Okay, I will be the first one to admit that I started with a TYCO set. It was that Silver Streak thing. Boy was that C430 inaccurate. And that so-called power torque drive was pretty much designed to fall apart. I know that no serious modeler took their products seriously, as I eventually found out. Im in nscale now, but have learned to look for the best models in any scale. Actually, some of their freight cars were all right. And I understand that some of their stuff is very collectable now. So, anyone else care to fess up? I know Im not the only one who started off like this.[?]
I’ve never bought any Tyco stuff, but I have bought a flat car made by Cox. Still have it too.
Turned it into a transfer caboose using a van body off of one of the Model Power vans my parents gave me 28 years ago.
Gordon
Wasn`t COX stuff made by Athearn?
I doubt it. The couplers are Talgo mount on the trucks.
Gordon
Some of the Cox trains were made by Athearn.
Here’s a link to some info on Cox trains.
http://tycotrain.tripod.com/coxhoscaletrains/
Here’s one for Tyco.
http://tycotrain.tripod.com/tycotrains/index.html
My first HO trains were Mantua/Tyco. An 0-4-0 shifter kit and a 4 wheel bobber caboose.
I still have them and a few rebuilds later are still in service.
My first HO trains were also a TYCO ‘Shifter’ , a couple of freight cars and a 4 wheel bobber. That was in very early fifties and I immediately parked my American Flyer S gauge tinplate. I remember that the TYCO didn’t run too well-no where as good as Amer. Flyer. The loco had a nylon gear that never seemed to mesh correctly and kept chewing itself up. Years later a TYCO mikado did same thing. But that first TYCO looked so realistic to my seven year old eyes compared to the goofy tinplate stuff (my opinion back then) that I never looked back and have been in HO ever since. I still have a TYCO “Shifter” and a TYCO bobber caboose just for the heck of it.
I recived my first Tyco train set for Christmas in 1969. I was 4 years old (good memories). I have been a model railroader ever since.
My first experience into the HO world was when my dad bought me an HO Santa Fe Tyco freight train set in the early 70s. The locomotive, with it’s 3 pole truck motor, ran like a Trans Am with water in the gas tank, but I will always be greatful my late dad’s love.
Today, I only have the SF flatcar from that set, which surprisingly looks decent and I’m planning on giving her a “make over”.
Re: Cox - at least some of Cox was made by Athearn. Remember they had a “Hustler” but I don’t think it was rubber- band drive like all Athearn Hustlers were. Also, wasn’t some Lionel HO (in the '60s?) also Athearn sourced? Perhaps only Athearn body shells were used by both Cox and Lionel. And just to be obtuse, wasn’t the Bachmann HO Espee Daylght 4-8-4 originally tooled by Lionel? I had one once that came in a Lionel box.
It sounds like I had the same Tyco HO set that a few of you other folks had. Mine had the 0-4-0 saddle tank engine that I thought was called a “Booster”. I got mine in 1960 and it came in Pennsy livery and had a box car and gondola and the little bobber caboose. My loco ran very well and the neighbor kid had the same set and from what I can recall, his ran well, also. I thought the loco and caboose were very well made, the cars less so. I have no Tyco stuff now. I have one Mantua bobber caboose which was the same as the Tyco I had as a kid.
I have a TYCO green (?) ATSF stock car, and a Spreckles sugar hopper, but nothing else. QUOTE: TYCO, Trains You Can’t Operate. (can’t remember who posted that, but it was clever).
My first set was the Tyco “Spirit of '76” which, (for some stupid reason), in the early 80’ s I decided to repaint the loco. Now I have all the original cars, including caboose, and a multicolored engine, that I can’t refurbish without destroying it. Live and learn, I guess. I think if it hadn’t been for Tyco, many of us aged 35ish wouldn’t be involved in such a fun hobby.
My first train set was TYCO, an F-7 A&B C&O Chessie System, I received in the early 1970s, I think. I still have all the rolling stock. The engine still runs, but slips very easily. I suspect the rubber tires have lost their bite, because its weight sure didn’t change. And it really grinds when it runs - but that’s the charm of it.
-Jer
hey Sgt J T Clark- if it wan’t for TYCO/Mantua, as well as Varney, Hobby-Line, and especially the Athearn ’ blue-box’ engine and rolling stock kits, we late '50i***ypes would be still trying to find room for O scale! Lets not forget that early HO structure releases from Atlas, such as their interlocking tower, water tank, pass. stration,and school kits were state of the art then, and hold their own today. Even Revell got into the act with their infamous HO structure line- engine house, “Superior Bakery”, "Weekly Herald ", pass. & frt stations, farm house, barn, and so on These are still available today, having been re-released by many different firms. The tooling is still first rate. I’ll never forget how excited I was when Athearn introduced an F& A&B plus streamline cars decorated for the ESPEE in ‘Daylight’ paint scheme. I looked all over the EastCoast for them, and had to buy one or two pieces at a time-they were always sold out. It was simpler back then and a lot of fun! .
I still have many of the cars and accessories from my Tyco sets when i was a kid. I like to use some of them intermixed on my current layout . It’s funny how some of the cars are so close to other manufactures cars that they are almost exact. Some of the structures are now sold by IHC and the cars look like IHC’s or Bachman’s.
RMax
My first trainset was the TYCO Chattanooga steam engine with the motor in the tender. It ran well, but the best part was the smoke. I just looked online and ebay has one for $45. I gave mine away to a kid that could not afford a trainset but really liked them. He actually got my old TYCO transformer and I made him a circle track 4X4. I built the track with nickle and not brass, I figure I needed to give him something that would run and not need to be cleaned every few hours. Knowing that this kid continues to play and enjoy this engine is worth more than $45.
Greg
Hey Sgt. Clark,
Been there, done that with the locomotive! But if it’s one of the C430’s, they’re pretty comon. I still have the shell of my original one (I liked to take stuff apart, not paint) but I found a replacement loco on Ebay for $10. I’ve seen them at shows, looking brand new in the box for $25, so they’re out there!
Got a Tyco set when I was 10 or so, had a Burlington GP9, some cars, even an operating pipe car that unloaded, of course it never worked. The Geep ran for a very long time on my plywood 4x8, eventually I traded it for something. Sold off everything HO when I was in my teens.
All of your recollections about TYCO are on the mark to a point but you need to know the rest of the story. Way back in the late 40’s through the 50’s TYCo was one of the best running products made. They and Varney were in essence what Atheran became before P2K. The market split in the early 60’s into the serious hobby side and the toy train side. TYCO opted to stay with basically the toy train side which was very lucrative since so many of you bought their products. Alas the long term effect of that decision was TYCO became in essence a cash cow that was milked for all the revenue it could provide with little or no capital outlay. Further business decisions took TYCO even deeper into rediculous offerings like the Silver Streak and Chatanooga Choo choo that no serious modeler would ever own or even think of owning. Yet there was a market for those things with the unknowing price concious Toys-r-us type shopper. The net effect is that poor business decisions lead to the loss of one of the hobby’s premier early producers of rolling stock and engines. RIP TYCO.
That is so true, it gives me goose bumps!!