Recent content by CapnTomDrums

For those of us who dont know, the hobby of model railroading and HO scale both date back long before WWII. Some of us have been in the hobby ALMOST that long. I have no idea what that thing IS. However, going by the fact that it has the 'bulldog' nose, and the underframe assembly, I would...

That drive is a belt drive, like the Lindberg SW1s used, not rubber bands. They used a coiled belt. I have some similar drives in some 1950s cast metal F units (I think Varney), but yours looks older than mine.

I have locos going back to the 1940s, including Strombecker, and I have never seen anything like that. I would guess it dates to the 1930s.

Early this morning I was going through Pitchwife's hobby shop links, and forund the link for Valley Model Trains in NY. They had listed, an item that I have been searching for, nearly a year. I sent in an order this ,morning, and it was filled and shipped by mid-afternoon! Great service!

Bingo. Those new boxes containing the pre-assembled models take up exactly the same space as the blue boxes, but they sell for twice the price. The store gts a percentage of each kit they sell...so which one are they going to push? In spite of all the doom-and-gloom of a few years ago...

Where did we get the idea that Athearn no longer makes blue box kits? If we go to their website we will see that they do indeed still make the kits. Granted, not every item is available constantly, but the items never were. We just never had the internet to tell us, in the past. There is a...