50 year old toys...

[wm3798]

I'm having way too much fun with this.

http://www.spookshow.net/loco/metroliner.html

I had an Amtrak set when I was a kid, now lost to the ages save for a few pieces of the 9.75"r x 45 degree curved track still mouldering in the junk box...  I replaced it recently with a new drive harvested from a pretty beat up model married to a Penn Central shell culled from a dummy.

It's pretty cool to see it roaring around the retro layout... its headlight replaced with an LED that now only illuminates the headlight, and not the entire cab... pulling the Amtrak carcass now mounted to the dummy frame.

When the PC model was released in 1969, prototype Metroliners were only in operation for about a year, Penn Central was still a "thing", and N scale was still in its larval stage, as was I.

There's two more trailer cars in PC on the way. 

The drive is fairly noisy, but it runs remarkably smoothly despite its age and primitive design.  And it runs for hours on end out of the corner of my eye while I'm working.

I guess the next TTrak module is going to need some catenary....

Lee

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Every time I see a cup gear, I just want to slather it in transfer case grease.

[craigolio1]

Are you still getting the dummy’s for $3.98!!?

[wm3798]

I just paid about $38 (shipped) for a power car and a dummy, both in original boxes, although not in tip top shape.  It runs, navigates the curves and turnouts of the Retro Rig, and is a bit more gravely sounding than the first power car I got for $15...  But the shells are good, the pans are there, and the paint is actually a little more crisp than I've seen (still murky, but looks like the pad might have been freshly inked when these were done).  So now the fleet stands at 2 PC power cars, 3 pc trailers, and 1 Amtrak trailer.  (The Amtrak shell came on the first power car, and was pretty abused.  I think I can patch it up and repaint it to match the PC cars... Microscale makes the striping for the nose cone...

I need to find two more of the moveable pans, really just the top section, to bring them the rest of the way around.

I'm going to work on tidying them up, for all intents and purposes, they'll be my equivalent of a Lionel set, running a noisy loop.

[brill27mcb]

My unit has never run well - something to do with those cup gears and keeping the axes (not axles) in line, I think.

Rich K.

[peteski]

My unit has never run well - something to do with those cup gears and keeping the axes (not axles) in line, I think.

Rich K.

Axes?  Little N scale axes?  I didn't know they were included in those models. 

[jjb62556]

Just saw Three of the power units a Scale Models supply in Minneapolis yesterday.

[Doug G.]

Just saw Three of the power units a Scale Models supply in Minneapolis yesterday.

I bought a used Atlas/Rivarossi 0-4-0 from Scale Models Supply back in the nineties when it was up in or near Crystal.

Doug

[nkalanaga]

Peteski:  I think he means the plural of axis - keeping the cup gears aligned so everything runs smoothly.