At least, I think their Walthers, they look right from what I can tell. I’ll get the pictures in a day, but what I have is a six car set in faded Norfolk and Western of a Tool Car (boxcar w/doors end and Side bays), Engineering Car (boxcar w/ windows) Spike/'Rail (flatcar w/ framed box on top) bulkhead flatcar, kitchen, and sleeping.
My question is, what other cars were in the set, and what else/how many would the train these were based on have in them? Eventually, what would be good to haul these with?
Walthers made two sets of MOW cars that I know of, but I haven’t seen them in production in years. I think the second set had a blacksmith car (1870’s Virginia and Truckee prototype), a flatcar for stacking damaged trucks, a rail and tie car, and a couple of others, including what looked like a very WEIRD transfer caboose. These sets were all acquired, if I remember correctly, from the old Silver Streak line (their only plastic cars). There might have been a light crane car, also, plus a boom car. But finding them should be a real adventure. I bought one set–way back when I had a full head of hair and it was a different color–but never got the second. I ended up making the rest of my MOW train out of those neat, old MDC ‘3-in 1’ kits.
Oh, hauling it? Well, a nice little 2-8-0 would look pretty cool. That’s what I use.
I remember them as two, 6-car sets. And I think they came from Trains Miniature Inc. If I could ever figure out how to post photos directly here, I’d dig out an old Walthers catalog that probably has them in it.
From online (easy)? or from your computer (can’t be done)?
Online photos you can right click>>Properties>>Copy the link>> opne the post>> type [ img ] (without the spaces) paste the link then type [ /img ] and your set
Actually, If you can give me the product #, they may still be in the Walthes website. The Oscar Piker sets from eight years ago are if you search for the product number. But a search fro Osdcar Piker gives you nothing.
This is my old set, which someone else on the forum identified as being made originally by True-Line:
(click on the image to blow it up a bit.) I bought these back in the 1960’s. At the time, they came in gray and “safety orange,” a truly absurd, almost flourescent prison-jumpsuit color. There are those on the forum who think that Walthers now owns the molds.
Someone somewhere, and perhaps it is Walthers, owns the tooling to the old Tru-Scale line of work train cars (yes they made stuff other than track). There was a crane car, a crane tender flat, a specialty flat car for wheels etc, a ballast car (outside braced gon), Kitchen car (box car with windows), Bunk Car (box car with windows), Engineering/Tool car (box car with windows), Blacksmith car (sort of a shed on a flat car), and an unusual caboose/supply car. They also sold that as a set that I used to stare at at my original LHS, Casanova’s in Milwaukee. It was always too pricey for my kiddie budget.
My set is definitely the Tru-Scale one, then. It was 8 cars in all, with the crane and boom car from the second page, not the “blacksmith” car on the first page. This set was one of my biggest purchases as a teenager.
Just remember that the wrecking crane and the cars being discussed are two different types of trains. The wrecker belongs to the mechanical department and the “MofW” train belongs to the engineering department.
I have the set Mr B pictured - in orig boxes (I never throw anything away!) and they are Train Miniature - but the way molds etc seem to get sold/swapped around the industry, they are probably one and the same. I also have both the Walthers sets (did I mention I’m a MOW junky?) and aside from paint, they appear to be mostly the same cars - the tank car being definately different. The TM’s are gray lettered MOW while the Walthers are “Kennific” green and lettered UP. My [2c]
I have one of those 6 car sets that is decorated for Southern Pacific. I don’t remember where I purchased it, but seem to recall that it was on sale, it was about 10 years ago, and they were a Walthers product.
Bingo, I have both sets in G.N. (brown) and M.O.W. (light blue, almost Wabash) they were released by Walthers in the mid-late 80’s. I want to say they released individual cars, also because I have several more of the cranes and flat cars.
This is what I have.