@Don McErlean posted:NWL those flyer trains really do "fly"...I have many of the cars but the engines have remained elusive at least to me... I wonder do they travel that fast due to a fixed voltage setting or is it possible to control the speed and run them slower. Nonetheless they are really cool, thanks for posting the video.
Don
Don,
The early engines are being run on a regular transformer, but they seem to either go or stop. I was running them at the lowest setting I could in order for them to run. I tried running one on the inner dog bone loop, but it kept flying off the rails due to the limited ability to vary the speed and the tighter curves.
The passenger set was running with a very early motor that seems to be some sort of experimental engine that has tube brushes, something that American Flyer did not make standard on their engines until 1925. This engine is the earliest American Flyer engine that I have ever observed and is believed to be either an engineering sample or one of the 50 engines that American Flyer made to test the market. It has several unusual features, as compared to the known production engines. All I know of its history is that it came to me via a Chicago area flea market. Since it came to me missing its brushes, it was running with new springs and brushes.
The engine pulling the freight cars was running with its original brushes, which are simple copper fingers (no other brush of any sort) so it was running a bit slower. This engine is also an early engine, with the machined cast iron wheels, which are found on the early engines.
NWL
