L&N and Erie liveries, a one-piece as- sembled C&NW flat and an Erie drop- center, one-piece flat car equipped with six-wheel trucks. Being cast, they added weight and were considered the elite of model railroading. $3.75 to $4.75.
Prices averaged
There were two other cast cars, a C&O two-bay hopper and a C&O ca- boose. The hopper had five castings with integral details assembled around a wood floor. Judging by the catalog photo, underbody door details were not important enough to be included as they appear smooth. An eight-casting caboose had two separate marker lights; otherwise all details were inte- gral. Negative spaces and edges need- ed minor but careful filing to clean them up, a particular necessity on the hopper as well. It was priced at $4.75. Another line of freight cars quite un-
like the other wood AAR boxcars and reefers described here had plain wood bodies but were overlain with thin, un- painted aluminum castings.
These
In the 1930’s Scale Model Railways cataloged an O gauge NYC 2-8-0 (page 90) offered ready-to-run or as a kit with castings. The C&O aluminum cast cars (above) were a five piece hopper and an eight casting caboose. All the details were cast on. The catalog also listed other lines of wood and aluminum kits that were reasonably priced (below).
were for the roof, sides, ends and un- derframes, with details incorporated on the main castings, all of which were to be glued and attached with small pins to the wood understructure. Inte- gral roof walks, ladders, brake wheels with platforms, and grab irons and stirrup steps were cast on, and the doors were permanently shut. The kits came with plans, all wood pieces, cast- ings, paints, decals, couplers and truck parts; reefer ice hatches were the only add-ons. Boxcars came in eight decaled liveries and had PFE and ART reefer decals. Both were priced at $4.75, not bad for the era. Finished, they were not unlike post-war, one-piece plastic HO cars with integral molded details. A small sidebar in the HO section said of Scale Model Railways: “this famous firm, producers of America’s highest quality ‘O’ gauge locomotives and equip- ment has now become a subsidiary of Megow.” However, at the beginning of the O gauge section, a statement noted solicitation of inquiries could be made to Philadelphia-based Megow, or directly to Scale Model Railways in Indiana. As a subsidiary of Megow, Scale Model Rail- ways received better national exposure through Megow’s extensive sales organi- zation than previously with its own small catalogs. At that point in time, 1941, war would soon intervene and such considerations would no longer ap- ply. However, the castings-covered wood cars survived the war, carried by Car- men Webster in her 1950 all scales cata- log, though not the locomotives. How long they survived is moot, related as the company was to Megow’s fortunes, for it didn’t last that long in the post- war era either. A footnote: Mr. Ferris went on to found tinplate American Model Toys (AMT) in 1948, later known as Auburn Model Trains.
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN 91
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