Trolleys in postwar decline by Keith Wills T
his month we look at several ear- ly post-war tinplate streetcars. They were manufactured at a time when the prototypes were still part of our daily lives, having survived the Depression and proved their utility during World War II. Being electric rather than relying on rationed gaso- line, streetcars plied the rails before General Motors mounted an aggres- sive campaign to replace them with in- ternal combustion buses. For tinplate, Fixen was one of the last pre-World War II manufacturers to make them using Ives bodies (809-810?), but it ceased production some time in the mid-1930’s. Louis Hertz lamented their demise, wanting to see their return. The first offering here was very
much a toy. In 1950, General Models Corporation (GMC), known for its brief four-year run of bronze and brass ¹/₄″ scale Varney-designed steam locomo- tives, white metal diesels and O scale freight car kits, introduced a tinplate four-wheel Birney before it ended in bankruptcy. It had a yellow plastic body with red roof and was attractively priced at $3.95. It featured molded de- tail, a fixed trolley pole, and cheap 13 to 20 volts a.c.-d.c. gap ring motor. Elec-traction was the name given it as it utilized the front axle as a rotor with copper plates made in Bakelite wheel treads to act as a commutator. It took power from a sliding third rail shoe in typical tinplate fashion and ran best at higher speeds. Needing a push to get started, it had little variable speed con- trol and lacked reverse.
Its modest plastic construction left it floorless, nor was it opaque. When run- ning, the interior headlight bulb trans- illuminated the entire body and track below it. It appears to have been a be- lated bid for the lucrative, fast growing tinplate market, but GMC’s serious fi- nancial troubles prevented any hope of good sales, even at that low price. It didn’t die, however, but had sever- al reincarnations. It went to Kroll Kar Co. and appeared in December, 1951, as a $3.95 kit. It passed on to Emco in 1952 and was improved with a 10 to 18 volt a.c.-d.c. motor, longer wheelbase and remote control for three-rail O gauge and two-rail S gauge. It disap- peared and returned 1972 when Ken
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Kidder sold it at the 1950 $3.95 price. Was GMC’s too cheaply made, too flim- sy? Did the gap ring motor fail in use? Did the S gauge version sell well? The only one this writer encountered
was an early GMC version in a Mon- treal hobby shop 30 years ago. It was very noisy as it ran on a test track. In 1949, Hobbyland, a shop at 25
Pittman motors, with Minitoys’ worm driven, sequence reverse and working headlights on both ends.
Lettering read “102 Public Service 102,” or “103
DECEMBER, 1950 GMC AD
Park Row in lower Manhattan, adver- tised a double truck, ¹/₄″ scale Brill tin- plate trolley for 3-rail track. A ready- to-run Minitoys, Inc., model, it was very similar to a kit Pittman was sell- ing in both scale and tinplate versions. The differences between Pittman and Minitoys’ was Pittman used a mix of castings, pressed brass and plastic, while Minitoys’ was die-cast. Both had
Rapid Transit 103.” At $19.95, it was competitively priced a dollar under Pittman’s tinplate version. In 1955, ten years after World War
II, Lionel introduced its No. 60 plastic, single-truck Birney. Like the GMC version, it too was yellow and red, but opaque with two additional windows in length, internally lit with silhou- ettes of people in the windows and a
AUGUST 2013
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