Who Made Lionel HO?
Bob Boudreau
I was wondering who made them. What was unusual about these cars is
they are operating models like the larger scale ones.
One is a stock car with a giraffe's head sticking out of a hole in the
roof. There is a lever mechanism on the bottom of the car with a magnet
mounted. Seems a strip of metal would be placed between the rails,
which would cause the giraffe's head to lower for a bridge.
The second car is an operating milk can delivery reefer. There is a
part of the roof that lifts, showing a 9 hole cylinder in which the milk
cans are placed. There is a lever on the bottom of the car near one
side, and some metal brackets which would probably fit into the
unloading platform to hold the car in place. Pressing up on the lever
opens the door and the man inside pushes a milk can outside. My
friend does not have the platform.
I was quite surprised to see operating cars in HO scale, as I had not
heard of them previously. One car was marked "Lionel Lines" and "Made
by Lionel", while the other (I cannot recall which one) was plain white
but did have "Lionel" cast into the underside of the coupler boxes.
Both came with metal sprung trucks, and horn-hook couplers. One had
been converted to KD couplers.
So who made these for Lionel? A large scale Lionel collecting friend
seems to think Rivarossi made some or all of their HO scale models, but
I think I read somewhere that Athearn made some too.
Interesting items!
Thanks!
Bob Boudreau
Canada
Trainman
From then into the early 60's, it was based on Athearn designs, although the
drives in the locomotives were different.
After about 1960 or so, I BELIEVE Lionel actually produced their own HO. I
know the Alco FA's were unlike anything else I've ever seen.
Don
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Bob Boudreau <"arailfan"@ NO SPAM post.com> wrote in message
news:SXyy7.4841$R%6.61...@news-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca...
Kennedy
> Prior to about 1958/59, Lionel HO was Rivarossi.
>
> From then into the early 60's, it was based on Athearn designs, although
> the drives in the locomotives were different.
>
> After about 1960 or so, I BELIEVE Lionel actually produced their own HO.
> I know the Alco FA's were unlike anything else I've ever seen.
I'm trying to remember when I got my HO Lionel set. Think it was in the
early 60s, but not sure. I had a 2-4-2 steamer, and a A-B PA set in
Warbonnet. I remember this one had the rubber band drive, since when the
rubber band crapped out, my Dad couldn't fix it, and the A unit never ran
again....
Had the exploding boxcar, the satellite launching car, missile car, some
others.... My first train set!
:D
Kennedy
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Train Man
I don't know about rivarossi but I believe Athearn made some of them. I
have that stock car (all of them didn't come with the bobbing giraffe)
and it's my one remaining circus car in the entire fleet. I say Athearn
because of the supposed snaffu a few years ago of stamping the lionel L
onto the Erie gondolas. Athearn quickly recalled them (or what was left)
and a month later the buttheads at the shows were asking $50 per.
Jeff
Fritz Milhaupt
>
> Bob Boudreau wrote:
[snip]
> > So who made these for Lionel? A large scale Lionel collecting friend
> > seems to think Rivarossi made some or all of their HO scale models, but
> > I think I read somewhere that Athearn made some too.
> >
> > Interesting items!
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > Bob Boudreau
> > Canada
>
> I don't know about rivarossi but I believe Athearn made some of them. I
> have that stock car (all of them didn't come with the bobbing giraffe)
> and it's my one remaining circus car in the entire fleet. I say Athearn
> because of the supposed snaffu a few years ago of stamping the lionel L
> onto the Erie gondolas. Athearn quickly recalled them (or what was left)
> and a month later the buttheads at the shows were asking $50 per.
>
> Jeff
During the 1950s Lionel HO was manufactured for Lionel by Rivarossi
(until 1958), then Athearn. The two-deck Evans "Auto-Loader" that
Athearn still offers was initially produced at Lionel's request.
In 1959, Lionel began producing its HO line itself.
-fm
Perpetrator of the Haggis Decal Project, at:
http://www.rust.net/~milhaupt/haggiscar
The e-mail addresses in this message bounce to frustrate harvestbots.
See my web sites for my actual e-mail address.
William J. Banaszak
English. I know the E33s were put out by Athearn as they had them in
their line also. They were too short, had 'B' trucks and ran on the GP9
chassis.
Bill Banaszak
HBrown5216
John English firm, so I'd say it's a safe bet that English either made them for
Lionel or sold Lionel the tooling.
Bear
Gareth Quale
HObbyline, which was the RTR line made by English. Apparently they did not
get the entire line. The English "Yard Bird" die cast 0-4-0 dies were
apparently reworked to make the $1.49 plastic HObbyline static model, and so
Lionel, to my knowledge, never made the PRR A-5 0-4-0. The HObbyline also
included an FM H-10-44 switcher using the same drive components as the FAs,
but again, I don't believe Lionel ever did the FM, though I can't deduce why
(unless it was the failing market).
By the way, it had been mentioned in this thread that Athearn did the E-33
rectifier with rubber band drive for Lionel. I looked at the one in my
collection last night, and the drive is unique and very non-Athearn. The
rubber band runs between a pulley on the high motor shaft, somewhat like the
Hi-F , but there is only one per truck, and it drives a shaft with two worms
on the truck, which in turn drive axle worm gears. It is like a plastic
version of the Suydam trolley drive. The drive parts seem to be much more
crude and lower quality than anything else I've seen from Athearn. I also
seem to recall seeing an old ad for a drive like this on the Revell
switcher. Did Athearn just do the body and someone else supply the drives
to Lionel???
Gary Q
HBrown5216 <hbrow...@aol.com> wrote in message
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