Here’s mine
I found it on Ebay and what got my attention was the box
looked really old
turns out the instructions inside are dated 1944
the car is very rough looking but it was probably state of the art back then
very unusual couplers
Gee this thing is only 1 year younger than me
So lets see yours ![:-^]
I started in HO in 1971 with a Tyco train set, not sure where all the cars etc. went to but eventually I picked up several of them on Ebay, but they don’t run on the layout as of yet. They’re not all that bad, but need a little work (Kadees for example). I do have a flat car that I picked up at a flea market or something that is I think a Lindberg from the fifties. Again, car is actually pretty good but needs some work.
Oh and I do still have some S scale American Flyer stuff c.1960 from my first train set.
But actually in everyday layout use, my oldest stuff would be from the eighties. I was in O from 1973-1987 then went back to HO. I have a few Train Miniature HO cars from the early/mid-eighties that I use.
Well it’s not that old, but my oldest would be a Marx O27 windup trainset. The loco is plastic and the cars metal. It ran around a small circle of 2 rail (not 3 rail) track. The loco’s spring long ago sprung and it got very tossed aside (but still possessed) in favor of the Marx O27 electric 3 rail train![;)]
It would be about 40 years old now. It still sits on the O/O27 guage layout in my father’s basement. On the layout, it would be the equavalent of the “static park display” a la Jeffrey Wimberly.
“Thank you for this stroll down amnesia lane” (Robbin WIlliams - Dead Poet’s Society)
Well. If you’re talking in general terms, I’d have to say my old Marx set that I got back in the late 60s for Christmas when I was about five years old that’s on static display in my train room on a shelf. As for rolling stock I still use. I’d have to say my Shell three dome tank car that came with a set I bought back in the late 80s.
Tracklayer
Speaking in very specific terms, my oldest piece(s) of rolling stock are a Baldwin 0-6-0T, a four-wheel gondola and a 4-wheel box-brake van, purchased at Tenshodo’s Ginza (Tokyo) store in mid-1959. At the time, I thought they would make a nice souvenir.
If anyone had told me that I would have them in (simulated) revenue service half a century later I would have suggested that he should ease off on the strong drink!
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
My oldest HO piece of rolling stock is an Athearn Caboose in Burlington livery that I got for a birthday present in 1957 along with an F7.
I also have an American Flyer O guage train set built in 1924 that belonged to my father. It’s in the original box and still runs.
CN Charlie
My oldest HO rolling stock consists of four metal Varney cars–a MILW flatcar, an ART reefer, a St. LOUIS MDT reefer, and a yellow KATY boxcar. All still rolling. Oh yah, and an old Silver Streak wood SP caboose, which still rolls along behind my AC’s when I decide on an all-SP running session. I got all of them from a buddy of mine in 1954 when he decided that HO didn’t stay on the tracks (of course, back then, he was RIGHT, LOL!).
Tom
my oldest personally owned piece is a Rivarrossi Dockside I believe that I bought, which dates when I was in my teens. But it is not the “Oldest” piece I have. I think the nearest oldest piece is the Winton 2-6-6-6 unbuilt kit.
BTW, heavy paint on the passenger car.
I have a few walthers cars, I havent checked their dates, but the North SHore Merchandise Express car has to go back a bit. Newer however but still old are some Paul Moore trolleys.
I was about 5 years old when I was given a train-set for Christmas, so that puts this little dock side loco in the mid 60’s. It is a Triang Minic switcher.
It has beautiful scale wheel flanges that measure about a scale foot. It still runs, but sits and hums and draws a good deal of current before shooting off at a high rate of knots. I have not bothered to upgrade it to DCC!
I have some paper sided reefers that probably go back to around 1940 or so. Then there are a good number of Varney and Athearn metal cars – the Varney cars have beautiful lithographed paint schemes. Those probably date back to maybe 1952, the year I was born. A variety of Ulrich and Model Die Casting metal cars, and some unbuild Red Ball kits, all from the 1950s. Somewhere I have a Lionel HO structure which features a switchman who jumps out the door when a train goes by. It was a gift from cousins that I used to have on my first layout (but I’d only connect the wires when those cousins came for a visit [}:)]
Dave Nelson
My pre-war Laconia dry ice reefer, still in operation on the layout (in spite of those archaic couplers!).
CNJ831
My all metal Globe-Athearn 250 ton crane made in the early 50s. I got it as a kit and it had more details such as all the cable sheves! Not just one set as made in plastic nowaday. And sprung Buckeye Trucks! It is so cool when it rolls on the layout, because it is heavy, it sounds heavy!
Thats a really good looking crane car
Where did you find it
do they still make them ?
The oldest piece of rolling stock in my house is actually my wife’s. She still has the Lionel set that her father bought her in the early 40’s thinking she would be a he. Actually, my early 40’s Lionel set would have been my oldest if I hadn’t sold it in 1952 to buy HO’s.
Peter Smith, Memphis
My oldest piece of rolling stock (in usable condition) is this Athearn baywindow caboose that I bought in the early 80’s. This was one of the first items that I bought from Athearn after a friend gave me a parts list and order form.
My oldest piece of rolling stock is a Lionel 259E from the 1930’s. It was my father’s and still runs like a champ.
To me, there are two ways to define ‘oldest’.
If we’re thinking ‘earliest’ piece of rolling stock purchased, then it would have to be a Model Power/Lima 50’ reefer in Pacific Fruit Express colours that I got with my first train set back in 1974. I still have that car, but I changed the trucks to roller bearing and I put Kadee couplers on it.
If we’re thinking ‘oldest’ in terms of the actual age of the car, then it would have to be a couple of Athearn ‘yellow box’ era cars that I added to the fleet. One is a 40’ flat car with Santa Fe reporting marks and the other is a 40’ box car with the Lackawanna ‘Pohebe Snow’ logo. (Yeah, yeah, I know it’s actually ‘Phoebe’, but when I first saw the logo I thought it was ‘Pohebe’).
I have a couple of pre-war kinsman S scale kits that waited about 70 years or so to be built. As an added bonus, the wood hardened to the point where considerable replacement was necessary just to assemble the darn things! I do have some Rex S scale 2-6-0 kits from the early fifties, eventually I will get these built to SP prototypes.
Dave
My oldest is a Tyco 50ft santa fe boxcar I got in the early 70’s , other than the Kadee couplers it is all original . I only use it when testing new track .