Well, I got a few hours of 'me' time this weekend and decided to play with trains. A few weeks ago I had the good fortune of being able to acquire an American Flyer Pre-war Hiawatha passenger set with streamlined cars. As you look at the photos sets like this are colloquilly called 'snake trains' by us toy train guys. American Flyer made several different sets using the Milwaukee Road Hiawatha engine. There was a different style tender and there were very non-Hiawatha looking passenger cars, a freight train and a wind-up set as well.
When these toys were made back in the '30s the Milwaukee Road Hiawatha was one of the nation's premier passenger trains along with the New York Central's 20th Century Limited, the B&O's Royal Blue, and others. They were all beautiful examples of industrial visual styling but by 1951-52 most were out fo service after becoming uneconomical to operate. All the Hiawatha engines were scrapped by 1951 although some restored cars remain. This American Flyer set sports the Beavertail observation car at the end which was in service on the Hiawatha from 1935 - 1948 when they were replaced by the Skytop Lounge. I put together a short video of the train running on the recently re-named Edge of Town (EoT) layout and set up a little police action scene to liven things up a tad. The set proved to be cranky - kinda like me! It either doesn't like O-27 curves or the trackwork on the layout isn't smooth enough (probably a combination of the two). Perhaps on the next layout it'll run better as I intend to have wider radius track on it. Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina
Hill Street Blues on The Edge of Town
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