Atlas freight cars - late 70's/early 80's?

[PennCentral]

I received my first HO scale 'set' for Christmas when I was around 7 I think. That would have been the Christmas of 1981. My dad had a friend back then that was a 'serious' model railroader. Instead of a Tyco or Bachmann set, I received a pair of Atlas GP38's, one Santa Fe, one Undec, Atlas track, an MRC power pack (copper color, may have been a 501), three covered gondolas, and a Santa Fe caboose. Heck of a start for a kid.

I still have the two GP38's. They need serious restoration but are salvageable. The power pack, track and freight cars are long gone. I seem to recall that the covered gons and the caboose were assembled and came in Atlas boxes. As I got a little older, I realized that they were probably Athearn Blue Box cars built up and sold in yellow Atlas boxes. Am I remembering correctly? This was 35-years ago so I might be confused. Anyone else remember Atlas marketing built-up Athearn cars in the late 70's/early 80's?


Thanks,
Jason C
Nostalgic, Indiana

[riogrande]

IIRC, Atlas did not begin producing HO freight cars until around the early 1990's. If you got the freight cars around 1982 (35 years ago) then they couldn't have possibly been Atlas unless my memory is way-off. I don't think I've ever seen any Atlas freight cars in HO in a yellow box. I purchased one of the earliest Atlas HO tank cars and it still had a red box.

Atlas has produced HO engines since at least the 1970's - I don't recall when they were first produced by Atlas.

[buffalobill]

Jason, you are right. In the 1970's both Cox and Atlas used assembled Athearn blue box cars with their packaged sets. The Cox sets with the Athearn loco's and cars were marketed in the early 70's, and Atlas used the assembled Athearn cars in sets marketed with the Imported Roco locomotives, the FP-7's, GP-38's, and GP-40's starting in 1975-76. Some of the Atlas sets used generic cabooses, without road names, so they could be used with any of their 4 axle locomotives, nominal list price $25 at that point. The second Cox attempt at the HO train market later in the 1970's used the Taiwan made 3 porthole F-3-A's and the low nose GP-9's. Along with freight cars which were close to clones of the Athearn cars.

I think Atlas stopped marketing the sets in the late 1970's.

Bill

[buffalobill]

Jim, Atlas started marketing the Roco made locomotives in 1974. Started with the SD-24's, which were first available in November of 1974, followed by the SD-35, and then the High Hood GP-38, the FP-7, and the GP-40. They were all out by the end of 1975.

As to Atlas's own line of freight cars, you are right it was the 1990's, red box, with the first car being the Brazilian made Kaolin car.

Bill

[PennCentral]

Thanks buffalobill for backing up my fuzzy memory. These were most definitely NOT Atlas red box cars. I remember when Atlas first started producing their own proprietary line of freight cars.

The only thing I can't recall is if I received an actual 'set' or if my dads friend helped him create a set. I think it was the latter as I am fairly certain that the only freight cars were gondolas and the generic caboose is ringing a bell. The only road name that stands out on those gons is Southern being a bright silver car. I assume the logic in giving me gondolas is that I could put 'stuff' in them and haul things around. It worked. Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars, rocks I found outside, goldfish (crackers, not actual fish), and who knows what else. I remember using cut off sections of my dads arrows for pipe loads. Camouflaged aluminum pipe was completely plausible on my sprawling floor empire.

I'm going to have to dig through some old back issues of MR and RMC and see if I can find some ads from Atlas. Later additions to my roster included an Athearn 'Super Powered' Santa Fe F7 freight unit, a Bachmann trainset with a small steam locomotive when the hobby shop my dad bought his RC plane stuff at was going out of business, and then a little later, when I reached the grand old age of 11, I discovered the model train shop in my town. I'd scrounge $3-$4 and then spend hours looking at every single Blue Box kit before I choose one. Old Charlie at The Depot had the patience of a saint. I'm sure it helped that his wife and my grandmother had grown up together, gone to nurses school together, and worked together their entire adult lives. Not sure he'd have been as patient with some random kid opening every box on the shelves. Other than the carcasses of those two Atlas GP38s, all the stuff from my youth is gone. Not even a picture of any of it that I'm aware of. Oh well. I did have a lot of fun.

Jason C
Nostalgia, Indiana

[riogrande]

Dec 11, 2017 9:46:26 GMT -8 buffalobill said:

Jim, Atlas started marketing the Roco made locomotives in 1974. Started with the SD-24's, which were first available in November of 1974, followed by the SD-35, and then the High Hood GP-38, the FP-7, and the GP-40. They were all out by the end of 1975.

As to Atlas's own line of freight cars, you are right it was the 1990's, red box, with the first car being the Brazilian made Kaolin car.

Bill

Bill, that is about what I recall, seeing advertisements in MR magazine for those Atlas HO diesels; the time frame sounds about right.

I think i have one of those Brazilian made Kaolin cars - the wheels were crude compared to later Atlas freight cars and the truck pins were thicker.

[graftonterminalrr]

To again echo the above posts, Atlas did indeed offer their own sets but used Athearn bluebox cars, built up. I think only the caboose used special generic markings because the cars were identical to those offered through Athearn as kits.

You can still get some locomotive replacement parts through Atlas, but the best way to go is through Con-Cor. They still have a very limited amount of SD24s and GP38s available at $29.99 each. These were made by Roco in the late eighties using the same molds as the Atlas units. Just get the entire unit and pop your shell on.

[edwardsutorik]

Ed

[milgentrains]

Every now and then an Atlas yellow box freight car will pop up on Ebay, funny thing is I've only seen the Athearn made covered gondola.

[PennCentral]

That sure looks like what I remember Ed! Thanks for posting the picture.


Jason C

[Deleted]

During that era there also were individual train stores that assembled their own trainsets using Atlas track, MRC power supplies, and Athearn blue box diesels and cars. English's Model RR Supply was one. They allowed the customer to even pick the road names and upgrades to a better engine than the ordinary F-7 were also available.

[lvrr325]

I have one of those generic cabooses in my used HO tray for shows, they came in three colors I think, red, yellow and maybe silver. This one is red and not in bad shape. I see the Atlas cars in the box once in a while but never picked them up because collectors hadn't discovered them yet. Someone local had a 50' reefer in the box in their stuff, but I don't recall who now.


FWIW, even the Cox loco shells are Athearn clones, they just tried to make it less obvious by giving the GP9 a low hood and changing the F7 to an F3.