Collecting - and Collecting Information 34

A recent offering on eBay caught my eye -- and perhaps added to the Straco Express mystery. The offering consisted of a tank car, a box car, and a caboose. The locomotive and track were missing.

The original eBay posting. Three cars, branded Alps.

The brand ALPS was visible on the boxcar, so I know who made these pieces. Alps Shoji Ltd. was based in Tokyo. From 1948 through the early 1970s they made toys for the American market. Most of them were battery operated (as this train presumably was).

What struck me was the similarity of the caboose to other examples I had.

Top: Unknown manufacture; middle: MRK; bottom: ALPS

The design is the same with all three cabooses. The ALPS piece has the railings at either end punched out. The railings on the other two pieces are only embossed. There are no markings on the two pieces I have. I know that my original Straco Express was made by "MRK," but there is no information at all about that firm -- or even other examples of toys they produced.

Could ALPS be MRK? 

There's a significant difference between the MRK boxcars and the ALPS version. The ALPS boxcar has a rounded roof, It also has smooth sides, as opposed to the embossed sides of the MRK boxcars. The frame is different as well.

Top: unknown; middle: MRK; bottom: ALPS

The photo of the tank car best shows the coupler system for the ALPS rolling stock. There's a pin at one end, and an open, squarish hole at the other. The pin is a two-part construction. That's a relatively expensive assembly compared to the MRK couplers.

Although they also have a hook and loop system, both parts are made from a single piece of tin that's stamped and bent to shape. Simple and cheap (and less durable than the ALPS couplers).

I'd like to find the locomotive for this set. It might provide more answers (or not).

Straco Express Layout, Part 55a - Straco Steam

The new Straco set on the display layout. There's something
missing for sure.

Read all the installments of the Straco Express layout project here.

Last fall I wrote about a Straco Express variation I found (see: Straco and the Mystery Train 2). There appeared to be another version of the Straco Express with differently lithographed cars -- or where there?

A set became available on eBay, and since it was in my price range (less that $30). Many times eBay listings are wildly inaccurate -- it's not from an intention to defraud, but simply one of ignorance. I've seen mismatched pieces described as a "set" before, and I wasn't sure I wasn't seeing it again.

The train consisted of a Pennsylvania steam locomotive, a Michigan Central/NYC gondola car, a State of Maine boxcar, and a Union Pacific caboose. What I didn't see was a coal tender behind the loco (and I have thing about that). Was this set indeed complete?

Consultation with my colleagues in the Sekai Toy Train Group (specializing in vintage Japanese toy and model train sets) confirmed that it was complete. This steam engine never had a tender. Like the original Straco Express, it had a locomotive and three cars.

The original Straco Express (l) and the steam engine version (r).

When the set arrived, I did some basic lubrication and tried it out on the layout. It ran fine, but the engine had a tendency to jump the track after doing three quarters of the loop. I'm not sure why -- but that's a problem to solve on another day.

In examining and comparing the two sets, though, I made some surprising discoveries.

I removed the locomotive's shell to examine the works and got my first surprise. This loco could actually puff smoke!

The heating element is the grey plastic cylinder mounted in the shell.
The clear plastic bellow is attached to it.

As you can see in the photo above, there was a small heating element that was attached to a clear plastic bellow.

The L-shaped arm in the front of the chassis moves back and forth to
pump the bellow.

The electric motor powered the rear wheels via a drive shaft. A second larger eccentric gear pushed an arm back and forth. This arm pumped the bellow, causing the engine to puff smoke. It's an ingenious mechanism, especially for such an inexpensive toy.

Original Straco Express diesel (l) and later steam engine (r).

With the exception of the smoke mechanism, the drives for the diesel and steam locos are pretty much the same. I think they both have about the same draw, which explains why both sets have the same number of cars (and therefore, why there's no tender).

Still, it's a well-made piece. Note that the ladders have individual rungs, and how solid the front of the loco is. Also note how many individual pieces its composed of. All of those are attached with tabs bent by hand.

Despite the Pennsylvania RR designation, I suspect the loco was based on a Japanese prototype. Still, it's an appealing little engine. And as you can see, makes a nice addition to the Straco display layout.

So what about the cars that came with the set? They yielded another insight, as I'll explain in the second part of this post.

Layout construction:

• Pegboard: $4.95
• Flathead Screws: $0.40
• Molding: $2.49
• SilClear: borrowed from a friend
• Green Paint: leftover  from another project
• Wood Screws: $3.60
• Felt Pads: $1.99

Power Pack: $5.90
Small Houses: $3.00
Testor's Gray Paint for road: $1.29

Bandai Areo Station: $8.99
2 tinplate signs: $1.00
4 tinplate signs (with train) $5.99
Cragstan HO Light Tower $20.49
4 nesting houses $4.99
Tinplate gas station: $5.00

Vehicles:

• Two Japanese toy cars: $2.00
• A.W. Livestock truck: $4.99
• Taxi: $2.99
• Ambulance: $2.99
• Two Japanese patriotic cars: $6.99
• Haji three-wheel sedan $3.00
• Haji three-wheel tanker $5.00
• 1950's sedan $2.99
• LineMar Police Car $9.00
• LineMar Pepco Truck $8.50
• LineMar Bond Bread Van $8.00
• LineMar Fire Engine $4.95
• LineMar Dump Truck $12.99
• LineMar GE Courier Car $10.98
• LineMar County School Bus $9.99
• Nomura Red Sedan $5.00
• Nomura Police Car $2.52
• Nomura lumber truck $3.48
• 6 Nomura vehicles $16.99
• Orange Sedan $10.99
• King Sedan $9.95
• Indian Head logo sedan $4.99
• Indian Head (?) convertible $18.00
• Yellow/red Express truck $9.99
• Red limousine FREE

Total Project Cost: $238.35

Distler vs. Nomura, Part 2

The American importer Cragstan brought in a tinplate toy passenger train from the German firm Distler in the late 1950s. In the early 1960s, they imported a tinplate toy passenger train from the Japanese firm Nomura. 

Were they the same? In Part 1, I compared the rolling stock. But the real answer was in the locomotives.

Even placed side by side, it's easy to see some differences in the lithography between the Distler and Nomura locomotive. Superficially, though, they appeared almost identical.

Nomura diesel (top) and Distler diesel (bottom)

Distler (left) and Nomura (right) - there are slight variations in the design.

When I turned over both locomotives, it was easy to see that the mechanisms were more than a little different.

Nomura (left) and Distler (left). Note the Distler motor casing.

The Distler motor was encased in a thick, clear plastic shell.

The Nomura motor was more basic.

Distler was famous for their motors, and I can see why. The contacts were stronger than Nomura's, and the clear plastic casing kept the motor dirt-free. The gears are more precise, making the motor work more efficiently (although, like Nomura's, it only provided enough power to pull the two cars that came with the set).

The Nomura shell (left) had a metal weight, while the Distler (right) had just
a thick cardboard one.

Both locomotives had weights in the back to help the powered wheels maintain traction. The Distler motor was heavier and required less excess weight.

My original speculation was that Cragstan moved the manufacturing from Germany to Japan because of lower costs. I think that's now partially true. I don't believe Cragstan moved stampers and lithograph plates from one company to another. The differences in the locomotive decoration suggest that Nomura copied the Distler design (but not exactly). 

I think the lower costs were achieved by cheapening the product. The Nomura motor was certainly less expensive than Distler's. And by using a tighter radius curve, they reduced the circumference of the loop. And that made the track was less expensive, too.  

 And both companies continued to use their versions of this set. Nomura made freight sets and added flashing lights to the locomotive.

Distler, according to Spur00 originated the design. They offered this German prototype train in 1957, along with the Santa Fe set. As you can see, only the nose was changed. 

The Distler TD5000 set featured a powered and dummy locomotive.

This TD5000 set came in several configurations. The train was available in either brown or green. All the sets featured a powered and a dummy locomotive. Some only had the two pieces, while larger sets added a passenger car (with a different frame than the Cragstan-commissioned set). 

As I said in Part 1 -- there's nothing like first-hand research. Through it, I was able to better understand the relationship between two toy companies with a common importer.

Distler vs. Nomura - Part 1

There's nothing like first-hand research.

I've written before about how closely the Distler passenger train set imported by Cragstan from West Germany in the late 1950s resembled the Nomura passenger train set imported by Cragstan from Japan in the early 1960s.  (see: Japanese Litho Train Sets, Part 3)

My theory was that Cragstan had ordered the set from Distler, then switched suppliers to Nomura, taking the stampers and designs with them.

After obtaining a Distler passenger set, I revised that theory -- especially after I compared the two sets side by side.

Distler passenger car (top) and Nomura passenger car (bottom)

Comparing passenger cars from the two companies, I found them virtually identical. The Distler graphics more closely resemble European prototypes, but the frames, bodies, trucks and couplers were the same.

There were two primary differences. Distler's couplers held the cars closer together than Nomura's. And their track had a wider radius. But even with that gentler curve, Distler's cars still almost touched each other.

So far, the contrasts were interesting, but not particularly meaningful. 

But further research (thanks to the discovery of the German website Spur00.de) revealed that Distler also used these same basic designs for some European sets offered at the same time. Since only the one passenger set was imported by Cragstan, it seemed unlikely that the stampers and designs originated with the American importer. 

Then I looked at the locomotives, which I'll cover in Part 2.

Straco and the Mystery Train

Recently three pieces became available on eBay. There was no real description for them -- they were just three seemingly random vintage Japanese tinplate toys. But they caught my attention.

All three were offered by the same seller. It's clear that they're the remnants of a train set, although the seller elected to sell them separately. Unfortunately, they were individually priced way beyond what I was willing to pay for all three. So all I have are the photos.

At almost $50 each, I had to pass on these.

The dimensions provided for the rolling stock were consistent with the pieces I already owned. So I know they're the same size as the Nomura, Straco, and Bandai trains I have. And they looked familiar. So I did some comparisons and discovered that the rolling stock was identical to that of the Straco Express.

First, look at the box cars. The frame is identical for both, as are the construction of the trucks and the couplers.

Second, look at the cabooses. The embossing isn't aligned properly on the mystery caboose, but it's there -- as it is on the Straco caboose.

Was there a second Straco train set? I don't know. The locomotive is missing a tender, so the set isn't complete. The Straco Express had a gondola car -- did this set, also?

And one thing more -- although I'm confident in saying that the maker of this mystery set was the same as the Straco Express, I still don't know what company that was. Yet.

A Clockwork Coupe from Japan

I recently won an auction for the tinplate toy you see below. It's made in Japan (as marked), and initially I purchased it for the Straco Display Layout. But now I'm not so sure.

The size of the piece is pretty close ("scale" is a squishy concept with these inexpensive Japanese toys). While most of the vehicles on the display layout are friction-powered, this coupe is clockwork. That's not really a problem. Some of the display cars have no power at all, just free-spinning wheels.

No, the issue is that this is definitely a pre-war toy -- and the focus of the display layout is early post-war Japanese tin toys. The design of this toy mimics automobiles of the of the late 1930s, and the type of lithography and the colors used are also more pre- than post-war. And it's ingeniously constructed..

This coupe seems to fit right into the Straco display.

The sides are indented to give room for the stem. This keeps the stem from sticking too far out the side of the vehicle. There are two tabs, one under each bumper. The front tab is the catch, which lets you wind the spring, then release it for motion. The back tab controls the rear wheels, which can be turned at a slight angle to the left or right. So you can steer this coupe (sort of).

Front tab is spring catch, the back turns the rear wheels.

It's a great piece, and remarkably, after eighty years, it still runs. No one's over-tightened the spring, or bent the axles, or broken off the stem. And that allowed me to make the video below. Well worth the $9.80 this cost me!

 

And it does look good on the layout....

Straco Track: the mystery clears (slightly)

Bandai track with
fiberboard ties

Straco(?) track with
plastic ties

For some time I've been posting on these three inexpensive (OK, cheap) Japanese toy trains I've acquired, and what the connection between them is. In my last post, I talked about the two different types of track that these sets came with. There was an early fiberboard-tie version stamped with Bandai's logo, and a later version where the ties were plastic.

Now these sets came to me through various means. As a child I owned the set with the Santa Fe diesel and two Santa Fe cars (a box car and a refrigerator car). From that set just a few pieces of track survived.

The Straco Express, the most detailed set of the three, I picked up at a toy train meet over a year ago. It had some, but not all, of it's track with it, including the terminal section (that's the piece that has the connectors for the wires running from the power pack).

The other set, which I'm pretty sure is Bandai, I obtained recently through an eBay auction -- primarily to complete my circle of track. It also had a piece of terminal track.

Front to back: Straco Express, childhood Bandai(?) set, Bandai set via eBay

And its those two pieces of terminal track that helped me unwrap the puzzle a little. The eBay set's terminal track was missing one of the posts, while the Straco's was intact. And they were different types. The Straco's terminal track had plastic ties, while the other piece had fiberboard ties.

So I know now that the plastic track goes with the Straco Express, which means that the Bandai fiberboard track belongs to the two earlier sets (I'm assuming that the Straco Express was made after the other two -- it seems newer).

As always, if you happen to know something about these trains -- or know someone who might -- please leave a comment. I'd really like to know more about these toys!

#Straco

Straco Tracks -- the mystery continues

I've written before about the adventures surrounding a vintage Japanese tin train I bought on a whim. In my last post, I debated whether or not to build a simple layout for the Straco Express set. Well, I decided to go ahead, and soon discovered another little puzzle.

As you may recall, I actually have three different HO gauge Japanese toy trains, all apparently from different manufacturers, yet all using the same track. At least, that's what I thought.

As I was looking through the track pieces to find the best ones to use for the layout (which will be a simple loop). In the process, I discovered that the track was made two different ways. What appears to be the earlier version has ties stamped out of fiberboard. The later version has beveled ties made from injection-molded plastic.

Here are some shots of the two types of track (click on the images to expand them to full size). From the top, both pieces look the same (although if you're observant, you'll see the ties have slightly different widths).

 

Turn them over, and the differences are a little more obvious. The rail construction seems to be the same for both (note the tab placement), but the plastic version (bottom in the image  below) is thinner than the fiberboard kind (top in the image below).

The image below provides a little more detail. The plastic version is on the left, and the fiberboard version on the right.

And more detail, still. Here are the fiberboard ties closeup.

And here are the plastic ties. Note how they're beveled. I suspect the reason was to make them easier to pull out of the mold.

Now here's the thing. I have three different trains by (supposedly) three different manufacturers. Which track goes with which? Since I didn't notice the difference right away, I'm not sure.

When I bought the original Straco Express, it came with some track. We dug up an old set I had at home -- the train was completely different, but the track seemed to be the same. When I purchased the third Bandai set, it came with some track, too. But I couldn't say which pieces came with which set.

The only clue is on the back of the fiberboard-tie track. On the straight pieces of track (not the curved) is embossed with the Bandai trademark in the middle of the phrase "Sign of Quality." (no comment)

So the mystery continues. I had originally assumed that -- because these three sets had the same track -- that either they were made by the same Japanese company for different companies stateside, or perhaps there was a Japanese subcontractor who was supplying the track.

Now I'm not so sure. Was the plastic tie track just an improvement by Bandai over their older design, or was this a knockoff by somebody else?

If anyone has answers, please let me know. In the meantime, I'll be cleaning track and checking connections (those closeups show just how badly rusted this track is).

#Straco