Ghosts of the hobby past, 1961


by Keith Wills R


enowned author Philip Roth, in an American Masters PBS pro- gram, said looking through his


address book was like walking through a graveyard for all those he had out- lived. A 1961 National Model Distribu- tors Encyclopedia of Hobbies and Crafts catalog for retailers is not un- like Mr. Roth’s address book. It is full of names we once knew and locomotives, cars, structures, and accessories which have long passed from the hobby scene and are now ghosts.


Of the HO survivors in this catalog, we can count several–Athearn, Kadee and Walthers–but there are so many more, once respected, desired, which ran on our layouts or were used to sce- nic them. To see them is to recall how much they meant to us. Let’s look at the companies which made locomotives and were carried by National Model Distributors. There were, of course, the expected names:


Athearn, Varney,


Mantua/Tyco, Penn Line, Roundhouse- MDC, Revell, Hobbytown, MEW, Lind- berg, Gilbert and Lionel. Some had many model types in manufacture, while other, smaller ones, produced fewer products, such as MEW, Lind- berg and Hobbytown. Steam locomo- tives were generally made of cast met- al, while diesels were metal or plastic. What is interesting to note is the va- riety of car kit materials in an age of ready-to-run plastic. In the multitudi- nous, ready-to-run train sets,


they


were, of course, made with plastic, while many kits still relied on wood construction, essentially “craftsman” kits, the kind old timers loved from Central Valley, Ambroid, Binkley and Silver Streak.


Thomas Industries


tankers were constructed from formed metal and castings, as were Ulrich’s. Lindberg’s cars were plastic. Round- house-MDC’s were made of cast metal, as were MEW’s. Herkimer streamlin- ers were extruded aluminum in 60- and 80-foot lengths. They were the only cars it made. The catalog is a snapshot of 1961 train manufacture. Some companies were yet to be absorbed by others or fade away. It is also a picture of two companies making HO and the down-


90


ward spiral they were in. Their prod- ucts were essentially smaller tinplate intended to capture the kid market, as their larger O and S tinplate lines were in serious decline. Thus we observe Li- onel with its gimmicky space age, mis- sile-firing and exploding boxcars and others reduced in size from its O gauge line with accompanying operating ac- cessories. Gilbert’s American Flyer HO was equally gimmicky with rockets, ex- ploding boxcars, and other action cars and accessories. S gauge sets were


ALL PHOTOS 1961 NATIONAL MODEL DISTRIBUTION CATALOG


there, but this is not the place to dis- cuss them.


Buildings to scenic a layout were di- verse in manufacture. One could still buy wood-braced, lithographed card- board models from Suydam, particular- ly its “E-Z to Build” houses and larger industrial types. These were holdouts of a kind popular in the immediate post-war era before plastic kits became a reality. Alexander Scale Models and Model Hobbies were made of wood. One early maker of excellent plastic


In 1961, the manufacturers of model railroad equipment were numerous and many had small product lines. Among these were Hobbytown and Lindberg (top and above). Hobby- town had a highly-respected line of diesels; the shell on the Lindberg SW was quite good.


APRIL 2014


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