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Post by bn7023 on Feb 4, 2021 5:58:09 GMT -8
Thank you for your teaching, Christian. I couldn't associate the 50-dollar Rapido with the 50-Cent AHM.
The width of the Ertl's body was 1.272" (9'-3"). The drawing of the RMC article is 1.224" (8'-10"). I hope the Rapido isn't diverting the Ertl tooling.
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Post by gevohogger on Feb 4, 2021 6:14:35 GMT -8
By the way, does "rapido" mean N scale "Arnold Rapido?" No connection. Nowadays "Rapido" refers to the Canadian company producing a wide range of rolling models, mostly HO scale. Some N scale. Which itself takes its name from the "Rapido" express services offered by CN back in the 60s... |
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Post by jbilbrey on Feb 4, 2021 9:21:05 GMT -8
Thank you for your teaching, Christian. I couldn't associate the 50-dollar Rapido with the 50-Cent AHM. The width of the Ertl's body was 1.272" (9'-3 "). The drawing of the RMC article is 1.224" (8'-10"). I hope the Rapido isn't diverting the Ertl tooling. Let's stop this rumor before it even gets started. Other than the shared prototype, I highly doubt that the Rapido USRA boxcar shares anything with the Ertl car. I have often wondered what happened to the Ertl molds, but I am willing to bet that they are not residing at Rapido's factory in China. |
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Post by lvrr325 on Feb 4, 2021 12:10:18 GMT -8
That ERTL stuff sure was strange, it came in, was hot for a bit, died and seems like it was way over produced. Still not too hard to find MIB and a lot of it you can hardly give away now.
IIRC Rapido did have to buy the rights to the name from Arnold or whoever owns Arnold now, so that's the only connection between the two. I could be wrong.
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Post by atsfgp7u on Feb 7, 2021 13:19:26 GMT -8
I looked at these cars a couple of years ago with the aim of fitting new ends, roofwalk etc.
These cars were built from USRA boxcars, so I planned to use Tichy ends, floor etc but found the AHM car too tall as well as too wide.
That said you have done a really good job with this one (and I'm sure the rest of the cars will be as good.
I may have to revist the ones I have stored.
cheers
Dave
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Post by bn7023 on Jun 3, 2021 8:48:47 GMT -8
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Post by Colin 't Hart on Jun 3, 2021 9:23:42 GMT -8
Mmm, pizza!
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Post by gevohogger on Jun 3, 2021 9:29:25 GMT -8
Bonus points for the molded-in-brown NMRA couplers....
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Post by stevewagner on Jun 3, 2021 13:19:59 GMT -8
The "not finished" part of my roster lists two items that might. match the NYC car in the photo. Both are in storage. One was sold by Con-For; I'm not. sure where it was made. The other was from Roco (Austria), decorated for GN. I think both were supposed to represent cars that could be converted from single to double deck, but the mechanism for doing that -- or possibly a brake pipe -- was crudely modeled on both sides of the cars.
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Post by bn7023 on Jun 3, 2021 16:44:18 GMT -8
What? Fishbelly's model has cast-on ladders. AHM's ones should have separated-ladders like my model...  |
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Post by fishbelly on Jun 3, 2021 16:58:18 GMT -8
No, they are not cast on ladders. They are Tichy ladders.
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Post by bn7023 on Jun 4, 2021 6:15:04 GMT -8
I'm sorry I didn't read the post carefully. So this strange NYC car didn't circulate in North America, did it? The structure is the same as before. The truck frame is also made of polystyrene, and when I tried to replace the wheelsets, it broke. Is colored styrene more brittle than black?   |
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Post by edwardsutorik on Jun 4, 2021 6:22:28 GMT -8
Styrene is more brittle than "engineered plastic". Of interest is that the old wheelsets could be removed without breaking the trucks. At least, 3 out of 4 times.
My recollection from a few decades ago is that "AHM" simplified some of their house cars by casting on the previously free-standing ladders. In particular, their plug-door 40' box comes to mind.
Thus the stock car with cast on ladders would have been from a later batch of these models.
Ed
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Post by thejadefog on Jun 4, 2021 9:01:47 GMT -8
bn 7023- Hmmm. This car is a mystery. Can you see any decal film around any of the graphics? I suspect this was a full repaint and decal. Every example of this car and most of ROCOs feight cars had black trucks, XF2s, chassis, roofwalk and if separate ladders- they were black too. The graphics right at the roof line are much smaller and sharper than what I have seen elsewhere to.
However... the one broken weight clip appears to be brown through it's broken edge, so that is most odd.
Time to round up Scooby and the gang- we have a mystery on our hands!  |
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Post by bn7023 on Jun 4, 2021 10:45:48 GMT -8
This is my 4th post about this NYC car in this thread. I will show you an enlarged photo of the lettering. I think the printing technology is from the late 1990s. Click here if you would like to enlarge the photo further.  |
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Post by thejadefog on Jun 4, 2021 11:04:57 GMT -8
Very interesting. I had not seen the former posts about your car till this thread. That is certainly printed. On the roofline printing you can see a shadow- very much like pad printing if there is any shift of the substrate when the printing pad hits it. Perhaps this is a historical society's short print run?
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Post by lvrr325 on Jun 4, 2021 11:59:26 GMT -8
Roco produced these cars to sell in Euro and some US market sets in the late 1990s. I have had starter DCC sets with Roco branding that included the same GP40 that Atlas and Con-Cor sold, with a very basic decoder, and three freight cars that are the same as first sold here by AHM, a 40 foot plug door box car, a sliding door car similar to an X29, and a 40 foot gon. Each had the frame altered for body mount couplers and metal wheels, although they used a plastic knuckle coupler. The sets I have seen have included CSX and UP, presumably there are others.
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Post by fr8kar on Jun 4, 2021 14:51:37 GMT -8
Click here if you would like to enlarge the photo further. |
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Post by edwardsutorik on Jun 4, 2021 15:06:50 GMT -8
I did say this was an AHM car several posts ago.
Is someone disagreeing with that?
Ed
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Post by Colin 't Hart on Jun 5, 2021 0:14:14 GMT -8
What's the mystery?
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Post by bn7023 on Jun 5, 2021 4:40:12 GMT -8
I also think that this NYC car is a mystery. It's a long story so please bare with me. (Japanese idiom) AHM started operations in 1959 with GHC = General Hobbies Corp. as the parent body. The official name is Associated Hobby Manufacturers, and they had been imported various products from manufacturers all over the world. Rivarossi (Italy), Roco (Austria), Liliput (Austria), and Kader (Hong Kong and Taiwan) were used for HO scale freight cars. Of these, Roco and Liliput produced similar models in same Austria, which is confusing and misleading. In general, the ladders were separate part by Roco, and were cast-on by Liliput. This was pointed out by German speaker Martin. Tyco Forum www.tycoforums.com/tyco/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=6498Martin's Railfun Seite Roco: mmiwakoh.de/Eigene%20Webs/Railfun/RocoUSGW.htmLiliput: mmiwakoh.de/Eigene%20Webs/Railfun/LiliputUSGW.htmFor example, in the case of 40' PS-1 box car, this is a Roco with separated ladders,  This is a Liliput with cast-on ladders. (Modified)  Most of the Roco products were first imported by ATT (American Train & Track Corp., 1967-1970). In 1982, AHM went bankrupt and the handling of the products were transferred to IHC, Con-Cor, Bachmann, Robin's Rails and etc. About the tooling, Roco owned by itself as it was, while Liliput sold to Con-Cor in the United States. In other words, the fine pad printing on this NYC car was impossible in the AHM era. Here, the issue is AHM's 40'stock car. This product was manufactured only by Roco. And through the ATT - AHM era, the ladders were separated. Among Roco's house cars, there were also mold-on-ladder models (eg 40'wood reefer). So this NYC stock car is a new finding, a mystery. Can you understand my not-good English? [Postscript] In order to avoid duplication with lvrr325 who quoted this post, I replaced the two images from plug-door boxcars to PS-1s. |
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Post by fishbelly on Jun 5, 2021 4:43:28 GMT -8
I too have one of those stock cars with molded on ladders. It is in the green NSIX scheme.
For anyone interested, to get the trucks off without breaking the side frames or the truck pin tabs, insert in the bolster holes a needle nose tweezer with the tips slightly bent inwards. Squeeze and pull.
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Post by stevewagner on Jun 5, 2021 8:08:11 GMT -8
bn7023, your English is better than my German and is quite understandable.
I'm finding this thread very interesting. When I got into HO model railroading in the late 1950s, the Woolworth's store on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia's Center City sold assembled Athearn freight. cars for 99 cents each. Within a few years they were supplanted by AHM models at similarly low prices. About 1960 AHM advertised an "HO first": a plastic D&H PS-1 boxcar. It was made in Austria, and it was painted black. A letter in Model Railroader from a railfan and modeler living near the D&H stated that the railroad had no black boxcars. Nicolaus Pfusterschmidt, I think, responded that the car was based on railroad drawings. I learned later that its lettering was that of a 50' car, squeezed to fit onto the 40' model. And its doors covered a 7' opening, and the D&H had none like that. The color of the car was corrected to oxide red. AHM also sold a gray Erie Lackawanna boxcar with maroon graphics including heralds both to the left. and to the right of its door, which was also incorrect.
My one time in Europe was the summer of 1966, mostly in Vienna. I was surprised to that the same Austrian-made freight cars AHM sold in the U.S. sold for higher prices in Austria. The HO display at Vienna's Prater amusement area was run by Liliput, a name I hadn't seen in the USA, and freight cars I knew as AHM in the USA were also Liliput. I knew AHM imported military vehicles made by Roco in Austria. I couldn't find them in the railroad hobby shop I went to in Vienna; the owner said he'd received threats from antiwar demonstrators if he carried them. I didn't realize that Liliput and Roco were separate firms. In the 1970's I was aware that at least some diesel locos that Atlas was selling had been made by Roco.
When I went to Munich for a weekend with the rest of the students in Oberlin College's summer German program, I bought three Vollmer kits there so as not to have to pay Austrian import duties on them. I was on a very tight budget, allowing myself one small hazelnut chocolate bar per week! I mailed them to myself or a relative back in Pennsylvania, marking the package with "gift" in English and "Geschenck" in German, since in German "Gift" means poison!
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Post by fr8kar on Jun 5, 2021 8:32:37 GMT -8
...allowing myself one small hazelnut chocolate bar per week! This kind of willpower is truly inspiring! I'd have succumbed to the chocolate. |
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Post by lvrr325 on Jun 5, 2021 10:19:24 GMT -8
I also think that this NYC car is a mystery. It's a long story so please bare with me. (Japanese idiom) AHM started operations in 1959 with GHC = General Hobbies Corp. as the parent body. The official name is Associated Hobby Manufacturers, and they had been imported various products from manufacturers all over the world. Rivarossi (Italy), Roco (Austria), Liliput (Austria), and Kader (Hong Kong and Taiwan) were used for HO scale freight cars. Of these, Roco and Liliput produced similar models in same Austria, which is confusing and misleading. In general, the ladders were separate part by Roco, and were cast-on by Liliput. This was pointed out by German speaker Martin. Tyco Forum www.tycoforums.com/tyco/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=6498Martin's Railfun Seite Roco: mmiwakoh.de/Eigene%20Webs/Railfun/RocoUSGW.htmLiliput: mmiwakoh.de/Eigene%20Webs/Railfun/LiliputUSGW.htmFor example, in the case of 40'plug-door box car, this is a Roco with separated ladders,  This is a Liliput with cast-on ladders. (Modified)  Most of the Roco products were first imported by ATT (American Train & Track). In 1982, AHM went bankrupt and the handling of the products were transferred to IHC, Con-Cor, Bachmann, Robin's Rails and etc. About the tooling, Roco owned by itself as it was, while Liliput sold to Con-Cor in the United States. In other words, the fine pad printing on this NYC car was impossible in the AHM era. Here, the issue is AHM's 40'stock car. This product was manufactured only by Roco. And through the ATT - AHM era, the ladders were separated. Among Roco's house cars, there were also mold-on models (eg 40'wood reefer). So this NYC stock car is a new finding, a mystery. Can you understand my not-good English? These cars didn't just go away because AHM did. Roco made it's own branded sets and sold them. Liliput items have been imported by other groups. Most of these tools have about nine lives because they were well made and it's much easier to reuse an old one than make a new one. At one point Model Power found the Marx HO tooling and cleaned it up and ran it - Lionel now owns it and at least planned to release some of the same items, they put out a catalog but I have yet to see the actual trains aside from a Polar Express set that is their own tooling. |
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Post by edwardsutorik on Jun 5, 2021 10:34:21 GMT -8
On those two 40' plug door boxes: I had thought, back in the day, that the molds for the free-standing ladder version were simply modified to have the ladders cast on--fill in the mounting nubs and cut the ladders. Looking at the two photos, I see they are totally different molds of, pretty much, the same prototype. Anyway, it's been forever and a half, but my recollection is that mine all came in AHM boxes. Another couple of things: I thought AHM brought in some HO locomotives made in Yugoslavia (a former country, kids). The last AHM cars I bought were in the late '70's or early '80's, when the San Franciso Market Street Walgreens had them on sale for a buck. Nope. bn's comment (below) got me to question my "Walgreens" statement. It was, in fact, Woolworth's. Here's a picture of the store:  The sale table was down on the left side of the store, street level. Note the '59 Cadillac on the left. Now THAT was a car. Er, boat. Er............ Ed |
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Post by bn7023 on Jun 5, 2021 11:39:18 GMT -8
The 4th Q, 2017 issue of the HO Collector magazine featured the story of Rivarossi (Alessandro Rossi), AHM (Bernie Paul) and F.W. Woolworth chain. The article reads that the models were lined up on the table at Woolworth's flagship store in Philadelphia during the Christmas sales season of 1959 or 1960. That is, stevewagner was the person concerned!  AHM/CTC (China Train Corporation, Hong Kong), released in 1979 (estimated)Thank you for pointing out, lvrr325. I didn't study how long AHM dealt with Roco and Liliput. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 7, 2021 7:07:42 GMT -8
For a western modeler, it just feels so weird to see a New York Central stock car. What d'ya ship in them, stockbrokers? Stereotyping. New York State's largest industry is agriculture. It always has been. There is a large city at each end of the state that was established to get the agricultural products out of the state and into markets worldwide. Connecting those cities to the farms is/was an extensive net of canals, railroads, and drayage roads. Most of which followed Algonquin and Iroquois trading trails that predate the Europeans. Yep. And the line that Brian Is basing his focus on used them as well in the agriculture rich Wabash River valley. |
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