Large Scale Central

HLW scale?

General Discussion
#21
John Joseph Sauer said:
Victor Smith said:
John Joseph Sauer said:
Could it be - dare I say it - "Gummi" scale? (or is that snide remark reserved for another manufacturer?)
Fishing any good at this pier? Hehehe

Considering that they are NKP models (No Known Prototype) and not claimed “scale model” of any known prototype that one could physically measure against, they are whatever the maker wants to call them.

They are Delton molds and Delton was made at a claimed at 1/24 scale, so if HLW wants to call them 1/24 then thats understandable. But they are caracatures of locomotives, not scale models so that gives them a certain amount of flexibility scalewise as theirs nothing to measure against…just as LGB has done with several of its toy products. I doubt anyone would try to get an actual scale out of anyone at LGBoA for that “Joe Cool” collectable thingie or any “Mars Flyer” type toy now would they.

They just are what they are. :wink:


I don’t know Victor but those American type 4-4-0s look like they are modeled after American type 4-4-0s and the forneys look like they might be modeled after Forneys but hey who can tell ?!! :wink:

“Fish, fish, find the fish, that went, wherever I, did go!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWlUu54muOs

JJ, The difference is that HLWs 4-4-0 and their Princess Fornay have no single prototype based from any existing engine, they are pure flights of creative fancy and make no claim otherwise, unlike the LGB Genny or the very Maine 2 footer based Forney. If you can prove the Kalamazoo toy train which the 4-4-0 is based on was based on any specific 4-4-0 I’ll eat a bug with steak sauce! It was always a toy and never had any other pretence. :wink:

Now I’m willing to give the Forney(even if its really a Mason Bogie with that swinging front drivetruck) a pass as a Maine characature somewhere between 1/19 and 1/22.5, but the Genny was clearly based on a measurable prototype and as such was subject to the questions of scale and accuracy once LGB stated it at had a specific, if incorrect, scale and was kicked all over the room for the error. Thats the issue to me, is that they just cant say “uncle” when they know they’ve been called on it. :open_mouth:

#22

Just a Correction, the Hartland 0-4-0s, 2-4-0s and Forney were all retooled Kalamzoo models - not Delton.

The only Delton equipment in Hartland’s range are the long and short coaches (not the older Kalamazoo coaches now discontinued), and the Drovers caboose made from the short combine…the rest of the Delton Tools went to Aristo via Auction.

The Hartland Mac is a mix of 50% unfinished Delton tooling, and 50% new tooling.

The Delton coach tools were owned by a 3rd party, leased to Delton - thus when all went bust, the Bankruptcy court did not aquire the coaches, nor were they auctioned with the rest of the Delton line as they had never belonged to Delton despite being tooled up by Delton.

The owners of the coach tooling sold them to the newly formed Hartland and expanded their collection of Kalamazoo stuff. Phil Jenses totally reworked all the Kalamazoo stuff to bring it up to what it is now!

They’re all meant to be robust toys…made in the USA.

Hope this helps. I did an interview about Delton/Hartland a few years back as a Magazine article, and later an on-line story which can be read at the other web site.

David.

#23

i got a real nice lgb train engine a fourney its called i think and its way cool and according to my nurse who can use a ruler and a calclu clacu adding masheen it scales out at around one nineteenf but i don’t give a rats ass cos i like it a lot and it my favrite engine and i dont give a [deleted by the nursing staff] wether you like it or not cos its my trian and i run it in the corider outside my my cell whenever i want to and it stops the voyces from telling me waht to do like last time with the chain saw and outbord motor and now its time for my meds again the nurse says as she puts me back into my special jackit with no sleeves so i cant hert myself byt i cant play with my fournye for a while
hope this fins you as it leaves me
your affectionate frined in the lord

tac

#24

Hmmmmmmmm!!!

I guess the yellow beaked vulture I am to look out for in Wales should have been a clue. :wink:

#25
David Fletcher said:
Just a Correction, the Hartland 0-4-0s, 2-4-0s and Forney were all retooled Kalamzoo models - not Delton.

The only Delton equipment in Hartland’s range are the long and short coaches (not the older Kalamazoo coaches now discontinued), and the Drovers caboose made from the short combine…the rest of the Delton Tools went to Aristo via Auction.

The Hartland Mac is a mix of 50% unfinished Delton tooling, and 50% new tooling.

The Delton coach tools were owned by a 3rd party, leased to Delton - thus when all went bust, the Bankruptcy court did not aquire the coaches, nor were they auctioned with the rest of the Delton line as they had never belonged to Delton despite being tooled up by Delton.
The owners of the coach tooling sold them to the newly formed Hartland and expanded their collection of Kalamazoo stuff. Phil Jenses totally reworked all the Kalamazoo stuff to bring it up to what it is now!

They’re all meant to be robust toys…made in the USA.

Hope this helps. I did an interview about Delton/Hartland a few years back as a Magazine article, and later an on-line story which can be read at the other web site.

David.


David, I based my comments on a study of my Ancient Sacred Manuscripts, namely a 1989 Walthers large scale catalog :wink: and based on the pictures in that catalog it seams that enginewise, the 4-4-0 is the only Kalamazoo retool. The Dutchess 2-4-0 w/ tender looks to be a retooling of a 0-4-0 w/ tender and the Princess Forney a retooling of the 0-4-2 that Delton advertised in that catalog, the cabs, domes and details are the same. Maybe you have extra knowledge about thier heritage that I dont know about but the models sure seam to show show a connection.

Yes, the Mack is a Delton retooling, and you’d shreek if you saw the MSRP for the Delton version! :open_mouth: :wink:

#26

I think this has gone on long enough…

#27

Aw , I was looking forward to Davids reply about the Kalamazoo/Delton tooling heritage.

#28

I think Bob was referring to the friendly chat several of us were having with JJ…:confused: I’m finding the discussion of the heritage of the HLW products quite informative.

#29

Not so Vic, The 1989 and following Walthers Largescale catalogues show the Kalamazoo and Delton lines quite separately…as Phil said, the fat boilered Kalamazoo 0-4-0 was what became dutchess etc (Butt ugly was what Phil described them as!!). The lil 0-4-0, 2-4-0 and 0-4-2 proposed by Delton were much better proportioned, small boilers…look hard at the Delton photos you’ll notice brass CPH domes on them! These were Phil Jensen’s hand made preproduction samples that never got made. He used a lot of the stock parts from the Brass models Delton were making at the time to pull the samples together.
Have a read of this:

http://www.mylargescale.com/articles/articles/philjensen/PhilJensen01.asp

I know this is all old history, and who cares, but Delton actually did a darn good effort in the mid to late 1980s close to scale than many had done before…(their first C-16 sucked mechanically), Kalamazoo was designed to be toys from day one. The inspiration for the 4-4-0s was acrually the V&T 4-4-0s…so I think they were thinking along the lines of 1:32 originally, but frankly the Kalamazoo 4-4-0 was to no scale. When Phil was asked to look at re-tooling it for Kalamazoo, they struck a deal with Delton to use some of their tooling parts - specifically the C-16 domes and C-16 cab and headlight. The Kalamazoo 4-4-0 tooling was updated to enable these parts to fit…then Delton went bust! Kalamazoo had a re-tooled 4-4-0 and no domes or cab for it - useless tools! It took a few years for Hartland to work up new domes, headlight and cab for it, sized to match the Delton units. Thats why today the Hartland domes, cab and headlight are so close to the older Delton units! We used these parts in the CHP project. and by default with that Deltonesk cab, the Hartland line ends up approx 1:24.

Hartland have a ways to go, but Phil has the right intentions, and you should see some of the stuff he wishes could be turned into production models. It takes time. They’ve done a lot in 10 years to bring those ugly toys to something that looks reasonably respectable.

David.

#30

Thanks for the info Dave, now I know a bit more about the history of these locos.

This discussion is very relevent in terms of current affairs. One can only wonder what the future might hold if EPL suffers a similar fate. Look how dispersed Delton and Kalamazoo got. I take it some tooling and molds simply dissappeared and hasnt been seen since.

Of interest in the same 1989 catalog MDC pictures what looks like a small 2 cylinder Shay that says “not in production”, wonder whatever happened to that sample model? Too bad they didnt produce it, they could have beaten Bachmann by a couple of years!

#31

Hey Vic, I often wondered about that lil Shay from Roundhouse as well. It was shown a lot in the late 1980s, and I do believe Roundhouse had advertised it as an uncoming product for a bit…more vaporeware. Those old Walthers catalogues really are a showcase of broken dreams! Look at all the stuff being offered by a host of different companies and how few are still around. Around that time there were log cars from another Delton-like manufactuer called ‘Dan’ which were real fine. All 1:24. The Roundhouse D&RGW cabooses were pretty cool too when new - also 1:24. (the rest of their stuff was 1:32).

Take a look at the preproduction sample of the Bachmann Shay from the mid 90s catalogue in 1:22.5…what a huge improvement the final version was!

Despite the original Owner of Delton having started Kalamazoo a couple of years before it, I’ve always puked at the sight of those Original Kalamazoo 4-4-0s. With the good level of engineering and robustness, why they didn’t try to get some obvious things better proportioned like the domes and cab! Uggh! The LGB mogul was way better looking when it came out a couple of years later.

Ah times past.

David.

#32
David Fletcher said:
...I've always puked at the sight of those Original Kalamazoo 4-4-0s.
I agree. Even in a time when the Kalamazoo 4-4-0 was the [i]only[/i] alternative to LGB's "Americanized" 0-4-0, it was still too ill-proportioned to convince dad or me that we needed to buy it. I've seen one or two that were modified to something a little less objectionable, but they're still too stubby. In fairness, the "R1 rule" was absolutely inviolate in the early 80s for any manufacturer, and the front truck on the 4-4-0 had trouble as it was staying on the rails.

Later,

K

#33

Dave
I have one of those MDC cabooses, its one of my favorite pieces.

I have to admit I have a real soft spot for all these “Old School” items. After reading your description of where those catalog sample models from Delton came from, I guess I now know why I’ve never seen any on Ebay, cant sell’em if they never made them…bummer they were nice models. I guess Phil has the samples on display under glass somewhere.

Never seen the Bachmann preproduction Shay, I got my 89 catalog in a used bookstore of all places! Between that and my oldest Gazeetes (1980’s) I have a pretty good sense of large scale primeaval world :slight_smile:

The only thing about the Kalamazoo engines that turn me off are the twinkie domes they used. I figure I could paint and detail the rest of the beast into a good looking engine, but I always got outbid on ebay when I tried to get one, so theres still a good demand for them out there.

At close to 50 motive pieces now, I have to say no to any new purchases and just focus on finishing the various projects on my bench. I’ve only given myself one more “Must Have” old school purchase, and thats for a Lionel 4-4-2 (yes I know it has issues), but I’m going to be patient and am not going to overbid for one.

#34

I bought one of those Lionel E6 Atlantincs also! I just liked her lines. Mine is the Penn version. I only run it on the club open days - runs extremely well, with 4 Bachmann Penn cars behind - a light consist on level track, going a cracking pace. Looks fantastic. I installed hartland metal wheels into the tender to add more electrical pick-up - that makes all the difference. Phil Jensen has kept one of every preproduction model he ever made (he always made two - one for the factory and one for himself). Its worth seeing the preproduction model of the Lionel 0-6-0T he did. It was a piece of work. An early paint sample of the 0-6-0 was up on e-bay a couple of years ago…she had the original sample wheels (Delton C-16 wheels and rods), plus some brass parts…quite a fight for it…I think I gave up at around the $400 mark. Phil added some notes to the e-bay add to help clarify…it was a paint sample, not one of his original preproduction models…ie it was mostly Lionel tooling, about 70% done, with some other parts to finish it, such as the C-16 parts, built by Delton prior to the final tooling. I have some photos on my computer someplace!

Do a search over the net and especially the Disney web sites to see Phil’s sample models of the Hartland 4-6-0s being developed for the Disney Corp. Still basically Hartland models, but being stretched, they have neat lines.

David.

#35

From memory the MDC Shay was a 1/24 scale model. With all the MDC items at 1/32 scale (excluding the 1/24 scale caboose and the ?scale critter), perhaps MDC were looking at a scale 42 inch Shay (although the choice of caboose is more 36 inch gauge and so maybe along the lines of Delton/Aristocraft ‘Classic’ series at 1/24 scale for compatibility).

A simple mod to the MDC caboose is to extend the height of the doors by 1/4" and to add a 1/4" styrene strip along the sides and ends to raise the roofline, keeping in mind that ABS solvent is needed to bond to the MDC plastic. The end ladders need a little height adjustment as well. This then gives a more reasonable outline caboose to use with other narrow-gauge rolling stock.