looking for paper announcing Lionel’s 1973 service station special with Canadian Pacific F3s

None of the original series (1971-1978) Service Station Specials appeared in the Lionel catalogs during that time period. There are single page flyers for the 1977 and 1978 sets, but I don't believe there were printed flyers for general consumers for the 1971-1976 sets.

Doing a search online, I came across a Service Station Bulletin announcing the 1973 set.

Perhaps @PaperTRW can shed some light on this ?

This is great, Ed; thanks. And agree @PaperTRW would be a great resource.

Chris,

My good friend @ed h is spot-on with his response.

The Service Station sets from 1971-1976 were announced with a Service Bulletin page as shown above. There was also an order form, but photographs or illustrations weren't ever published by Lionel. The sets relied heavily on items in the regular line (1971-1972) or postwar reissues (1973-1976), so perhaps it was thought that imagery wasn't necessary.

The 1977 Service Station set with the Budd Cars does have a one-page "sell sheet" consisting of line art. Then a full-color sheet was issued for the 1978 Minneapolis & St. Louis set. Full-color sheets were also used for the service station sets when they started again in 1986.

Hope this helps.

TRW

Chris - Out of curiosity I looked into the 1973 Toy Fair Report in the TCA Quarterly, just a very brief mention of the 1973 set. The info attached appeared in the 1974 TCA Quarterly.

PaperTRW - Thanks for the verification on the printed material, always wondered if those early SSS were advertised in any way other than dealer bulletins.

Super helpful, gents. For me, a hidden piece of Lionel history.  Thanks to both of you.