Who likes Tyco freight cars

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Kevin,

I saw your post on another thread and that you like old Tyco freight cars. I also have a bunch of Tyco cars and like you I upgrade them so I can run them.

Some of them amazingly look really look and run pretty well. I refuse to pay $40+ for any freight car no matter how well detailed when there are so many cars out there that may need a little work but can be picked up cheap.

Tyco, Athearn blue box are just a few. Not only can you return those cars to service but remember the fun I had as a kid and the fun I have remembering them now at 73.

Dave

2

I always like Tyco’s 200 ton crane since it was diesel powered and easy to detail.

3

I grew up with Tyco cars as my father had a bunch of them, and I spent my later teen years trying to get them to run well by body mounting Kadee couplers, replacing wheelsets, etc.

After I turned 18 and went to college, I decided I’d had enough of Tyco and all their shortcomings. I either sold off the ones I had or tossed 'em. Just looking at them brings back all the bad memories of derailments and not knowing what I was doing as a modeler.

While I’m hardly a freight car snob (most of my fleet is Athearn BB), I have my own minimum standards. Cars must have body mounted couplers, must be realistic looking (paint schemes), and have reporting marks and car numbers. Tyco does not usually meet these criterias, so they are not for me.

As for $40 freight cars, if I want that kind of car bad enough, I’ll buy it but it has to be a special car.

4

I have all high end cars, most were bought for $15 or less, in fact just bought some MTH hoppers at that price, new in box. Only cars I paid a premium for are two Tangent 3 dome oil cars.

5

I have no special memories associated with Tyco from childhood since I grew up with American Flyer so I neither have any in or purchase them for my rolling stock roster. I am a huge fan of kits so that’s what I try and purchase - whenever possible.

If RTR is the only way to obtain a model that I’m interested in then I will purchase RTR. With the diminishment of kits over the past 10-15 years in favor of RTR, I’ve been able to find a lot of great deals on more prototype-looking rolling stock from manufacturers such as Proto 2000, Branchline, Intermountain, and Red Caboose.

While I can understand the sentimentality associated with Tyco and Athearn BB, I’d rather spend my money and my time on better-quality kits. That said, I have seen some amazing upgrades using either of those as the baseline. Wayne (doctorwayne) immediately comes to mind in that regard…

Tom

6

Same here because that was the only way to purchase them with the shell already detailed. Wish Tangent made kits with the detailed shells. Same with ExactRail. Beautiful models.

Tom

7

David: This is a reply I put together for another thread that explains the different “fleets” of freight cars I am collecting.

The Tyco cars are in the Fun Fleet!

1) The Fleet Of Nonsense: This group of models is strictly August, 1954, very well detailed, and all are ficticious roadnames.

This VIRGINIAN AND OHIO boxcar is the centerpiece of this collection.

2) The Prop Fleet: These are mostly broken models I have bought at train shows and painted well enough to use them in photographs. They do not run, might be real prototype roadnames.

This USRA Mountain is missing the valve gear, and does not run. The green SGRR head end car is the only one I have in that paint scheme for prop use only.

3) The Fleet Of Anachronism: Yes, I do love GP-30s, GP-35s, and SD-40s. I even have modern rolling stock lettered for the STRATTON AND GILLETTE. I even have a couple of CNW dash-2 diesels just because I like them. These show up sometimes.

I no longer own this SGRR boxcar, but it is representative of these cars.

4) The Fun Fleet: These are train-set cars that I have upgraded with Kadee wheels and couplers, and proper weight. I bring these out for nostalgia.

This PURINA tyco car brings back childhood memories.

-Kevin

8

Hello All,

My entire pike is based on the 1970s Tyco 34-foot operating hoppers with live loads. I substituted the OEM “coal” for ashtray urn, non-magnetic, black sand.

I currently have 37 of these cars in Virginian, Boston & Main, Monon, Burlington, Spreckles, Holly Sugar, and Stratton & Gillette liveries.

The Monon’s have square hatches on their covers while the Burlington, Spreckles, and Holly Sugar have round hatches on their covers.

All but nine (9) have been converted from metal Talgo trucks, Hook & Horn couplers and plastic wheels to body-mounted Kadees, Accurail plastic roller bearing trucks, and Semi-Scale Intermountain metal wheels.

The remaining nine (9) are on the RIP track (bench) to be converted.

Sixteen (16) of these cars make up the main coal drag pulled by four (4) GP40s in a distributed power arrangement: two (2) on the head-end, one (1) mid-train, and one (1) on the tail-end.

Eight (8) of these cars makeup the coal drag that is pulled up the 3% grade by three (3) GP30s: one (1) on the head end and a GP30 and a GP30-B as pushers up the grade to the unloading shed.

A critter pulls the empties from the unloading shed in preparation for the descent down the historic spiral trestle (helix) to the mainline with the single GP30 cut from the head-end.

I also have two (2) of the Tyco cranes with the tender cars.

One has been fitted with body-mounted couplers and metal wheels, along with the tender car.

The other has been repurposed as a heavy-duty, overhead, crane that serves the maintenance yard for the mine and coal-fired power plant.

The tender car from this set was also converted by moving the cab to the center and is now in service in my snowplow MOW train as a tool car.

While most modelers prefer the safety of running coal cars with removable loads I prefer the challenge (heartache) of live loads.

Hope this helps.

9

I have a number of old Tyco cars from the early sixties. A few box cars, a few tankers, maybe a gon, but my cars I actually bought new are 10 of the old clamshell door operating hoppers, plus another I found at a museum sale. I have a flood loader and a special track to open the doors into a waiting bin below.

When I started rebuilding a layout after years in storage, I removed the Talgo couplers and figured out how to tap the frames and body mount Kadees. When I committed to replacing plastic wheels, I had to buy trucks because the old trucks were metal and wheelsets couldn’t be replaced. While the cars were apart, I painted and weathered the trucks, and painted all the original metal frame parts flat black as well, including those clamshell hopper doors.

When you replace the plastic wheels on one car, it performs better, but doing a whole string of 11 hoppers makes a huge difference. My entire Tyco fleet has now been modernized.

10

My memories of Mantua kits and Tyco ready-to-run always begin with a glossy red 62 foot Coca-Cola tank car with three huge expansion domes that looked like they were stolen from an Athearn three dome BB tanker. And they don’t get any better. The only car that was reasonably usable for me was the 40 foot gon, otherwise, molded on roofwalks, and talgo trucks were carry-overs from the tin plate world that I no longer wanted any part of. I had discovered yard and industrial switching where Tyco didn’t perform very well, just like the tinplate.

When Pacific HO introduced their Fruit Growers Express mechanical reefer kits in the early 1960s, a new day was dawning in this hobby. Now that sun is high in the sky with manufacturers/importers like Arrowhead, Athearn Genesis, Exact Rail, Moloco, Rapido, Scale Trains and Tangent–in alphabetical order-- giving us rolling stock worthy of being pulled by the $200-$300 locomotives no one seems to complain about buying. Others such as Athearn, Atlas, Intermountain, and Walthers have improved the realism of some of their offerings but, still have work to do. Some have relegated their older, less detailed or accurate items to their own budget lines which is fine.

I applaude the changes in manufacturing processes that now make it possible for a company to offer ready-to-run, fully detailed models of cars whose total numbers in all of railroading did not exceed 500. You know we have turned another corner in this hobby now that Arrowhead is offering the GSG-10 gondola with code 88 wheels standard and, 110s optional! I realize most of the layouts out there were built to coarser standards requiring wider wheel treads and accommodating horn hook couplers. Much of that track was also built with code 100 brass rail on fiber tie strips or milled roadbed. How often do you see those layouts in the spotlight? We have advanced beyond thos

11

I liked the Tyco cars…in 1975. Loved my bunch of Illinois Central, totally wrong color of light yellow orange instead of correct orange, boxcars. Have some fond memories of that era.

By the 1990’s I had thrown away those cars from my childhood and replaced them with Intermountain cars built from kits, Kadee, P2k, etc. “high detail cars”.

Now, almost all cars on my layout are what the OP referred to as “high detail” “very expensive” cars. It’s my railroad. If I want to own rtr correct models built to high assembly standards, then so be it. I do have 2 new Athearn Roundhouse series Santa Fe 50’ hi cube boxcars that are “close to” Santa Fe Class Bx-154 (but are foobies). Every other car on the layout is totally correct for the prototype, in a correct paint scheme.

Have one remaining Mantua-Tyco trolley remaining from childhood that runs fine. All other Mantua or Tyco motive power is gone.

If I choose to own $90 Intermountain Autoracks and $53 Tangent 86’ hi cube box cars (first blue DT&I one just arrived, more coming), it is my railroad.

We have much better trains today, and I only need maybe 75 freight cars total on my layout. I do not miss the 1970’s and do not need to go back.

John

12

Hello All,

I completely agree.

Yes, the tools and supplies to perform the upgrades could have probably bought me just as many non-operating RTR cars but the satisfaction of watching 50-year old cars run on a 2020 DCC pike is pretty amazing.

Hope this helps.

13

I typically don’t go out to train shows and buy old equipment needing a lot of upgrades. But, these cars I have had since I was a young teen are really like old friends. My locomotives are the same way. Even though all my old engines are no longer functional, I have gutted a couple of them, added lighting decoders and now run them as unpowered dummies.

Likewise, I saved most of my structures, and those have been repainted, illuminated, provided with interiors and generally brought up to 21st century specs.

I’ve thrown away a few hopeless locomotives, and some passenger cars I found in a box, completely fallen apart, but I still have all my rolling stock. I can even identify my original Athearn train set. Those, too, have been upgraded.

I would never have returned to this hobby if I hadn’t saved those old trains, so I owe them a debt of gratitude and it does make me smile to see them in action again.

14

Some Tyco cars are better than they initially appear, as many got overly-heavy factory paint jobs, which obscured some decent details.

While I don’t have any “before” photos, I do have a bunch of “after” ones. These 40’ reefers had almost invisible “board” detail due to heavy paint, but after stripping off the factory paint (methyl hydrate works well on most Tyco stuff), and adding a few grabirons and sill steps, plus new paint and lettering, they looked fairly respectable…

However, several years later, I noticed that the plastic floors were beginning to sag, as on the 2386, above, so I decided to redo all four cars.
Not too long after starting the project, I decided that since my layout’s set in the late '30s, perhaps the “steel” ends were a little bit too modern, so I made a slight detour in the rebuild…

…and then another one…

By that time, I figured that maybe they could be re-done in a manner so that they wouldn’t look quite so Tyco-like, and this is what happened…

15

Hello All,

Unfortunately, I did abandon my first train set.

However…In 2014 I attended my first train show and walked away with a DC “starter-set” for less than $50.00. The purchase included the Tyco crane set (now repurposed as the overhead crane).

I don’t consider myself a “collector” of vintage Tyco trains. I just happen to run vintage Tyco trains on my pike.

Hope this helps.

16

Tangent does offer their cars as kits, too, as does Rapido.
Several of my Tangent tank cars were built from undecorated kits (with some minor improvements)…

…and a Rapido reefer, also from an undecorated kit…

Wayne

17

It was a gift of Tyco trains from my wife that started me in the hobby of model railroading in December 1971. I had a lot of fun with those trains.

I still have all of them - and my wife and I will celebrate 52 years of marriage this week.

So I am very fond of Tyco and occaisionally buy them at train shows.

But I am in S scale now so I haven’t run them in some time. At some point I will set up a lower level under my S scale layout to run my old Tyco’s and other early trains I had.

Paul

18

I never said Tyco and like we’re for everybody and I also don’t use them every time I run my layout. It is a fun thing for me to get them out and use them and remember the great times I had when I was a kid. Can’t be too serious all the time.

Dave

19

As always, Wayne can be counted on to amaze. Perhaps some day he will show us a project that DIDN’T work out, or show workmanship that is pathetic and inadequate. It hasn’t happened yet but in quantum mechanics all possible results exist in some world or other. In this world Wayne reigns supreme.

If you have been in the hobby long enough, you know that one of the most considerable, and perhaps saddest, changes in stature and reputation was what happened to Mantua/Tyco quality between the late 1950s and say, the 1970s and beyond. the company changed hands, started to peddle borrowed Hong Kong tooling, and for a time seemed to abandon any pretense at being other than a low end train set operation. Totally fake locomotives such as their GG1, paint thicker than elephant skin. The train sets had power packs that looked like an electrocution waiting to happen. We won’t even mention what they called sectional track. Oddly at their worst they did have some structure kits worth buying for kitbash, but even more oddly other outfits offered the same kits.

When I started in the hobby, the distinction was simply this: Mantua meant kits, Tyco was the same stuff but ready to run including train sets, and that extended from metal steam locomotives to freight and passenger cars. Maybe it was never the best but it was always solid and reliable and at least as plausible as any other make of plastic freight cars. The paint jobs were not laughable shiny and thick. The floors of freight cars were as a rule metal. Couplers were “talgo” truck mounted but for most cars that was easily remedied. They had boxcar doors you could open and close that didn’t rely on those huge “claws” at the bottom of Athearn doors. Their selection of freight cars was just different enough from the competition to be worth owning. As I recall in Mantua kits the plastic bodies were screwed

20

Way back when I used to train shows with Scale Rails of Southwest Florida, one of the members had an improved Tyco set made of iconic train set cars we ran at the shows. It was always a crowd pleaser.

-Kevin