E-mail Rick at Rick@usjet.net
Lakes & Pines Web Address is www.tcalakesandpines.com
Our March Open Meet was a big success. I heard that we attracted about 50 outsiders to our event. I’m not sure how everyone else did with their sales, but I sold $375 worth of trains and Mike Helde, over by the stage, almost sold everything on his table. What was our secret? Low prices. If you really don’t want it, price it low to get rid of it. That worked for us. I think everybody knows by now that selling used trains will not make us rich. How about if we just enjoy what we have and try to spread that enjoyment around. The goodies committee did a brisk business with their hotdogs, pop and other treats. They are planning on doing it again in April. Prices will be $2 hotdog only, $2.50 hotdog & pop, $3 hotdog & pop & chips, and $3.25 to include a cookie. Having a little lunch at our meet is a good way to support Lakes & Pines. See everyone at the meet on April 13th.
THE LATEST NEWS FROM LIONEL IS: HEY, LOOK AT MY THREE CATALOGS!
One catalog is no longer good enough. Now we have separate catalogs for Ready-To-Run,K-Line and Signature (Collector) Edition. What’s interesting in the Ready-To-Run catalog is a new die cast 0-8-0 steam switch engine in the beginner’s Pennsylvania Flyer set, replacing the venerable toy like 4-4-2 of past years. The K-Line catalog also features some neat surprises. There is a whole new Milwaukee Road Olympian Hiawatha set with a scale 6-wheel trucked EP-5 electric and six 18-inch aluminum passenger cars that can operate on 0-31 track. K-Line’s reworked version of Lionel’s #520 boxcab will come out in a Great Northern dark green scheme. A couple of former K-Line items are being reworked to become American Flyer models in the Signature Edition catalog. The undersized K-Line 0-gauge Union Pacific 4-8-8-4 Big boy that was actually 1/64 scale will now be an AF engine, re-engineered to run on S-gauge track. The engine will feature TrainMaster Command Control and Railsounds 5.0. Another K-Line 0-gauge item, the Operating Swing Bridge, has been refitted with American Flyer track to become an S-gauge item. The American Flyer #792 Railroad Terminal and #793 Union Station will also be reissued. Lionel is dusting off the molds of the Phantom train for the fourth time and I personally don’t think it will be any more popular this time. I do think that collectors who enjoy prewar 0-gauge will appreciate the reissue of the Flying Yankee. The rare #2341 Jersey Central Trainmaster is brought back along with the original numbered #2530 -- #2534 aluminum passenger cars. The second locomotive in the Heritage Series will be the John Bull locomotive, crafted in brass, and a set of passenger cars. Many locomotives in this year’s catalog will feature the new LEGACY Control System, including a Chicago & North Western Alco S-2 Switcher that is on my shopping list. In the rolling stock category, the reappearance of the uncataloged #6651 USMC Cannon car was a pleasant surprise. What do you think of a Lionel Lines Aquarium Car that features a complete Lionel train running around inside? I don’t know about that one. One last item about this 200-page catalog. After an absence for many years, telephone poles will be available again.
Now for the latest from bankruptcy court. Stuart Rankin reports. I was at the Lionel bankruptcy hearing on 02/26/08. Lionel was represented by attorneys Abbey Walsh and Adam Hirsch. Adam Harris was not present. The creditors committee was represented by Carrie Mitchell. MTH’s attorney Alec Ostrow was not present. There were two items on the docket. The first item discussed was the purchase of Lou Kovach’s portion of Creative Trains Company by Lionel and Neil Young. Prior to the hearing, Neil and Lou each owned 50% of CTC. Lionel and Neil wanted to split Lou’s portion. Judge Lifland quickly approved the motion. So now, Neil owns 75% of CTC and Lionel owns 25%. The second item discussed was a slight change to one of Lionel’s current DIP financing agreements. Again, this motion was quickly passed. Lionel’s attorney Abbey Walsh confirmed that Lionel is currently negotiating with new debit and equity lenders to emerge from bankruptcy. At this time, the plan is for Lionel to be out of bankruptcy by March 31, 2008.
THE LIONEL FASTRACK STORY BY RICHARD WEBSTER – PART ONE
Richard Webster is the man who designed Lionel FasTrack. Here is the story in his own words.
During the summer of 1999, whilst on holiday in England, my home, I was contacted by Dick Maddox who had just been appointed President of Lionel. In my previous capacity I was in charge of the Kader factory in mainland China manufacturing all Bachmann model products, and he asked me if I would like to help him restructure the Lionel company. Lionel was already having die cast locomotives built in Korea and with my Chinese experience, production of all other items could be moved to China. The marketplace was requesting more separately applied details and complicated decorations, so it was not cost effective any more to produce in the USA. I also established a Chinese design team to prepare new designs using 3D software and one of the first projects was some new scale rolling stock items. One thing that had always bugged me with the rolling stock was the thumbtack coupler, which was used by all manufacturers. I delved into the archives and after studying some old Lionel freight cars, I noticed the couplers did not have this device to make them operate. The engineers under JLC were very smart. I took the design, made a couple of modifications and this new ‘thumbtackless’ coupler is now found on all Lionel scale freight and passenger cars. Unfortunately, I did not patent the design improvement so other manufacturers like MTH have copied this device. Perhaps, I should point out, that I have been involved in trains for most of my life. I have a great passion for this business and love trains, whether prototype or model, and what gives me the most pleasure is to design products that make modelers and toy train operators happy. Track is the most important part of a model railroad because without it nothing can operate. During the 80’s and early 90’s, I had manufactured many track and switch plastic injection mold tools for PECO, the largest supplier of track to the model railway industry, covering all gauges from ‘Z’ to ‘G’. The most complicated tool I made was a complete scissors crossover in ‘N’ gauge using code 55 rail. Towards the end of 2000, Dick asked me to prepare some designs for a new track system to include a roadbed for train set items, so where to begin? Well, I researched all the designs made by Lionel since the company started, perusing old drawings filed away for years, and searching the archives for samples of the different styles. Truetrack was the closest Lionel had come to offering this type of track during the 1980’s, but it was not successful for various reasons. I also checked out the competition, the only other roadbed track available was Realtrax by MTH, however, I did get samples of all others including Atlas, Gargraves and K-Line to inspect mechanical and electrical connections. Eventually I had track parts covering all areas of my office and it was now time to sort out the different styles and look at where improvements needed to be made to provide a user-friendly product for the toy train market. Assembly seemed a good place to start improvements. The regular Lionel tubular and 027 could be hard on the hands when assembling several pieces together and having to remove or fit pins for orienting the track sections was definitely not on. To overcome the orientation issue, I designed a half pin, which had a slight taper so when opposing track sections were assembled both pins now had an interference fit giving good power conductivity. The mechanical connection is basically a copy of Lionel’s Super ‘O’, which was well proven and accepted as a good connection. The rails were to be stamped tinplate to save costs, but to improve conductivity the shape was changed to an inverted ‘U’ to allow rectangular pins to be used. The electrical connection between sections for the ground was a modified tubular pin. With the inverted ‘U’ stamped rail a rectangular pin could now be used with a foot to engage in the roadbed prohibiting movement of the pin back and forth. A bonding strip under-neath the roadbed connected both rails so improving the ground for magnetraction locomotives. So, on to the roadbed itself. It seemed that at least with this part of the system a reasonable representation of the prototype could be followed by modeling scale sized ties with woodgrain at correct intervals, spiking plates and spikes, and the foot of the rail was also included. Ballast with a good representation of the stones was also now possible. This was the beginning of FasTrack, but there was still a long way to go before a complete system would be available. To be continued……………………
Upcoming railroad flea markets are April 5 at Century College, April 19 at Woodbury, and May 17 at the Fairgrounds. Our next two TCA meets are April 13 and May 4 – the first Sunday due to conflicts. So I will see you soon. Have a hot dog at our next L&P meet. Roundhouse Rick Krenske.
