Several years ago there was a great article in the TCA Quarterly about American Flyer sets that came with the red 3380 series Ambassador cars. I recently found a variation of 3187 engine that I was unaware of and purchased the set.
Here is a view of three 3187 engines, and although they appear essentially identical to one another, they each have different variations of automatic reverse motors.
The earliest variation of the 3187 looks like this from the bottom
Note the frame has a large opening on the left and the cast iron pilots have shorter extensions into the frame, which allow for the large coil to protrude through the bottom of the frame. That motor looks like this:
This motor was American Flyer's first auto reverse motor in O gauge.
Until recently, I thought the above motor remained in the line-up until replaced in 1932 with the bell-ringing auto reverse motor from the steam engines. The following photo shows the bottom of this motor.
Note the above motor has short pilots on both ends and large openings on both ends, with the coil for the bell-ringer on the right and the auto reverse mechanism on the right, with a bar sticking out of the roof and one out of one of the ends of the engine. This engine is the closest engine to the bottom of the group photo. This motor should date from 1932, as that is the first year of the bell-ringing steam engine.
The engine shown below features a motor that appears to have been made in between these two variations.
This motor features a similar bar sticking up through one end and bar sticking out of one end, but the bottom is different.
Note that this engine has long extensions on each pilot and no large opening for a coil. The bottom of the frame is also rubber stamped 3187 RC. I can only theorize that this engine dates to sometime in 1931. The set came with these cars, which feature the mixed plates, which is an indication of it being a late set.
The cars in the above set are identical to the cars that came with my bell-ringing 3187.
I was aware of this motor variation in other engines, but had never seen one in a 3187, which I find interesting.
NWL
