I buy the Tyco, Bachmann, and IHC “Civil War” cars as cheap and quick bodies for my 1900 era layout. Most of these cars are actually more representative of 1870s -1890s prototypes. With replacement of the gross details with finer stuff - brake wheels, grab irons, ladders, brake components, possibly roof walks, etc - and new trucks and couplers, they make pretty decent models. Especially if I can find them in a reasonable paint scheme or as a kit. At worst, I strip the body and repaint for my home road. The decals, details, trucks, and couplers do drive the price up.
It’s a nice change of pace from Labelle and similar wood kits.
Fred W
…modeling foggy coastal Oregon, where it’s always 1900…
That sounds pretty neat. Modules give you the chance to build something you would never include on your home layout, like this dragon and castle on the Athens Bend Track modular layout.
I am going back half a century of memory here, but my recollection of my Tyco rolling stock was that is was generally my most reliable. This was probably from the very things I ended up getting rid of, theTalgo trucks and the large-flanged pizza cutter wheels. Most of them had metal floors, too, leading to a low center of gravity. As a young modeller, my trackwork left something to be desired, so I appreciated a stable of cars that would stay on less than perfect track.
The one built in New Jersey with metal wheelsets and metal floors and sometimes metal freight car trucks, all prior to about 1975, when Tyco split out of the Mantua-Tyco name and moved production to Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong engines (nearly the same bodies) had crappy motors, crappy drive mechanisms (“Power Torque” drive that had neither power nor torque and was as noisy as heck), did not last very well. The freight cars went to cheap all plastic floors, plastic trucks and plastic wheelsets. Unless one is collecting them for the paint schemes, they are pretty much all crap, period. Stuff that had to be reworked to run decently and stay on the rails. You had to replace most wheelsets with metal.
The “good” stuff, prior to and including the 1975 blowouts “Limited Offer–Special Value” engine with caboose sets, would indeed run and last. Heck, even the earlier couplers lasted longer than the crappy later ones. You sometimes had to drill out a metal rivet to change a broken coupler but they worked pretty well and held up to reasonable amounts of punishment from the neighborhood children.
As Tyco split and went to Hong Kong, Mantua continued making much of the steam engine product line in Woodbury Heights, New Jersey, to much higher standards than the Hong Kong crap. Some engines eventually got much better gearboxes and can motors (the 2-6-6-2 for instance).
The 1975 “Limited Offer - Special Value” packed Mantua-Tyco last version C-430/caboose sets and other sets were made in large quantities and could readily be found in train store inventories into the 1980’s. This is part of the reason why people get confused on what happened just when. The amount of Mantua-Tyco two tone brown box stuff in dealer inventories was quite extensive and lasted well into the 1980’s. The older red box Tyco stuff from the 1960’s was easily found too.
Athearn “New and improved all gear drive with 8 wheel pickup” of the 60s was a vast improvement over other drives of that time. IIRC this drive lacked flywheels and had a black motor.
Agreed. As mentioned, when I was about 13 in 1976 I bought my first Athearn BB 40 foot boxcar kit. After it rolled so smoothly and tracked so well, I added more BB and MDC cars until the Tycos were relegated to the box.
My first BB loco was an F7 “super geared” in UP paint. Ran awesome. I still have that loco and it remains a very competitive runner with modern locos.
A few months before buying that loco, I received the TYCO Chattanooga Choo Choo for christmas. I thought the smoke feature might be cool. Even at about age 13 or 14, I was immediately disappointed to find out that TYCO put the motor and drive in the tender, and it pushed the 2-8-0 which was basically a dummy unit with a smoke generator…and a poor one at that. I ran it a few times but it quickly gave way to the BB F7.
I remember the Christmas I received the Tyco Chataooga Choo Choo set. Mine ran really good, at least during the time my family was together for Christmas.
My father and my Uncle Roger were both completely amazed at the tender drive and how that “solved” all the engineering problems with a steam locomotive model.
I have quite a few TYCOS and AHM leftover from childhood. I will prob upgrade some to run on current stuff. I recently started collecting the cars I wanted as a kid. I am still searching out that doritos box car my brother would not let me buy in 1977 at TG&Y . I have bought silly things like MR peanut covered hopper etc etc, Dutch clenser, Boraxo etc.
Hobby lobby had some cheap proto 1000 box cars that were decorated in Popcicle ads. I bought the whole set on clearance , ( like $1 a car) They have metal wheelsets and Knuckle coulplers on them. The popcicle train was always a hit at the train show.
I’m very happy with my ancient Tyco aluminum streamlined passenger cars. I had a coach, diner and baggage car left over from half a century ago. I found another coach and a boat tail observation car on eBay. I put lights in them, including red tail lights in the observation gar, and converted the horn hooks to Kadees. Eventually, I stripped off the old decals and added red stripes lengthwise, and finally gave them fanciful names, like Hillary Rodham Manson, Montgomery C. Burns, Governor William LePetomane and Alferd G. Packer. They look great behind my red Pennsylvania GG-1.
I got the General set for Christmas of '59 when I was 11; I wanted more AF. I thought the three coaches and two 28-foot box cars looked nice but the axles had so much friction the 4-4-0 would not pull all five. Fast forward to the '90s. I put a Kaydee coupler on one end of a modern car then hooked up 12 more with acetal axles. The General took off with them and no wheel slippage.
A lot of love/hate with Mantua/Tyco units has to do with how much work you want to do with them. I have a whole fleet of Tyco caboose that I have converted and they are a backbone of my fleet. I basically throw the trucks away, plug the holes and replace them with Athearn caboose trucks with couplers mounted in Walthers extended couplers pockets.
I also have a whole fleet of Mantua/Tyco GP20 shells that I have riding on Athearn drives.
A lot of times with using that type of equipment is that you can get the pieces as budgets permit.
I have no Tyco models, but I have seen them in the UK. I can well understand the nostalgia associated with them. I was watching one of ‘Pat’s Train Vids’ on the Tube last night and spaced between the run-by’s were some of these
