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The Gilbert
Gallery American
Flyer S-Scale Model Trains
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This website recently migrated to a new server. I have yet to complete work
on links in the freight sets pages, and in The Upstairs Train pages (my
layout). If you find any broken links or other errors, please email me
at theupstairstrain@gmail.com. Thank you.
This website began as a place to display my
collection, both for fun and for insurance purposes. As
I built it, however, a new vision emerged, that of a reference
tool for the American Flyer community, "The Gilbert Gallery"
if you will. At that point, late in 2005, my collection
provided a pretty representative sampling of the rolling stock
made by American Flyer over the years, and I decided to go the
rest of the way and collect pictures of the cars and engines that
I didn't have in my collection.
At this point, the site lists all of
the S-Scale American Flyer products produced by The A. C. Gilbert
Company from 1946 to its demise in 1967, and by Lionel from 1979
to about 2007; I am trying to find time to bring it up to date with
everything else made since 2007, and this latest update to the site includes the bunk cars, kitchen cars,
mint cars, aquarium cars, and autorack cars introduced by Lionel since 2013. The site provides individual pictures
of almost all of the engines, freight cars, passenger cars, and
accessories produced by both A. C. Gilbert and Lionel, including some very rare ones, though I don't yet
have pictures of all the significant variations of each item. I am
also collecting pictures of freight and passenger
sets and adding them to the gallery.
This website also provides a complete display of all the S Scale refrigerator cars made by Crown Model Products,
one of the Putt Trains trolleys, and a few of the engines and cars made by S-Helper Service and American Models.
I once had the dream of including their full product lines in the website, but I haven't been able to keep up with
Lionel's expansion of the American Flyer line so that probably won't happen.
This gallery will
continue to grow and become more comprehensive as I collect more
equipment and as visitors send me pictures of items I don't yet
own. If you have a car, engine, accessory, or set that you
would like to share with the world, email me a picture:
theupstairstrain@gmail.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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The engines made by Gilbert fall into four general
categories: - Steam engines
- Diesel engines - GE
EP-5 Electric - hand
cars and track maintenance cars Click
the picture to see the gallery of Gilbert's engines.
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Gilbert's passenger cars naturally fall into
coherent sets based on their common design. They were made
in in five distinct styles: - New
Haven style
- Pullman
Heavyweight style
- Streamliner
style -
Painted
streamliner style
- Frontiersman
style Click the picture to see the
gallery of Gilbert's passenger cars and sets.
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Passenger cars naturally fall into coherent
sets based on their common design and/or railroad names, but
that's not true of freight cars. As on the real
railroads, the typical American Flyer freight train contains cars
from a variety of railroads around the country. For that
reason, I never paid much attention to Gilbert's sets until just
recently when I discovered by accident that I had collected enough
freight cars to assemble the K5358W
Challenger set. That got me
started and I began putting together and photographing all the
sets I can with my cars and engines. Click the picture above
to see the gallery of Gilbert's freight cars and sets.
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Like freight cars, work train cars don't fall into
coherent sets like passenger cars do. They carry neither
passengers nor freight but are sent out to deal with train wrecks
or to maintain the tracks and right of way. Click the picture
above to see the gallery of Gilbert's work train cars.
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The last of the sets that Gilbert made were the
All Aboard Scenic Panel sets. Made in 1965 & 1966, these
were pre-landscaped modular panels with Pike Master track already
laid and everything prewired. The straight-track panel on
the left is #26121 and the curve on the right is #26101.
There was also a straight-track panel with a whistle
(#26122), a crossover panel (#26151), a right switch panel
(#26141, and left hand switch panel (#26142). The panels
could be assembled in a myriad of ways, limited only by your
imagination and the number of panels you had. Each panel
came with "Accessories," buildings, bridges, hills, a
tunnel, trees, signs, telephone poles, street lights, and fences,
that you could put anywhere that had appropriate landscaping and
peg holes.
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For Christmas of 1966, they made a special series
of panels and #20814 Winter Wonderland set with snow rather than
grass. They were the same panels oversprayed with white
paint and sparkles to simulate snow. Because of limited
production, these are now extremely rare and valuable.
While
I was researching the All Aboard sets, I discovered "The
Unofficial home of the All Aboard Scenic Panel Train Sets".
It is a terrific site that explains the concept, tells the
history, shows pictures, and links to the All Aboard Sets Club.
It even includes the catalogs and instruction manual. There
is no sense in my duplicating what they have done so well.
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Speaking of sets, perhaps the
grandest were the Dealer Displays. This is #401, the 1955
Dealer Display. (Picture from an ebay auction.) I will
build a page of them as people send me pictures.
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Classification of the various kinds of American
Flyer accessories isn't at all straightforward. No two of my
books use the same classification scheme. So I feel free to
make up one that makes sense to me. I hope you like it!
Personally, I like to distinguish Accessories from Infrastructure.
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American Flyer accessories fall into five general
categories: - Operating
Accessories - Buildings
& Towers - Bridges
& Trestles - Landscape -
People
Other
than the fact that some of the Operating Accessories are buildings
or towers, these categories are pretty self-explanatory.
Operating buildings and towers are listed in both places.
Click the picture to see the overview gallery of Accessories.
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The things I call Infrastructure fall into seven
general categories similar to those in the TM Guide: - Track
& Switches - Track
Accessories - Transformers -
Electrical
accessories - Bulbs -
Supplies -
Couplers
& Trucks
Click the picture
to see the overview gallery of Infrastructure
Accessories.
These categories are
pretty self-explanatory, too, but not perfect either. For example,
the TM Guide calls the #26810 Pow-R-Clips an Electrical Accessory,
but the various Track Terminals that serve the identical function
are called Track Accessories. I deviate from TM by listing the
Pow-R-Clips as a Track Accessory.
In The Gilbert Gallery,
Track Accessories either are mounted on the track or connect track
(i.e., track locks). Electrical Accessories are whistle and horn
controllers, the Lockout Eliminator, wire, rectifiers, circuit
breakers, and the like. The Reverse Loop Relay and Kit defy
definition and are listed both places. Accessories that are
integral with track (e.g., track pins and rerailers) are listed
with Track
& Switches. The TM Guide lists
Track Ballast in Track Accessories, but I list it in Landscape
Accessories. Semaphores, gates, and
crossing signals are Operating
Accessories. Track cleaning fluid is
included among Supplies.
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At the 2007 TCA Convention, the 1950 7' x 16' A.
C. Gilbert Factory layout was on display, courtesy of Charlie and
Clay of Dave's Twacks & Trains, Raleigh, NC, 610-248-0890. It
was built by A. C. Gilbert Art Department Employees Art Mauzaka
and Frank Cattiglone. A fabulous layout design! Three trains
can run at a time on three independent loops: an outer loop with
two long sidings, a tricky middle loop that loops back on itself,
and an inner up-and-over figure-8 loop with short sidings.
Click the picture for more of Jerry's photos and a track plan.
(Photo and information courtesy of Jerry Dobbs.)
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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.
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Sincve 2005, I have acquired
quite a few Gilbert-Compatible S-Gauge engines and cars made by the
so-called "Modern S" manufacturers: American
Models, Crown
Models, Des Plaines Hobbies,
MTH Electric Trains
, Putt Trains, and S-Helper Service.
The detail and precision scaling of the equipment made by these manufacturers
really are far superior to anything that Gilbert or Lionel ever
made. But they're also a lot more delicate. The
Gilbert cars, and most of the Lionel Flyer cars, were designed as
toys to be played with by young boys. Cars from the
"Modern S" manufacturers clearly are not.
These "Modern S" manufacturers sell their equipment with a choice of
either Gilbert-Compatible ("Hi-Rail") wheels and
couplers, or scale wheels and couplers (which are much smaller and
will not connect to American Flyer engines and cars). Crown
Models is no longer in business; most of their Hi-Rail cars
had wheels and couplers made by S-Helper Service. In 2012, the founders and owners of S-Helper Service
retired and sold their business and tooling to MTH Electric Trains.
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This is my first train from S-Helper
Service, my Western
Pacific Freight. Click here to see
my second S-Helper train, my Chessie
Freight. Stay tuned: I am starting
to build an S-Helper gallery. At this point, the only page is
the SW-1
diesel switch engines.
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My first Crown Models car, the #25254
CM&StP Reefer made for the 25th Fall S-Fest. Click
here to see my gallery of the complete
Crown Models product line.
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My first American Models hopper,
Union Pacific 3-bay model 3313. Stay tuned: I plan to build an
American Models gallery some time in the future.
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#41 Shaker Heights trolley car from
Putt Trains. Putt Trains made a line of S-Scale trolley cars,
with either AC or DC motors, but has gone out of business and
no longer has a presence on the web. I would love to create a
gallery of their product line if people could send me pictures
and identifying information.
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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@gmail.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@gmail.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.
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Now show me:
The Engine Gallery
The Passenger Car Gallery
The Freight Car Gallery
The Work Train Gallery
The Accessory Gallery
Infrastructure
Gallery
Pictures Needed
Useful Links
For Sale
Wish List
Bibliography
The
Upstairs Train
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