TRAIN TIME: The Edge of Town Layout Gets a Makeover - Pt 14 Running Pre-War American Flyer, Replaced a Building

I've taken out a couple of my favorite Pre-War American Flyer trains and gave them some run time on the Edge of Town. The engines are the small sized Hiawatha's which look right at home on a small layout like this. The first consist has the #1122 & #1123 passenger cars while the second consist is the streamlined Hiawatha passenger set.

The Plasticville Corner Store has been replaced with, umm a Plasticville Corner Store LOL. Okay the first one was complete and has the original box and was a tad pricey. The second one has different colored walls and was incomplete. I intend to re-purpose it from a corner store to a....

...stay tuned to this station!

No new scenery work as of this installment

Enjoy! Opa Fritz

hmmmm, looks like a visitor to the Edge of Town!

I took out the white-walled Plasticville Corner Store and replaced it with this gray-walled store. This one was missing a window insert and sign above the door which is fine because I have other plans for it!

TRAIN TIME: Front End Friday: A Pair of Hiawatha's

Well, as I haven't done a TRAIN TIME post in a while and all my toy photography has slowed down while working the photo scanning project I thought it would nice to pull some stuff from the archives. I may even make this a regular feature having way more than enough photos to do a post like this every Friday.

The train guys have what's called "Front End Friday (FEF)" wherein we post a photo of the front of any locomotive: toy, model, or real. 

"Hello. My name is Ed and I'm a Hiawathaholic."

For Front End Friday a Two-Fer-One special: Toy train + 12"-to-the-foot scale:

1st photo: Hiawatha No. 1 Class A Alco May 1935 No.68684 Retired Nov 9 1951 (photographer unknown, print bought off eBay)

2nd photo: Pre-war American Flyer O-gauge Hiawatha on my small layout

TRAIN TIME: American Flyer Pre-war Streamlined Hiawatha Set on The Edge of Town Layout

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