@AmFlyer posted:Can you post some pictures? American Flyer did not make any 2 rail O gauge engines. If there are some, those engines would have been modified to run on two rail track.
People seem to be getting confused on this issue, so as a collector of prewar American Flyer, I will try to clarify what Flyer did in the early years.
Edmonds-Metzel Manufacturing Co., which would change its name to American Flyer Manufacturing Co. in 1910, began making O gauge 2-rail windup sets in 1907. So American Flyer did in fact make 2 rail O gauge engines, they just happened to be windup engines and not electric engines. American Flyer made 2-rail windup track and sold it with sets through the mid to late 1930s. American Flyer introduced its first electric engines in 1918, which were designed to run on 3-rail, o gauge track.
Here is a picture of a 2-rail American Flyer O gauge engine. Note the windup key.
When AC Gilbert gained control of American Flyer in 1938, the production of windup American Flyer sets ceased and 2-rail, O gauge American Flyer sets were no longer made.
AC Gilbert continued to make 3-rail O gauge electric sets in the prewar era and introduced his 3/16th sized trains in 1940? which were initially designed to run on O gauge, 3-rail track. In the postwar era, the 3/16th sized trains were changed to have the motors being made to operate on 2-rail S-gauge track.
As many of the previous posts note, the O gauge trains are of a different gauge than the S gauge trains and unless the motors are modified, the O gauge trains will not run on the S gauge track, because of different wheel spacing between the rails and a different means of getting power to the motors.
NWL
