Roving Sign and C W Burfle, that's Len Carparelli.
Thanks. I hope I made out my checks correctly 
Here is a link to his business for those that might be interested : L & L Model Train Restoration
i wonder if the decline in quality started about the time the term NIB became a collector's term. why make your QC an important factor when so many models will never be taken out of the box. easier just to fix the few that are actually run?
from 1953 - 1962 our family ran 5 Lionel trains into the ground with little servicing and horribly underrated wiring every holiday season from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day. ...today they all still run.
cheers...gary
WE are in a throw away society- no TV repairs, nor computers, electric appliances, autos are getting close, just ask the people who are in the business. I had a car repair place tell me to drive my car until it quit-i said I didn't that-be stranded. A repairman of washing machines told me he new ones are good for 7 years-no matter what they cost. same for refrigerators. I was told my one year old laptop that cost over $1,000 wasn't worth fixing !! I consider my 60 yr old Lionels young-I marvel at the 85-90 yr old ones still running. I have several 75 yr old Scouts still running. Quality ?? don't forget Lionel made naval navigation equipment during WW II.
i wonder if the decline in quality started about the time the term NIB became a collector's term. why make your QC an important factor when so many models will never be taken out of the box. easier just to fix the few that are actually run?
Its my impression that the Lionel Corp. (postwar) really didn't do much to cater to the collector community. The only product that immediately comes to mind are the 6464 boxcars in the 1969 catalog.
It took MPC a few years to recognize that some Collectors were buying their product, and putting it away. Limited editions started around 1973 or 1974 - the Coke set and the Gold Chessie Geep.
Most of the collectors I met in the early 1970's were into prewar. In my area it was mostly operators who were buying postwar. Of course there were a few......
Roving Sign posted:They were trying to exploit a the train market with other products...this lead them deeper into the "trains are toys" mentality that ended the company.
Ummm, these trains ARE toys. All of them.
When quality trains are discussed a lot of folks look down on Marx as being "cheap toys." I have bought many Marx engines over the last several years. Most run just fine even before cleaning and lube has been done. Some have needed a little help before they run well. Not until last month have I come across a Marx engine that does not even try to move when powered up. All of this to say that I think build quality was high in the pre and post war years for even the "cheapest" of toy trains. Most Marx motors had bronze bushings and metal gears. Even their wind-up motors were very well made. Today many people repower other brands of vintage locos with Marx electric or wind-up motors.
Maybe Marx trains were not as detailed or "scaled" as Lionel or AF, but then in the pre and post war years Big L and AF were just beginning to get into scale. But the overall build quality that kept the trains running after years of abuse was pretty darned good, for a "cheap toy."
As has been said the older trains were toys for kids and had to be built to a different standard for a different clientele and time than today's mega buck model trains for adults. It still seems to me that for the main purpose of a locomotive, be it a real one, a toy or a scale model is to pull a train. If a locomotive fails that out of the box or shortly there after there is a quality control problem.
