Where are they now? Old model railroad companies...

I was browsing through some issues of Model Railroader from 1946, 1947, and 1948... wow, what a great magazine it was back then, even if the modeling was crude by today's standards (one modeler wrote a letter asking for manufacturers to please make window and door castings in popular sizes and styles so that model builders could scratchbuild unique structures in quicker fashion)... and nearly every advertisement was a hand-inked beauty that to this designer's eye is simply a joy to look at.

Look at some of the names in a late 1940's MR and you'll see very few familiar names that are still with us today... Testor's, Mantua, Atlas Tool Co., Irvin R. Athearn ("O Gauge Only" his ads insisted back then), Model Die Casting just to name a few. How about some of these others who were strong companies through the 1950s and 1960s? What ever happened to Varney, Ulrich, Ambroid, Lobaugh, Tru-Scale, Kasiner Hobbies, and all of the rest? How did Varney go from full page ads and spreads in MR to just a memory by the 1970s? How did Ambroid go from making meticulous craftsman kits to nothing but cement today? Tru-Scale- their track products seem to have faded away, and their line of structures seems to have gone through a few ownership changes as well.

So tell me- what happened?

-otto-

Otto Vondrak wrote:What ever happened to Varney, Ulrich, Ambroid, Lobaugh, Tru-Scale, Kasiner Hobbies, and all of the rest? How did Varney go from full page ads and spreads in MR to just a memory by the 1970s? How did Ambroid go from making meticulous craftsman kits to nothing but cement today? Tru-Scale- their track products seem to have faded away, and their line of structures seems to have gone through a few ownership changes as well.
-otto-

Varney cars were sold to Life Like and became their plasic line (Varney had gone plastic by then.) Locos? Don't know.

Ulrich was sold to Walthers and faded away. Their metal kits were expensive and folks bought the less expensive plastic.

Tru-Scale tried to compete with flex track by notching their wooden roadbed. It didn't work. I put a bunch of old Tru-Scale roadbed and turnouts into a division aution last year to clear them out of the train room. The turnouts went for good money, but the roadbed didn't. That's what happened to Tru-Scale. Folks just didn't want fixed curves in a wood roadbed. Darn shame.

Can't help with anything else. Your mileage may vary...

IHC picked up the molds for some of the locomotives from companies that went out of business. I can't tell you which ones.

Ahhhh, the "good ol' days."

My first HO set was made by Revell - the ORIGINAL Revell. The models were and still are excellent -- I still run the freight cars today. The only thing I've done to them is put Kadee couplers on to replace the original horn hook ones.

I have a UP switch engine from the same set but the worm gear is worn out and I've never taken the time to see if I can figure out how to repair it. The model itself is still in perfect condition.

Back in those "good ol' days," once the track was laid on the original 4x8 sheet of plywood, dear old dad also bought me some street lights and a RR crossing light.

I don't know who made either of those but the lights were metal goosenecks, painted dark green, with frosted globe bulbs. They were every bit as good, if not better, than what is available today. Unfortunately, those seem to have disappeared over the years.

As for the crossing, that, too, was excellent, especially considering how long ago it was made. It was very close to scale. It had two red bulbs - and the originals are still working today! The "flashing" wasn't very realistic but, again considering how long ago that was, it wasn't bad.

The flashing was accomplished with a 12" section of straight track with a fulcrum mechanism that completed the circuit as each wheel passed it. So the lights blinked at the same time (not alternating) and you got four quick blinks, a pause, four more quick blinks, etc. Fascinating for an eight year old

As for Revell, I not only loved their trains but I must have bought and built hundreds of their plastic model planes and boats as well. All of their models were outstanding and I don't think any manufacturer makes a better product today.

Ahhhhhh, thanks for the memories Otto

Wow! Revell HO scale trains! Boy....brings back memories! IIRC, I still have a Revell Alco engine SOMEWHERE in my collection.....it had some horrible-operating rubberband drive if memory serves me right.

BTW, I never understood why the ol' classic Aurora Plastics Corp. (remember their way cool model kits?) never got into the model railroading hobby....they made a killing with HO scale model slot car racing, though, so it was weird that they ignored the railroading hobby.

[quote="Otto Vondrak"]...How did Ambroid go from making meticulous craftsman kits to nothing but cement today?...
-otto-[/quote]

As I understand it, Ambroid was nothing but cement. Then they hired somebody to manufacture wood kits so as to publicize/popularize the cement. Eventually they stopped. The kit manufacturer (Northeastern) offered the kits under their own name for a while. By and large, the market for wood kits had dried up. Northeastern stopped producing them.

But Ambroid cement is still available.

No, Revell didn't make the rubber band drive ---- that was the old Athearn "Hi-F" drive. Revell drives were all plastic and used plastic spur gears. They were noisy as all hell but did run well and pull well. I had an F-7

I thought Aurora made the "Postage Stamp" line of early N scale trains?

-otto-

Indeed, Otto, there's a heck of a lot of history and the roots of company evolution in the pages of those old MRs. Many of the stories are quite complex.

When Varney passed from the scene, the dies for its rolling stock went to LL, now a subdivision of Walthers. The O-gauge Varney line had by then long since gone to All Nations. Varney's HO loco dies, as well as those of PennLine some years earlier, became part of Bowser. Bowser had also bought out Knapp after the war. Model Railroad Warehouse today owns the rights to car kits for Cannonball, Red Ball, and some others. Walthers acquired a number of smaller car kit companies through the years, including Train Miniatures (which lives on in Walthers' Train Line sets), Wabash(?), Ambroid(?) and others. They have let most of these lines die out. Polks Hobby, once a giant in the hobby, more-or-less spun-off HO Train Company, which became GHC, then AHM, and through further name changes, I believe, ended up as IHC today. Kasiner or StreamLine passenger cars has been reborn recently under a new name.

The great custom builders, like Lobaugh, George Stock and others, met their end with the introduction of modestly priced, die cast, "screwdriver assembly" and RTR locos in the early 1950's. The final nail in their coffin being driven by imported brass. Mantua revolutionized the hobby with those screwdriver assembly and RTR die cast locos in the early 1950's but they live on today only as a truncated line offered Model Power. And, of course, Athearn and MDC have been bought up by Horizon recently.

And who can honestly recall the likes of Laconia, IMP, Linsay, AT&T, Globe, Menzies, Dallas Model Craft, Famoco, Schrader, and Castor Plastics? Many were, at least for a time, prominent names but are now all but forgotten. And then there were the host of early brass importers that followed.

Yep, lotsa interesting stuff to be found in those old MRs!

CNJ999

What caused the demise of Varney? I seem to recognize a lot of plastic Varney reincarnated as Life Like plastic (look under some of the older cast friegth cars, and you'll see a mark on the die where VARNEY used to be stamped)...was there some deal where LL bought out Varney, or did Varney fall on hard times and liquidate?

I recognize a lot of Train Miniatures stuff in the Walthers line... dos anyone remember the Work Train series from the 1980s? Many of those cars came from the TM line. They still appear in old TM boxes at certain train shows, the castings and detail are not bad for the time period.

I was interested in Kasiner Hobbies because they were in Rochester, NY. Same thing with Gargraves (anyone remember "Gardener The Train Doctor?") Track (the "Phantom Line" three-rail system)... which I think is still produced in Rochester.

Seems many lines were folded into Bowser... including most of the Penn Line models...

And what of the strange love triangle between AHM-Rivarossi-IHC?

How about Atlas Tool Co... when did they start making structure kits and HO scale cars and locos? I remember when Atlas first introduced their Kato-drive locos in the early 1980s...

=otto=

Otto Vondrak wrote:How about Atlas Tool Co... when did they start making structure kits and HO scale cars and locos?

Judging from their classic Lumber Yard and Roadside Restaurants etc., gotta be the 1960s at the latest - in fact, isn't the 'refreshment stand' http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/150-715 a leftover from a line of HO structures for use on slot car racing layouts (well, maybe not)?

Now, of course, history continues to repeat , as once new manufacturers which appeared with fresh offerings during the late 1980s/early 1990s such as McKean, Railpower, and Front Range have since disappeared or been subsumed by other companies - while Ulrich is back! http://www.ulrichmodels.com/
Kinda miss Tyco, however - cool operating accessories like the gravel unloader, the concrete pipe loader, the intermodal crane, while hardly realistic, did add a wow factor for the proto-jaded youths of the 1970s... http://tycotrain.tripod.com/tycotrains/

Otto Vondrak wrote:What caused the demise of Varney? I seem to recognize a lot of plastic Varney reincarnated as Life Like plastic (look under some of the older cast friegth cars, and you'll see a mark on the die where VARNEY used to be stamped)...was there some deal where LL bought out Varney, or did Varney fall on hard times and liquidate?

I recognize a lot of Train Miniatures stuff in the Walthers line... dos anyone remember the Work Train series from the 1980s? Many of those cars came from the TM line. They still appear in old TM boxes at certain train shows, the castings and detail are not bad for the time period.

I was interested in Kasiner Hobbies because they were in Rochester, NY. Same thing with Gargraves (anyone remember "Gardener The Train Doctor?") Track (the "Phantom Line" three-rail system)... which I think is still produced in Rochester.

Seems many lines were folded into Bowser... including most of the Penn Line models...

And what of the strange love triangle between AHM-Rivarossi-IHC?

How about Atlas Tool Co... when did they start making structure kits and HO scale cars and locos? I remember when Atlas first introduced their Kato-drive locos in the early 1980s...

Too many questions too fast, Otto!

Varney - Gordon Varney was originally into O-gauge circa 1936 but also offered HO loco kits and rolling stock. After the war he sold the O-gauge line to All Nations and dealt strictly and very successfully with HO. By 1960 he was getting old, sold the business and retired to FLA. The new management didn't do well with the aging line and it was broken up and sold about 1965, dies for the products going to LL (cars) and Bowser (locos).

Train Miniatures - to an extent, some say, proved you can make too accurate a product. Their's was probably the first line of fairly accurately scale-sized, period rolling stock. Many of their boxcars looked too small next to Athearn's examples and lots of modelers took this to be inaccuracy, so the line never did well. The boxcars also had interchangable ends (different steel or wood designs) that some didn't regard as too realistic. Walthers eventually acquired them.

The AHM-Riv.-IHC link stretches back to the Polks in NYC in the 1950's. The Polks were probably the first to extensively import HO model railroad items from Europe (Rivarossi) and the Far East (New One Models). HO Train Co./GHC of Philly was associated with the Polks' business and selling some of the Polks' imports under their own name. The first Riv. item was the HO Milwaukee Hiawatha loco and passenger cars, brought in by the Polks. AHM evolved from HO Train/GHC to eventually become IHC, as far as I can tell.

Atlas Tool Co. - started out way back in 1924 but it was the son of the owner who introduced them to model railroading. In 1947 Atlas offered the first track with fiber ties (the predecessor to flex track). Although I'm not sure, I think their little switch tower might have been their first structure kit, perhaps around 1960. The trains came later.

CNJ999

What happened to Akane? They used to have imported brass ads in MR all the time and were a kid's holy grail back then. Seems like they used the Velvet Fog (Mel Torme) for some ads since he was a model railroader.

While we're at it... anyone remember the Marco (sp?) coupler? It was an HO coupler with a magnetically operated knuckle. The HO club in Mineola NY (West Island?) used them back in the 1960s.

They were bigger than scale, but then again, so are Kadee 5s!

This thread has alot of good questions and answers. On the subject of Varney, not all the locos went to Bowser. The SW7, F3A&Bs, and several of the early steamlocos have gone missing for years. From what I've been able to find out, the heavy consol (RDG prototype I10) did make it to Bowser as did the Old Lady and Casey Jones and more recently the 0-4-0 docksider. Only difference between the old and new runs are Bowser has replaced the original Varney drive with one of there own. However it seems that Bowser has never done a production run with this model. So where are the Yellowstone, Berkshire and heavy Pacific and Mike locos? Back when Pennline went bankrupt Varney and Bowser split the Pennline product up. Bowser got the Pennsy steamers and Varney got the GG1, F7A&Bs and shorty passenger cars, both heavy weight and streamliners. And this brings up another question. what happened to the little 4 wheel Whitcomb switcher that PL had produced? Here's another of those quirks of model manufacturing. Varney produced the caboose shell for PL and several of the freight cars were made by Mantua. To add to the Train-Miniature history, those work car kits that TM did, well some if not all were originally made by TruScale. I have one in its original box I bought and assembled many years ago.

krobar wrote:This thread has alot of good questions and answers. On the subject of Varney, not all the locos went to Bowser. The SW7, F3A&Bs, and several of the early steamlocos have gone missing for years. From what I've been able to find out, the heavy consol (RDG prototype I10) did make it to Bowser as did the Old Lady and Casey Jones and more recently the 0-4-0 docksider. Only difference between the old and new runs are Bowser has replaced the original Varney drive with one of there own. However it seems that Bowser has never done a production run with this model. So where are the Yellowstone, Berkshire and heavy Pacific and Mike locos?

Concerning the pre-war, die cast, Varney RDG I-10, I approached Bowser some years ago asking if they might not consider doing a very limited run of the boilers for collectors of early HO. Their reply was they felt the detail on the body was too primitive to be accepted by any modelers today (regardless of their reasons for wanting one). Of course, both Varney and Mantua offered the RDG I-10 in sheet brass before the war...very rare to find today but I do have an example of the Varney item.

Bowser also apparently has the sheetmetal forms necessary for the PennLine RDG Crusader and I find it a real shame that it was never re-issued, it being one of the rarest and most valuable of all HO locomotives.

I'm not sure just what became of the Varney Berk, heavy Pacific and Mikado dies. But I believe the Yellowstone boiler dies went elsewhere than Bowser. I say this because several people have offered limited runs of this boiler over the years, the latest, as I recall, is a gentleman from the Albany, NY area, who sells many Varney replacement parts.

CNJ999