What non-auto model did you get today?

[Brian Austin]

Re: 21st Century Toys

https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?/topic/25970-so-what-happened-to-21st-century-toys-and-who-got-their-tooling/

[Brian Austin]

Also, I think the water tanks on that British steam loco are kinked like that to not block the vision of the Locomotive crew.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Last time I went to the "antique mall" where I'd been scoring a lot of old HO scale railroad cars and kits, all they had was O and a little S scale tinplate stuff.

Little voice told me to drop in Wednesday, and they'd just restocked a bunch of HO. Not the goldmine of "craftsman kits" I'd cleaned out earlier, but I picked up a few nice old pieces, like a full-train set of Varney AeroTrain kits, mostly unbuilt, unmolested. Not cheap, but easily worth what I paid.

    

The real AeroTrain was an experiment built by GM in the mid 1950s to test new ideas in moving commuters by rail. The passenger cars were widened GM bus bodies riding on special railroad trucks.

   

Two were built and evaluated by several railroads in regular service, but didn't make it to production. They were said to ride "hard", attributed to their very light weight compared to traditional passenger cars. The newly-designed suspension system could have been developed further to fix that, but it didn't happen. IIRC, both full-scale trainsets still exist, in non-running condition with no engines.

I also brought home a few Ambroid and other "craftsman" kits, plus some vintage built-up freight cars.

Edited August 9 by Ace-Garageguy

[FoMoCo66]

38 minutes ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

Last time I went to the "antique mall" where I'd been scoring a lot of old HO scale railroad cars and kits, all they had was O and a little S scale tinplate stuff.

Little voice told me to drop in Wednesday, and they'd just restocked a bunch of HO. Not the goldmine of "craftsman kits" I'd cleaned out earlier, but I picked up a few nice old pieces, like a full-train set of Varney AeroTrain kits, mostly unbuilt, unmolested. Not cheap, but easily worth what I paid.

    

The real AeroTrain was an experiment built by GM in the mid 1950s to test new ideas in moving commuters by rail. The passenger cars were widened GM bus bodies riding on special railroad trucks.

   

Two were built and evaluated by several railroads in regular service, but didn't make it to production. They were said to ride "hard", attributed to their very light weight compared to traditional passenger cars. The newly-designed suspension system could have been developed further to fix that, but it didn't happen. IIRC, both full-scale trainsets still exist, in non-running condition with no engines.

I also brought home a few Ambroid and other "craftsman" kits, plus some vintage built-up freight cars.

That's pretty awesome, didnt know these existed. I've always wanted the con cor AeroTrain or Zepher, but they are expensive!

[ranma]

Not today but the last two days. Bought 3 in their boxes Tyco Freight cars, Old dutch Bottom dump hopper, Popsicle box car, and wood pulp freight car. All three with their less than $2.00 price tag from K-mart!

The others  are loose: Two New Haven box cars, Hienz 57 Condola , MSL bottom drop open top Hopper, Frisco Box car, and one other box car. 

Paid $3.50 for each.....

[Brian Austin]

Various modern lightweight trains were tried out here in New England around the time of the Aerotrain.  They suffered a similar fate, though the trains built by ACF for Spain's Talgo service were fine on Spanish rails despite the uncomfortable ride on New Haven RR tracks

There is at least one 1:8 scale ride-on Aerotrain model.

[Ace-Garageguy]

One of the guys who works at the "antique mall" I frequent knows I'm into HO train stuff, and took me aside a few days back to let me know he had some I might be interested in.

So...we met in the parking lot like we were doing a deal in illicit substances and I looked in one of two big boxes. "Sold" I thinks to myself, without even digging through it.

"Make me a price" says I. "$60" says he, and I start peeling off twenties.

Got it home, so far the two best items are an almost new, powered Bachmann GP-40 locomotive with all-wheel drive, and a Heljan 804 turntable kit, complete.

  

Just those two alone are worth at least twice what I paid if I got 'em from eBay, and there's a ton of other good stuff: more locomotives, buildings, cars, electronic and electrical bits, etc.

The train stall in the mall just happened to have been restocked again yesterday too, so I snagged several more vintage craftsman kits, a few built-ups and RTRs in unusual liveries, plus two beautiful powered EMD SW-1 switchers in Burlington Northern livery, different numbers.

  Again, the locos are worth at least twice what I gave for everything.

EDIT: And Steve...I looked at every piece of rolling stock for anything Duluth South Shore & Atlantic. Nada.

 

Edited August 10 by Ace-Garageguy

[Earl Marischal]

8 hours ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

One of the guys who works at the "antique mall" I frequent knows I'm into HO train stuff, and took me aside a few days back to let me know he had some I might be interested in.

So...we met in the parking lot like we were doing a deal in illicit substances and I looked in one of two big boxes. "Sold" I thinks to myself, without even digging through it.

"Make me a price" says I. "$60" says he, and I start peeling off twenties.

Got it home, so far the two best items are an almost new, powered Bachmann GP-40 locomotive with all-wheel drive, and a Heljan 804 turntable kit, complete.

  

Just those two alone are worth at least twice what I paid if I got 'em from eBay, and there's a ton of other good stuff: more locomotives, buildings, cars, electronic and electrical bits, etc.

The train stall in the mall just happened to have been restocked again yesterday too, so I snagged several more vintage craftsman kits, a few built-ups and RTRs in unusual liveries, plus two beautiful powered EMD SW-1 switchers in Burlington Northern livery, different numbers.

  Again, the locos are worth at least twice what I gave for everything.

EDIT: And Steve...I looked at every piece of rolling stock for anything Duluth South Shore & Atlantic. Nada.

 

Thanks for looking Ace!

steve

[bamadon]

On 8/8/2025 at 10:11 PM, Ace-Garageguy said:

Last time I went to the "antique mall" where I'd been scoring a lot of old HO scale railroad cars and kits, all they had was O and a little S scale tinplate stuff.

Little voice told me to drop in Wednesday, and they'd just restocked a bunch of HO. Not the goldmine of "craftsman kits" I'd cleaned out earlier, but I picked up a few nice old pieces, like a full-train set of Varney AeroTrain kits, mostly unbuilt, unmolested. Not cheap, but easily worth what I paid.

    

The real AeroTrain was an experiment built by GM in the mid 1950s to test new ideas in moving commuters by rail. The passenger cars were widened GM bus bodies riding on special railroad trucks.

 

I remember the Aerotrain. in 1956 it was operating on the New York Central and made a stop at the station in Syracuse. Being a 12 year old train nut with a grandfather who was an engineer on the Central of course we had to go see it. Very cool experience to get an up close look at it.

 

Don R

[Brian Austin]

It's been interesting watching videos from British YouTubers who pronounce Heljan with a Y-sound for the J.  Sure, it's an European name, but it sounds weird.  They make trains in British OO and O scales.  I still associate them with kits of buildings.

Edited August 13 by Brian Austin
Spelling

[Earl Marischal]

4 hours ago, Brian Austin said:

It's been interesting watching videos from British YouTubers who pronounce Heljan with a Y-sound for the J.  Sure, it's an European name, but it sounds weird.  They make trains in British OO and O scales.  I still associate them with kis of buildings.

I have a couple of Heljan OO locos, both diesels. They are really well detailed and good runners. The model railway group I belong to has some of their O gauge diesels and they too are good quality.

There have been QC issues with some of their models but they seem to have solved them now.

steve

[Earl Marischal]

These are examples of my two. The black Bo-Bo was a one-off experimental loco from 1950s. The other is a Departmental (MoW) shunter (switcher).

steve

 

[Ace-Garageguy]

17 hours ago, Brian Austin said:

It's been interesting watching videos from British YouTubers who pronounce Heljan with a Y-sound for the J.  Sure, it's an European name, but it sounds weird.  They make trains in British OO and O scales.  I still associate them with kis of buildings.

Heljan repopped a number of excellent HO structure kits originally tooled by Revell in the early '60s as well...

    

Edited August 12 by Ace-Garageguy

[Brian Austin]

I've always wondered how those Revell kits were mastered.  Did they carve oversized wooden bucks like for model cars?  🙂

It's also interesting they reused the old boxart.

Edited August 13 by Brian Austin

[Ace-Garageguy]

Doing something I very rarely do, which is waiting for a subcontractor to do something I could do myself, but would take a lot longer because I'm not really set up to do it.

Anyway, in the interim, I've been digging into the mystery boxes of HO stuff I bought last week.

It just gets better and better, including three more almost-new medium-quality all-wheel drive locomotives, a GP18 and and two F7s from different manufacturers, and an older deep-flange 2-axle-drive low-nose GP38-2 (Life Like?)...also in excellent condition.

There's also a couple of partially built-up (very well done) structure kits, including a vintage Atlas passenger station and a long Pola 2-stall engine house.

[ranma]

Model rail road /swapmeet at the fair grounds . ended up getting some decent deals ! One Vendor  had loose freight cars (1/87 scale)  $2.00 each  with about 60 or so to choose from, Another vendor (Female) Had freight cars for $3.00 or 6 for $10.00. another Vendor had ho scale semis with trailers $8.00 Or 3 For $20.00. Ended up spending $52.00 between the three vendors. Ended up buying 11 Freight cars + two cabooses  from the lady vendor. 3 trucks from the other , and some $2.00 Freight cars as well. Semi trucks: Perkins furniture  IH S-Series, Rollins GMC General/trailer, and a Mack with shipping container trailer

Edited Sunday at 06:20 PM by ranma

[ranma]

Went back today (two day show/swap meet) Bought 3 more 1/87 trucks. White Road commander Single drive day cab. Ford Aeromax/Louisville Single drive with sleeper, and another Areomax/Louisville dual drive day cab . A built HO Scale building for $3.00

[Ace-Garageguy]

A few more scores yesterday on the way home from my hike...

First up is a Campbell kit #401 Quincy Engine House, long out of production and hard to find. Complete and unmolested, which is kinda rare as they've often been cherry-picked for their best-in-HO corrugated siding, and bags of details. They're typically in the $100 range when they come up online, complete.

The corrugated real aluminum siding is finer and more scale-correct for many applications than the typical metal siding found in vintage Suydam structure kits.

This is a cardboard-and-sticks "craftsman kit" that gets skinned with the aforementioned corrugated aluminum, and includes a lot of finely cast and injection-molded detail parts.

It's a great little building for a logging or mining shortline, especially when combined with supporting structures and code 70 or smaller hand-laid trackage. It includes an addition with a shed roof for an attached machine shop, and a board fence for enclosing a parts or materials or junk storage area.

Next up is a vintage plastic AHM 5827 Sand House, a natural companion to the engine shed above. Though several of the castings have very obvious ejector pin marks on the visible sides, this is fairly easily corrected, of they can be used as templates to scratch-build parts from wood. These are fairly plentiful and not expensive, but they don't seem to move well, as apparently most current RR modelers prefer later era scenery and rolling stock. Average delivered price is around $25.

EDIT: There was a good bit more really cool stuff, but something in the rest of the post triggered the dreaded PAGE NOT FOUND, refused to post, and I'll be dambed if I'll waste any more time here trying to figure out what it was. 

Have a nice day.  

 

Edited Sunday at 10:04 PM by Ace-Garageguy

[Old Buckaroo]

Bill that AHM Sandhouse is very close to the old DRGW Narrow Gauge Sandhouse that was at Durango Colorado. Its a great kit, and "Model Masterpieces" also made a craftsman kit of the same.  A lot of nice finds you've been turning up!

[OldTrucker]

Actually came a couple days ago after taking the long was around thanks to USPS logistics.