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Post by packer on Sept 11, 2022 16:02:11 GMT -8
I didn't think it'd be as old as my old man...
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Post by mkrcbuilds on Sept 11, 2022 19:04:05 GMT -8
Only way to get parts for these is find someone parting one out on eBay or buy one to part out yourself. These were never produced after Revell stopped making them around 1962. Thanks for the information... The hunt begins...
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Post by trainboyy on Sept 12, 2022 7:57:52 GMT -8
I didn't think it'd be as old as my old man... The shells are apparently 68 years old now. News to me.
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Post by riogrande on Sept 12, 2022 13:21:14 GMT -8
I didn't think it'd be as old as my old man... The shells are apparently 68 years old now. News to me. If the tooling is based on the Globe F7 tooled in the 50's, that would be pretty close.
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Post by lvrr325 on Sept 12, 2022 22:02:14 GMT -8
Per my Greenberg's Guide to Athearn, the F7 shells were actually tooled up by Silver Streak and first produced in mid-1953. But Silver Streak went broke and the assets were sold. Irv bought the F7 tooling and reintroduced them under the Globe name in mid-1954. Initially unpowered, Athearn, Lindsey, Hobbytown and Kemtron all offered drives for them. $14.95 got you a powered model in 1955, about five bucks cheaper than a Rivarossi C-liner.
So that makes this shell 69 years old, sold by Athearn branded as Globe, Athearn and Roundhouse, plus complete models sold to Lionel and Cox who retailed under their branding, and shells to Penn Line who had still their own drive. Bev-Bel would also have single headlight shells made and sell them. Tyco, Penn Line and Cox would all clone the shell; Tyco with a shorter fuel tank skirt and slots for the drive tabs to snap in place (also seems to have lost the nose door); Penn Line (which got the side steps condensed); and Cox, who also lost the nose door and changed the side details to reflect an F3.
Despite the clones, Athearn's shell is still sold today, outliving all of them. Tyco's tooling would wear out about 1974, be replaced, but re-appear under the Mantua brand in the late 1970s; not sure where it landed after Mantua being sold to Model Power who then was sold to MRC and then MRC sold most of those assets elsewhere. Penn Line's model was maybe a year old when it became a Varney item and wasn't even five years old when it became a Life-Like item, there it lasted into the Walthers era as an entry level model. And Walthers is where the Cox tooling would land after a stint with Model Power, but I don't believe they ever produced this shell despite the Cox low-nose GP9 becoming a Trainline staple.
I wonder if they even know how many of these they've sold? I've seen them in train shops, train shows, flea markets, antique shops, garage sales, I even found one in a car trunk in a junkyard.
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