Vintage HO Trains.

[toptrain]

Being 90% of what I have is vintage trains, I'll share them here.
frank



'll start with a small freight set by HObbyline. Set was released in 1956. A little NYC 0-4-0t shuttles a couple of freight cars on a short local run.
This is actually a HObbyline 1956 train set #412 "the Shuttle Bug" as it would be seen in an old 1956 catalog. The freight cars and the caboose are all original in fit and finish, Even the road names are the same on the loco and cars as seen in the 56 catalogs. 

toptrain here once again.
That was and still is one of my old HObbyline sets. Just looking to see if it is easier to upload photos to this site now. Nope! On keying insert an image it still asks for a link to a photo site. i dont do photo sites anymore. So, I guess you won't be seeing the other 29 HObbyline sets I have photos of. I cat tell you things about HObbyline HO trains. For one HObbyline always lettered their name by starting with H and O in capitol form. These first two letters were always surrounded by a circle. the remaining letters bbyline were lower case.  Almost all HObbyline locomotives had their name printed somewhere on them. When I look at my photo of the 7 different FM H12-44's they made just black with the HObbyline name, PRR in 1954 UP was added. In1955 C&O, AT&SF. LVRR, Western Pacific and Erie. 1955 was the year the most new road names were added to their Locomotives, 5. In 1956 NYC was added to a new locomotive the 0-4-0t and the B&O was added. In 1957 a UP set and a PRR set was released. This was the last year for HObbyline. In 1953 the origin split knuckle coupler was used. In 1954 and 1955 a used thicker version of the split knuckle was used. In 1953 and 1954 the road-name on the caboose matched that on the locomotive. In 1955 and 1956 all cabooses used the HObbyline road-name and it was printed in either white and yellow. Whichever matched the color of the road-name on the locomotive. In 1957 the 2 sets released were a small UP set and a PRR set. Again, as in 1953-54 the road-name on the caboose matched the locomotive road-name.  These hints and what is seen in the Catalogs as too new releases will help you date the railroad cars you add to your collection. The catalogs released were of 2 types. an early preview catalog form 1954, 55, 56 and retail catalogs for 1953, 54, 55, 56, and 57. I would post pictures of these catalogs but here I can't. HObbyline released 30 catalogued train sets and 2 uncatalogued ones I know of. There were uncatalogued cars also. I have 2 of them.