Model Railroading > Looking for Answers of HO scale Makers from 50 yrs ago

I was going through a Issue of Model Railroader I purchased at the Great RR Museum in San Bernardino , Ca and have noticed that so Many different Makers of HO scale Equipment have Come and gone

Like TYCO, Penn Line,Varney, Lindberg Line,Ulrich Models,Ken Kidder , Suydam, Alexander Scale Models , Model Engineering works, Kemtron

Why and where did they all go ? I know many of the Fine Building's from Revell have gone on to other companies

The "why" is like any other industry... businesses come and go, market needs and wants shift, cost of production increases, technology renders things obsolete, people die off, cultural changes, competition comes into play, etc.

I think tyco is around as is Ulrich Models albeit in a different form.

The Suydam structures have carried on as Alpine Division Scale Models. Others on this list, such as Penn Line and Varney, went away without successors.

Tom Y

miralomarail Wrote:
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> I was going through a Issue of Model Railroader I
> purchased at the Great RR Museum in San Bernardino
> , Ca and have noticed that so Many different
> Makers of HO scale Equipment have Come and gone
>
> Like TYCO, Penn Line,Varney, Lindberg Line,Ulrich
> Models,Ken Kidder , Suydam, Alexander Scale Models
> , Model Engineering works, Kemtron

A while back I dug out some of my old "MR's" and they are beside "The Throne" now. I have several products from some of those old manufacturers you mention.

"I think" Suydum buildings and their corrugated siding is now Campbell.

Ayres was one you didn't mention and they are now Campbell.

Bowser got Varney. Several years ago I needed a new drive for my Varney Dockside and the Bowser drive dropped right in. The Bowser Dockside was identical in plastic to the Varney pot metal one. The Bowser catalog shows them as discontinued but some parts are available. The Varney boxcar was, shall we say, different? Tin, one end and one side in one piece. Two of them made a car. And my Santa Fe reefer has different sides. The boxcar drawing is shown in the discontinued parts at Bowser.

Bowser may have gotten Penn Line and English also, not sure about that.

First HO item I ever got was a Varney Dockside switcher. Christmas of 1950. $15.00. It had three major assemblies. Boiler/cab, frame, and cylinders. Over time some of those pot metal castings could just turn to dust. Thats what happened to the Dockside drive. The Suydum siding was kind of advanced detail for the 50s and my Oil Warehouse still fits right in. The sandpaper roofs on the Ayres kits are a little out of place.

Ulrich had a SP gon with working doors. That was advanced for its time. Still have a couple

jb

Ulrich had a beautiful SP gon with momentarily working doors, they'd swivel and then drop right out. Nice
car though. Might as well throw in the brass, Tenshodo, United, etc and Japanese workmanship in general.
Got exported right out of there.

I was looking through an MR from 1975 the other day too. Athearn U33C locomotives for 13.99 on sale.
Chris

Mopac3240 Wrote:
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> I was looking through an MR from 1975 the other
> day too. Athearn U33C locomotives for 13.99 on
> sale.

Which would be about $59 for the blue box model in today's economy. Makes the Athearn RTR line seem all the more reasonable.

Mopac3240 Wrote:
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> I was looking through an MR from 1975 the other
> day too. Athearn U33C locomotives for 13.99 on
> sale.
> Chris

http://www.inthe70s.com/prices.shtml

It's all relative. The detail/paint quality has come up just a tad with today's offerings too.

jdb Wrote: > >
> "I think" Suydum buildings and their corrugated
> siding is now Campbell.
>


Campbell also took over the Timberline range of buildings.
Regards,dK

Suydam buildings are now part of Alpine Division Scale Models, not Campbell.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/12 13:19 by Hoggerdude.

You'll find a great deal of historical HO-scale information on various companies at my websites:

http://ho-scaletrains.net/

Thanks

Tyco (short for the Tyler Family Company) originally from Mantua/Woodbury Heights, New Jersey was a maker of choice for me when I was a kid in the 60's. Their stuff was originally labelled Mantua Metal Products (and they ultimately resurrected the company again as Mantua but it failed again) and was decent quality until the 70's when everything started being made in China and it really went south. Outlandish models and paint schemes, shoddy quality, so-so operating, you name it. My Tyco train sets from the '60's are cherished keepsakes of mine, I still have my "Royal Blue" 4-6-2 steam engine set with four B&O passenger cars that I got for Christmas in 1971, mom kept the receipt and tucked it into the box where it still rests.

Dan

superfleet Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Tyco (short for the Tyler Family Company)
> originally from Mantua/Woodbury Heights, New
> Jersey was a maker of choice for me when I was a
> kid in the 60's. Their stuff was originally
> labelled Mantua Metal Products (and they
> ultimately resurrected the company again as Mantua
> but it failed again) and was decent quality until
> the 70's when everything started being made in
> China and it really went south. Outlandish models
> and paint schemes, shoddy quality, so-so
> operating, you name it. My Tyco train sets from
> the '60's are cherished keepsakes of mine, I still
> have my "Royal Blue" 4-6-2 steam engine set with
> four B&O passenger cars that I got for Christmas
> in 1971, mom kept the receipt and tucked it into
> the box where it still rests.
>
> Dan

Agree with Dan that pre-1970 TYCO is a bit of different animal from what came later. The name was introduced by Mantua in the early 1950s for ready to run train sets. Mantua had largely been a kit-based company. TYCO products of the 1950s feature light blue boxes. Red packaging arrives around 1960 and the company produces a fairly serious, for its day, line of HO-scale products. The GP20 in 1962 and Century 430 in 1966 are the two big diesel releases for the period. To see 1960s TYCO, visit: http://tycotrain.tripod.com/tycotrainsredboxeracollectorsresource/

The Tyler family sold the slot car and model train business to Consolidate Foods (Sara Lee) in 1971. This 1970s era brings in the world of Snack Pak Pudding 62' Reefers and JELL-O Hoppers, etc. The Mantua drive is replaced with a PowerTorque drive that was originally to be installed on both trucks, but later utilized on one truck only and thus was a very weak performing drive. The 1970s production saw the introduction of the Alco Century 630, SD24, E7, and RF-16 Shark Nose. The F9, actually an F7, was retooled, reportedly by Roco and returns with revisions in the mid-1970s. For 1970s TYCO see: http://tycotrain.tripod.com/tycotrains/

In 1977, the Tyler family returned the Mantua name to the hobby with a number of original toolings: http://www.ho-scaletrains.net/mantuaresource/ . Mantua largely kept to steam engines, but did include the GP20 and F9, plus industrial switchers in its line. Mantua purchases many of the old Lindberg toolings from the early 1960s and they become the bulk of the company's freight cars during the 1980s and 1990s. This revamped Mantua survives until 2001 and is today part of Model Power.

By the early 1980s, Consolidated Foods found the investment not returning desired results and TYCO was spun into own entity for a time. The 1980s TYCO introduced US-1 Trucking: http://www.ho-scaletrains.net/tycous1trucking/ and diversified into a number of toy lines. TYCO trains of the 1980s include such wonders as Rambo and Transformers sets: http://tycotrain.tripod.com/tycotrains/id55.html Model trains became less and less in each year's catalog, until a final appearance in 1993: http://tycotrain.tripod.com/tycocatalogs/id4.html .

Remaining TYCO HO-scale train tooling largely went to IHC-Hobby. IHC brought back some freight cars and TYCO's SD24 under its own name in the 1990s and early 2000s. The TYCO name is still alive today. Look at RC cars and other toys and you'll see TYCO's name. Since 1993, however this new TYCO has never ventured back to its HO-scale roots.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 11/20/12 10:48 by Tony_Cook.

I believe that every brand you mentioned was made in America. Little by little, it became just about impossible for small manufacturing companies in America to comply with all of the government rules and regulations and still produce a quality product that could be sold at any sort of a reasonable price. So, one by one, these companies went out of business. The bigger ones, like Tyco shipped production to places like Hong Kong and later China, where, in most cases, the quality went down the toilet. Most of that happened in the 1970's & 1980's. Can you even imagine what the restrictions would be on a start up company wanting to build model trains in America today? The EPA would have unimaginable requirements for special equipment having to do with any sort of painting. Then, hiring an employee these days is one of the scariest things a small business person can do. Compliment a secretary on how she is dressed one day and here comes the sexual harassment lawsuit. If, by working 80 hour weeks and mortgaging your future you happened to become successful and your small business starts to make a profit, well, about that time you employees will decide to unionize. Some worker will get a hangnail and be edible for 18 weeks of paid leave. No sir, the government has made it so horribly scary and treacherous for a person to start a small manufacturing company, that we will probably never again see many start-ups in this country again-- that is, unless you want to make solar panels, in which case the Obama administration will give you a half billion of OUR money.
Can you say Solyndra?

Ulrich also made some very nice HO Road Truck kits