I just found my old manila envelope that I stuffed with all my receipts and correspondence from ordering stuff. No email then. Anyway, I found this. Forgot all about it. I wonder if it is any good yet. Next time I see Jim Conway, I may have to hit him up for a refund.
Like I said, good 'ol AHC. If you look at that N scale lumberyard in the ad, that's the HO Hillside Lumber one. The N scale Atlas one, the Pola-made one, was this one, which looks absolutely nothing like that illustration: http://www.walthers.com/prodimage/79869581/12443353032058.gif Ah, the days before the Internet.... And the decimal point shifted over too, it's now $29.98! I had one of those, never could figure out just exactly what it was. It's neither a shed nor a mill, or any explanation how lumber gets up to that deck, and it's like 20' up in the air. Somewhere in Austria there's an explanation. The only thing left from mine is the roof, I built a new building under it. I still have a 1972 Arnold Rapido catalog. Lot of good stuff in there, mostly european. No prices. But there's a coupon to enter the 1972 Locomotive Olympics, first prize is $650.00 of Rapido merchandise. Applying the decimal point shift, yeah, I may still send that one in about 44 years late!
Wow, a lot of memories there. I had an 0-8-0 that I converted to a 2-8-0 with the Kadee kit. I also had the Southern Gondola that was mentioned. I think I still do. How long has that been around?
I know this is HO, but do you guys remember what they made for N-Scale? I wish they would have made the HI-Speed Switches in N-Scale. I would have got them all, I liked the closed frog. Curtis
I did a little of everything before 1981,HO,Lionel,and N.Even messed with a little HOn30.I belonged to a HO club,[still around..] we did the entire railroad in Tru-Scale.Pretty nice stuff,we had the spiker that cut the staple in half to spike the rail down..
I think I still have this station in one of my junk boxes somewhere. Never did like the icky green color.
Ugh. I can understand why. It reminds me of a faded "institutional green" shade, such as formerly seen inside engine cabs, depots, etc. Never cared for that color.
What still impresses me today (and thanks for putting up that 1968-69 Rapido catalog cover) is 'how good' the layouts looked in that Rapido catalog. Yeah, they were European. But the overall look was very finished, very professional. If you haven't studied that picture, do so. This was in the infancy of the scale, and look at the quality of the scene on the cover. I think that's why I saved mine, too. And if anybody had TRULY AWFUL looking track, it was Rapido; probably 25% taller than comparable C80 today. And unless you've seen wheels on a Rapido GP7/9 of that era, you don't know what 'Pizza Cutters' truly were. Not only were the flanges deeper by a mile than anybody else, but the treads were almost twice as wide.
Shameless self-promotion department... Lots of blasts from the past on my A1G website, including catalog pages... http://www.irwinsjournal.com/a1g
AHC catalog from 1970 I wanted it all but being a poor high school kid, I could not afford much. By 1970 they were using both N Gauge and N Scale to define N,
Wow, what blew my mind on that one was on the 4th page, where AHC was still trying to sell the Treble-O-Lectric trains. Really? In 1970? And I thought Roco could send people away screaming.... I had two Rapido GP's that were extensively rebuilt. Remember, at that time, you had four choices for a GP-anything; the Bachmann GP40, the Atlas GP40, the 'new' Atlas GP9 (after '73), and the Rapido GP7/GP30. The Rapido sounded like a coffee grinder when you bought them. but it had good slow speed, excellent pickup, and 8-wheel drive. That cup gear reduction deal was unique, if you could get it lined up and hold it there it worked pretty well. I turned the wheels in a dremel to make the wheel treads narrower so they didn't short out on Atlas switches. Made brass straps to hold the motor on the frame so that the cup gear tolerances could be adjusted, and had screws in there to hold it. Cut access holes in the side of the plastic motor commutator end so it could be periodically cleaned. Set up shims on the worm gear side to tweak the tolerances. Just about SOAKED the thing in lubrication, with those all-brass (except for the cup) gears. Put brass pins through the fuel tank into the frame side to hold the tank SECURELY and keep the motor tight and not vibrating. Added material below the frame so it didn't look like it was riding so high. THEN I started to work on the body, repaint, micro-scale decals, brass handrails, the works. Yeah. All that on a Rapido! But I'll tell you, until the Atlas Classics came out, these were still the best B-B roadswitchers I had. They still outpulled the Atlas Classics.
Seeing things like this makes me appreciate where we are now. It also reveals why I have such intolerance for the over abundance of whining these days.
It's pretty astounding how quickly N scale ramped up in the late 60's; going from virtually nothing to everything you see in those ads in just a couple-three years. -Mark
