Welll, even though I haven't been doing much blogging I have been totally busy with trains and toys. As a recap to recent activity, here's what I've been up to. For Veteran's Day (Remembrance Day in the UK) I pulled out a '50s era Marx Army Train bought back in the '90s and not run for about 15-20 years! It got some lube and a little dusting, and it ran like a champ. New for this year were engines and rolling stock devoted to the U.S. Air Force (USAF only consists are something not seen too often in the toy train world). It appears that none of the train manufacturer's actually produced a USAF set, however they made lots of USAF-centric rolling stock. The biggest problem I'm having now as a collector is latching on to one of MTH's large USAF diesel switchers - they are hard to find and pricey when they do become available. So in the meantime, a Lionel re-make of their small Postwar USAF Minuteman diesel switcher had to do, but because it's such a small unit, only a few cars at a time were hooked up to it to reduce strain on the motor. Okay, 'til next time - Enjoy! Opa Fritz
I bought this set back in the '90s and haven't run it for probably 20 years. It worked like a champ!
These depressed center flatcars with misisle launchers are hard to find intact. usually the launch mechanism or figure are missing. On this one, the launch mechanism is missing and a previous owner had replaced the original figure
This year's parade was small but well attended by the citizenry. There is an Auburn halftrack, Processed Plastic tank, armored car and Jeep w/cannon, and an armored car from an unknown maker. To round things out there are ambulances from Processed Plastic and Renwal waiting on the sidelines just in case...
Lionel makes it's first appearance in military form on my layout. I've never had Lionel military trains until now and chose to focus on USAF equipment. K-Line, Menard's, and MTH round out the compliment of Air Force rolling stock
Lionel Postwar celebration U.S. Air Force Minuteman diesel switcher - a modern era re-make of a Postwar classic
K-Line hopper
Lionel modern era re-make of the classic exploding boxcar
Lionel flatcar with cruise missile
MTH Air Force caboose
Menard's flatcar with rocket fuel container
Menard's jet fuel tank car
Menard's droopy missile car
These are non-functional missiles
Just one of several different USAF consists I ran
As luck would have it this set became available and I snatched it up. It has an intact caboose (the one in my older set had a broken chimney), a two-load flatcar, and an intact missile launch car. It was missing one silver missile but I bought a replacement on fleaBay
I don't always do something for the 4th of July but this year I thought it would be fun to break out and run an old Army train, one that I haven't run in 11 years! I'm kinda jumping ahead of my Train Time posts in that I've started a new layout: The Milwaukee North Western but progress has been slow and it really doesn't look much different than the set-ups that have been utilizing that space over the span of the past 6 years.
The basis for this set-up is a few Marx tin-litho Army buildings, an MPC helicopter, Payton Little Green Army Men, assorted vehicles, and K-Line's "The United States Army Train" set No. 1911.
Well, anywho, here it is - Enjoy! Opa Fritz
The set came with a header bag of Jak Pak U.S. Infantry figures
There was actually a second bag of 6 figures stapled to the original bag of 18 figures
Non-firing cannon - but still cool!
This is only a missile transport car, not a missile launching car
Lighted caboose
I don't know what's in those cannisters but they're under intense guard!
A couple of months ago I latched on to this custom painted 3-piece Marx Commodore Vanderbilt (CV) set which included the engine, tender, and caboose. The paint job was nice enough and the person who redid it looks like he used a homemade rubber stamp for the US * ARMY lettering. The three piece set was very reasonably priced so, what the heck, I took the plunge. I went from being anti-clockwork a couple of years back, to grudging respect, to being fully on-board with the whole thing. I finally realized that trains like this were at the low end of the price spectrum and often times were the only trains some families could afford. It represents a simple pleasure from days gone by and I now accept it for what it is. As I was playing with this I toyed (pun intended) with adding cars, but hey, watch the videos and see for yourself.
This portion of the old train board is just big enough for an oval of track. For this video I pulled out vintage Army toys from Ideal, Auburn, Marx, Tootsietoy, Triang Minic, Renwal, and Payton. Oh, and BTW it wasn't 'til after I was finished filming that I noticed the tender was on backwards - DOH! Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina
