Here’s a discussion tab for you to show off your oldest model railroad equipment-- enjoy!
My Model Power Sharknose Diesel in CN livery, ca. 1977. Needs a decoder conversion, but otherwise in great shape.
Now for the ten seconds or so it will take for someone to beat me by a mile…
Stu
This, to the best of my recollection, is my original HO train.
It’s all Athearn equipment. The engine, a GP9, no longer runs by itelf, but it’s a sound dummy and runs as part of a consist.
This stuff is from the early 1960s, but the scene is on my present-day layout. I do have some older equipment, bought used back then, but I can’t put a date on it.
This was my first operating HO engine, a 1950’s kit for the Mantua 4-6-2 Pacific. (I had some Globe F units that first got me into HO a couple of years earlier)I recently upgraded it to a can motor so I can eventually put a decoder and maybe sound in her. It is still on of the smoothest of my 60 plus engines. I bought it from America’s Hobby Center in NYC for $19.95 around 1957 (I still have the original box and maybe the reciept?).
-Bob
I have a few old pieces, but the oldest might well be my fleet of four Star Line stock cars. I believe Star Line went out of business in the 1940s. The kits were assembled when I got them (beautifully I might add), but they did require some repairs as well as new trucks, wheels and couplers. They could be more than 70 years old!
Here they are after the rebuild:
This is what they looked like when I got them:
Dave
Might be a stretch, since it’s less “model” and more “toy” but still pretty old. I have a 1917 Ives set that’s been passed down through our family. I’m the 4th generation to own and operate it.
Almost 100 years old and it still runs great!
Nice thread idea!
Ole #1…
Still shoving cars, 40+ years later and counting. Completely OEM except lube and couplers.
PM Railfan
How old my equipment is is none of your dang business!
…oh, you mean model railroad equipment. Never mind…
My oldest locomotive is a MDC Roundhouse 0-6-0 Kit from 1951. It was my HO starter locomotive at the ripe old age of 14. It’s been repainted several times, the only thing not original is the cast pot metal main frame. It took a bad fall in 1992 and lost a front step, a call to MDC and the frame was replaced at no cost. How’s that for Customer Service!
I did add two new couplers and the crew during the last repaint session in 2006. Runs great!
Mel
Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951
My Model Railroad
I have a lot of Athearn/MDC BB kit cars from the '70s. With KDs and IM wheelsets, a bit of weathering and a Dull-Cote spray, these cars will last “forever”…
I have a Model Power RS11 that my late wife gave as a Christmas gift in '71.45 years later it still runs and still has its original X2F couplers. I should locate it (its in one of my storage totes) and put in a display case.
With all the old codgers on this forum, I’m sure you’ve picked a topic that will thrill them and not be disappointed. Some of them probably have old rolling stock going back to the Triassic period on the geologic time scale. In my case, I’ve been selling off a lot of my older equipment and replacing it with much of the newer more accurate rolling stock so I’m not really in the running. I’d be lucky if I had some old Athearn freight cars from the 1970’s at best, but probably 1980’s since I didn’t get back in to HO until around 1983/84.
Edit: Hold the phone, I forgot about the O-27 Lionel Hudson steam engine I still have as a momento. I got that for Christmas when I was 4 years old in 1963. My dad bought it used and I think it was actually a few years old at that point, made around 1958/59. So my oldest train is the Lionel Hudson - missing some wheels and I am not even sure if I have the tender. Still, imagine there are some who have items much older than that.
I have one in the Pennsylvania livery and a matching dummy.
The ancient Tyco streamliner passenger cars on the left are older than my Athearn equipment above, but I got them all used so I can’t actually date them.
I’ve got 5 of them - 2 coaches, a baggage car, dining car and the observation car.
Here they are after the custom paint job.
Two HO reefers which were given to me decades ago as a teen by an older modeler who was getting rid of stuff. One is a “pure” paper sided reefer with wood floor and roof. The other is also paper sided (and ended) but the paper is embossed so it looks liked scribed siding.
I assume both are pre World War II.
Both cars have really nice lettering schemes which is the only reason I still run them. Detail on the floor is a lump or two of something that I guess looked like airbrake stuff at the time. The trucks were rather crude and did not run well on NMRA standards track so I replaced them, as well as the Baker couplers.
My oldest running locomotive is also a Mantua 4-6-2 - mine came with metal tender but plastic cab so I assume it is not the earliest run which had a metal cab, but pre 1960 when they went with a plastic tender and perhaps plastic pilot. It runs very smoothly and pulls like the very Dickens. Whether I bother to convert it to DCC or not is questionable.
Dave Nelson
Hey! I Represent That!!
Still, as far as the layout goes I’m with Rio Grande in that I have weeded most of the Athearn Blue Box et al out and replaced them with cars having a slightly higher level of detailing.
This LMB, New York central H-10a represents what is probably my oldest locomotive, 1962 era.
I already replaced the open frame motor with a can motor, then tested with a keep-alive decoder. After I update a few of the details it will be a pretty handsome addition to the roster.
Regards, Ed
S Connor:
I think you might have the record here, so far at least. (I have a cottage that was built in 1910 but it hasn’t got any wheels so it doesn’t count[swg][(-D]).
You said it still runs well. How is it powered (i.e. electricity, wind up…)?
Dave
Neat stuff everybody!
I have a penchant for the older stuff, purely for nostalgic purposes. I don’t have a lot of it, but I find it very rewarding IMHO to revive an old piece of rolling stock and get it detailed and running properly.
Dave
My oldest rolling stock is an “all Metal”, 250 ton, Athearn Crane made in 1951 according to the instruction sheet that came with the kit. It has operating 3 sheves with cable. Its really heavy too, just like its prototype.
For my HO rolling stock, it would be my Athearn Amtrak “SDP40F” (actually an FP45) that I’ve had since about 1982. Still runs great as you can see in the video below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdsQu8yUx-M
Kevin