American Flyer S Scale Floodlight Cars

The TM Guide lists eight floodlight cars made by Gilbert and three made by Lionel.  Two more have been made since the TM Guide was published. Unless otherwise noted, the large pictures on this page are of cars in the collection of The Upstairs Train. If you have a picture that you would like to share with the world of any of the cars not shown here (or a better picture of one that is shown!), email them to me: theupstairstrain@yahoo.com

#634 C&NW Floodlight Car made with a white plastic body in 1946-1947. (Photo courtesy of an anonymous donor.) It was also made with a black lamp housing.

#634 C&NW Floodlight Car with a plastic body in 1946-1947. I'd call it light gray but the picture looks just like the white one above. It was made in white and three shades of gray.

#634 C&NW Floodlight Car made with a medium gray plastic body in 1946-1947. (Photo courtesy of Gary Good.)

Mine has been converted to knuckle couplers and isn't as nice as Gary's. I'm keeping his picture here so you can see what it should really look like. It was also made with dark gray plastic bodies. In 1946 it was made with a black lamp housing on a medium gray plastic body.

#634 C&NW Floodlight Car on a gray diecast body made in 1947-1949 and again in 1953. It was also made with a silver lamp housing.

From above, it's hard to tell the difference between the early plastic cars and the later diecast cars in pictures. But from the bottom, the difference is obvious.

(Photo courtesy of Gary Good.)

(Photo from the collection of The Upstairs Train.)

#646 Erie Floodlight Car with dark green plastic generator made in 1950 & 1951.

#646 Erie Floodlight Car with dark green plastic generator and chrome light made in 1951. (Photo courtesy of Don Hasenzahl.)

Rare #646 Erie Floodlight Car with with light green painted diecast generator and chrome light made in 1950 & 1952.  (Photo courtesy of Don Hasenzahl.)

#646 Erie Floodlight Car with red painted generator made in 1952 & 1953.

Extremely rare #646 Erie Floodlight Car with light green painted plastic generator made in 1952. (Photo courtesy of Goodwill Industries of Northern New England.)

The generator is painted on cream-colored plastic. (Photo courtesy of Goodwill Industries of Northern New England.)

There were also a variation with green painted plastic generator made in 1951 & 1952.

#934 C&NW Floodlight Car made in 1953.

It was also made with a metallic blue painted body. (Photo courtesy of an anonymous donor.)

#934 Southern Pacific Floodlight Car made in 1954.

#946 Erie Floodlight Car with painted red generator made in 1953-1957.

There were also two variations with unpainted red generator. This one is a simple red plastic; the other has a swirled plastic. (Photo courtesy of an anonymous donor.) It was also made with green painted or unpainted green plastic generator.

#24529 Erie Floodlight Car made in 1959. Some books say that it was made only with a yellow generator, which easily distinguishes it from #946. Volume I of the 1991 edition of Greenberg, however, says it had plastic insulation on the wires, whereas the #946 had cloth, but that the box was required to prove that a given car was a #24529. The contradictions make it all very confusing.

The very rare #24547Erie Floodlight Car made only n 1958. It came in a few of the #20425 Keystone Rocket Freight sets. (Picture courtesy of Stout Auctions.)

#24549 Erie Floodlight Car made in 1958-1966 with black lamp housing and Pike Master couplers. (Photo courtesy of Jerry Johnson.)

It was also made with a silver lamp housing, either red or yellow generator, and either knuckle or Pike Master couplers. (Photo courtesy of an anonymous donor.)

And with a white lamp housing and Pike Master couplers. (Photo courtesy of an anonymous donor.)

Lionel made the following floodlight cars under their American Flyer name:

#48243 NASG GE Floodlight Car made in 2005. (Photo courtesy of Rick Dunn.)

#48516 Southern Pacific Floodlight Car made in 1997.

#49001 New York Central Floodlight Car made in 1990. (Photo courtesy of Lawrence "Leif" Erickson.)

#49003 Union Pacific made in 1991.

#49013 Pennsylvania depressed center searchlight car made in 2004. (Photo courtesy of Ned Visich.)

#49022 MOW searchlight car made in 2005.

#49032 Bethlehem Steel Depressed Center Searchlight Car made in 2006. (Picture from the Lionel online catalog.)

Over the years, Gilbert made four different kinds of couplers, three of which are common and familiar to most American Flyer owners: link, knuckle, and Pike Master.  The fourth, the so-called "solid knuckle coupler," was short-lived and not used on very many cars.  Lionel later came up with its own version of knuckle coupler.  American Flyer has therefore gone through five generations of couplers.  Because there seem to be a lot of people confused by this, I created a page to show the differences.  Click the picture below for more detail.

It takes time and money to maintain a website like this.  If this site is interesting and helpful to you, please contribute financially to its ongoing success.  You may send a contribution via PayPal using theupstairstrain@yahoo.com as the payee. Both credit card and direct transfers would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much. If you or your friends have some American Flyer trains and would like them to go to a nice home where they'll be loved and cared for, this is the place!  Email me: theupstairstrain@yahoo.com.  See my Wish List for the items I need most.  Thank you very much. On the other side of the coin, I post pictures from time to time on my For Sale page of surplus items I have for sale.

This gallery will continue to grow and become more comprehensive as I collect more cars and as visitors like you send me pictures of the cars I don't yet have.  If you have a car that you would like to share with the world, email me a picture:   theupstairstrain@yahoo.com.  Click here for a list of the pictures I need to complete the Gallery. The books I am using for reference are listed in the Bibliography page.  All the writing and all the pictures on this website are, however, my own, except where cited.  No copyrighted materials have been included and all pictures provided by others are used by permission.

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