Nation Wide Lines posted:overlandflyer posted:..., The Conquerer...
;;;
the set shown is one of the earlier versions including cars with sliding doors, a caboose with cupola and separate riveted couplers. as this line matured, the cars were modified to lower production costs.
operating doors were replaced with simple openings and couplers were changed from separate pieces to formed extensions of the frame...My question would be "how do you know the earlier cars had separate riveted couplers?" The description of the set does not specify the type of couplers.
I know from passenger sets from that era, that the couplers being part of the body was something that is found on cars from the 1928-1932 era and possibly later. I suspect the freight cars without doors, is simply a way of cheapening the cars/sets that they came in, and possibly the types of couplers is another way, but that these methods of cheapening the cars/sets may not have anything to do with the era that the cars were produced. Possibly these differences may be attributed to windup versus electrically powered sets.
I cannot say you are incorrect in your assumption, but that there is simply no printed material that I know that specifies when or why they switched from couplers that were part of the body to couplers that were riveted on (or the other way around).
It may be that Flyer was having issues with couplers breaking off the body and revised the cars in later years to have riveted couplers due to these issues.
NWL
with articulated couplers the train measures out to 29"... with the body mounted couplers it is an inch shorter.
Schuweiler on 5" cars... "American Flyer offered these cars again in 1934. The consumer catalog has only a windup set, while the advanced catalog also offers a Champion electric set. The deluxe version of these cars are in the Champion electric set while the stripped versions appear in the windup set. American Flyer may have planned to differentiate their Champion sets in this way, but it is just as likely that all production switched to the simpler versions."
i cannot say your coupler revival theory doesn't have merit either, but i went with Schuweiler's "just as likely" alt-path since i tend to believe things only get simpler when economics is at hand and i can't think of a better time in history when kids needed cheaper toys.
he also seems to imply that eventually the only sets advertised in the later years were windup.
