[GreenKeys] Happy Holidays 2014

[Ralph Mowery]

Around 1960 would probably be about the time I got my train set.  The train was well built.  I ment by easy way out was that it is probably difficult to make just two rails carry the power and isolate the driving wheels and such.  Just easier to pick up power by the wheels on both sides and use a third rail for the other wire. 

Mine had the pellets that dropped down the smoke stack.  I think there was a heater that made the engine look like it was smoking from the pellets.   There was also a special piece of track that if you parked the train over it and pressed a button, the cars would uncouple , and if you pushed the cars together they would couple back up.  You did not have to do the pushing, just let the engine do it.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: hwhall at compuserve.com 
  To: greenkeys at mailman.qth.net 
  Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2014 5:46 PM
  Subject: Re: [GreenKeys] Happy Holidays 2014


  >
  The 3 rd rail was to power the toy train.  Under the middle of the engine 
  was a small roller that picked up one side of the power..  I guess that 
  Lionel took an easy way out when they made the train sets.
  >

  The ones I had back around 1959-60 had a spring loaded shoe that slid along the center rail and the other two rails completed the circuit through the engine body and wheels. Not sure if they were taking the easy way out, at least not in the sense of being cheap, because the engine was a heavy and detailed thing. The smokestack had an simple air pump underneath that was operated by the turning wheels. You could buy some kind of pellet things (we never did) to insert down in the stack and the pump would puff something that imitated smoke. Seems like I recall seeing a movie or TV show once where some adult had stuffed his cigarette into the stack so it puffed when moving and also smoked when at a standstill.

  Wayne
  WB4OGM



---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
http://www.avast.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/greenkeys/attachments/20141214/1663c631/attachment.html>