you are just trying to save a few bucks by detailing a toy-train model, it’s really not worth it as it will cost more in the long run and be quite a headache, believe me I’ve done it.
In regards to the original post of whether to put DCC in a Tyco I offer the following from the Loys Toys website:
A good loco will have:
First and FOREMOST, all-wheel power pickup.
Quality pickup transfer
A quality can motor, usually 5-pole skew-wound
Flywheel(s) on the motor shaft
All-wheel drive
Weight
A Tyco does not meet any of these characteristics and later on in the website he says he has never seen a good running Tyco.
I still have a few Tyco’s I have never gotten rid of, at one time I was going to make a well detailed GP-20 and C-630 out of these shells, but other makers have come up with a better model right out of the box.
I wish every LHS could steer the customer to Athearn, Atlas, P2K etc. But Tyco is a name many people remember from their childhood so they want to have them even though they are not the quality of the models offered in the 1970’s.
Tyco had its place just as Varney did and we need to remember the good they did for the hobby way back when and I apoligize for slamming Tyco the way I did, but they are not the quality we need to keep the newcomers into Model Railroading.
IF you want a case of throwing good money after bad. Take a look at Lil Guy in my signature. Purchased for $20 on eBay, Can do the 1/4 mile faster than a full-sized 389 GTO, and possibly getting the can motor out of my son’s Hogwarts Express. If I can make the can work, then it’s DCC all the way Baby. If it sits on the layout, it’s going to do some work. I already installed Kaydee’s front and rear.
I do contend that it would be possible to make a Tyco a quality model, just with lots of work and money. I’ve done it with Model Power RS-2s before the P1K models were avalible. It’s just not something I would ever suggest unless it’s someone’s last opertunity. In this day and age, it’s very likely that any reasonably popular prototype will be brought out as a quality plastic model at some point so rebuilding and detailing the old Tyco/Model Power/IHC locomotives just doesn’t make the sense it used to.
(sarcasm) My goodness, just because their products were absolutely the worst electrified thing on two HO rails, why-oh-why would anybody slam Tyco? (/sarcasm)
Hey, I had a lot of these junkers when I was a kid. My “sentimental” memories of these include derailments, jerky operation, low tonnage rates, lightspeed top speed (“No, no, lightspeed’s too slow…We’ll have to go right to Ludicrous speed!”), and the overall worst looking engines that I had. These “treasures” of mine are loose in a cardboard box in my basement. I’d bury them, but I don’t want to contaminate the earth.
You must be joking. Fifty year old Lionel locos still work. 20 year old Tycos…it’s a 50-50 chance. Old Lionel has value, not just because it’s old, but because it still works well. Tyco’s, even when new, were junk out of the box.
Strangely enough, that’s what most people are saying. Stay away from Tyco, they aren’t worth the effort.
I wholeheartedly agree with you Don about Tyco. I for one have many pieces of Tyco products,along with the other manufacturers:Athearn,MDC (roundhoude),Walthers and the like .If i see someone selling a Tyco train set,or bits and pieces of it i’m going to buy it. So big deal if the unit may break down…who cares,i can take that locomotive and make it into a non-powered unit and run it with my other equipment. I too personally dont want to start a flame going on here either,but who the heck are you people to tell someone that Tyco is bad. If you want to know what is bad,whats with the RTR freight cars and locomotives with plastic handrails. To me,that stuff is junk and should have NEVER been placed on the market.Its a “lazy mans” version of putting it together. No wonder I have
I try to follow the thought ifyou can’t say something constructive don’t say anything approach. I will say however that tyco is the reason for my thinking HO were toys and lionel was the good stuff when I was younger. My neighbor too. I still can’t convince him that anything made out of plastic is worth while. So the real legacy of Tyco is that of scaring away modelers. We have a Tyco dual pack at the club that we were using to run some loops for a coal mine and that pack is directly responsible for my false belief that N scale couldn’t run slow. I cahnged the pack to a decent one and it runs great. So basically there are more constructive ways to say some of the things that have been said but perhaps asking the person whether the loco has sentimental value could save everyone a lot of trouble. My 2 cents worth.
ONE of the chacteristic of humankind is we ALL are intolerant about something,. and The big diierence in people is WHAT they are intolerant of. WHERE we draw the line, so to speak.
That being said, i agree with you. We should have a category for
‘Toy’s with Sentimental value’ - Perhaps there’s a spot for the 'Raggity Anne’s ’ of this world.
First, not all Tyco is created equally. Tyco and Mantua flipped back and forth between owners and who owned what at which time.
Now the bad Tyco which caused many modelers to bail out were the single power truck cheaply made train set stuff like the Chattanooga Choo choo and silver steark and the like.
What I see recently is a lot of people coming by new or returning to modeling asking questions about what to buy - dcc etc. and Tyco is not the best place to go in this situation. I’m sure a lot of people see this stuff cheaply at train shows and figure they can take it home and make a model railroad out of it. So, if you like the Tyco you have - fine, but don’t build it up as something it is not or recommend it to somebody just getting their feet wet.
Liking Tyco is kind of like liking McDonald’s. I doubt anyone who eats at McDonald’s doubts that the food there is not the best in the world, and that it isn’t the healthiest for you, but they eat it anyway because McDonald’s is everywhere and it’s cheap and filling and they’re used to it.
Modifying a Tyco locomotive to run like a champ is kind of like trying to dress up a McDonald’s happy meal to taste like a gourmet meal. I suppose you could do it, if you really wanted to, but if you want a gourmet meal, why not either (a) buy a gourmet meal, or (b) prepare your own gourmet meal?
If you can’t afford a gourmet meal, that’s fine, not everyone can. If you don’t have the skill to prepare a gourmet meal, that’s fine, not everyone has the skill. But there is no reason to expect that McDonald’s food will turn into a gourmet meal merely because you can’t afford it or aren’t a good cook.
McDonald’s is what it is. Tyco is what it is. It’s not the only thing out there, nor is it the cheapest or the best. You can choose it if you want to, or go elsewhere–just try not to assume that it is something it isn’t.
Ah good to see that Tyco still continues to serve.[:D][:D] Anything that gets you into S scale can’t be all bad.
While they may be junk to you, to me they are Junque. I treasure mine for purely sentimental reasons, along with my Atlas station, my Atlas lumberyard, and my Atlas signal tower. Oh and don’t forget my brass track with the fiberboard ties. They may not be state of the art but they were what I started with. If I were still in HO they would be on the layout somewhere.
Everyone has their opinion on Tyco. I had to try one because I got it cheap. Ran poorly right out of the box and burned out a short time later. Wasn’t worth the effort to try to repair it or even send it in for warranty. But I still found a place for it on my layout!
I’m thinking of a train wreck scene on my new layout, and am sure this will be a likely candidate for modeling it.
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