MRC; Model Power; TYCO

I don't believe that most of us here have a high interest in HO, but your post was interesting as it informs that MRC is now introducing new O scale products under the Model Power banner.

Denis, I take issue that you said that people are not interested in HO gauge.I have just got back into HO as I have enough O gauge to last my lifetime. Back in the 50,s & 60,s HO was king of model railroading and I see it coming back with quality products.

I have a high interest in HO, so thanks for posting Mike W.

This is the only sub-forum I read regularly .  As if my rank of 470 means I really did much before, but my point is that because I have O, HO and N, I am here more now than where the "O" stuff is.

This begs the question.... WHY? TYCO was considered to be "entry level" stuff at best that nobody took very seriously. You can't hardly give TYCO stuff away at a model train show. Why on earth would anyone be making new stuff?

"I don't believe that most of us here have a high interest in HO..."

Uh... don't think so.

One of the reasons this forum was CREATED so us HO-mongers could have a place to hang and share stuff.

Seeing as HO has been the overwhelming industry leader in sales/product for DECADES, I think it's a sure thing that there are many, many HO-mongers that frequent the OGR forums.

Oh, I dunno...  The GP20's were pretty well detailed for their day and as I recall had nearer to scale width hoods than the old Athearn GP9 had.  The power truck wasn't too bad a runner, although they all ran better backwards than forwards. 

The steam locomotive kits built up into dependable locomotives and were a good starting point for neophyte modelers to get their feet wet into the wild and woolly world of "super detailing."  A friend of mine took the Mikado kit, built a pretty convincing CB&Q O2 out of one and used the Pacific kits to make a passable Q S2 Hudson.

The passenger cars were pretty good renditions of Budd cars (although short) and before Tyco went silly with Jello hoppers and the like, the freight car decorations were also pretty faithful to the prototypes.

Rusty

Regarding old TYCO being not of much value.  It seems that if its new in the box from any of the TYCO eras...the product has no trouble selling.  I like the opportunity to acquire new product from classic tooling with improved graphics, details, and drivetrains.  Its essentially all Mantua tooling.  TYCO/Mantua is no doubt an American Icon.  

Looks like MRC is even re-offering the Western Coaches...former TYCO tooling from the USA made days.

Plus these offerings seem very affordable...especially at dealer prices once available I bet.

Tyco trains were absolute junk but they made the U.S. Electric Trucking sets which were some of the coolest slot car systems ever made. Set up like a train layout with many industries to pick up and deliver product. It would be great to see this product line put back on the market

The Tyco of the final years, and the Tyco of old are two very different products. (The rebirth of the Mantua label is a different deal, too.)

Like Rusty, I had early-on experience with a Tyco GP20 in 1963. (From the era that is referred to as the Tyco "Red Box" era.) My Tyco GP20 was in the Santa Fe blue and yellow "Bookends" scheme. It did indeed have scale width hoods, wire hand rails, and ran quite smoothly on my cheap "Allstate" (Marx) transformer of the time. Mine ran just as smoothly forward as it did backward, but it DID pull better backward as opposed to forward!

IF I stumble across a like-new Tyco "Red Box" Santa Fe GP20 still in the box, it will likely become mine.

I would not be into model trains today if it had not been for the local drug store stocking Tyco train sets around Christmas time back in the late 1970s.The JC Penney store had a couple sets every now and then too.They never ran good but I loved my little Tyco layout when I was around 12. Just maybe Model Power could get Wal-Mart to stock these trains since they are cheaper than most other trains,thus exposing the hobby to a new generation.