Coming Soon: Athearn Blue Box

HO Collector’s third edition arrives this summer with Athearn Blue Box diesels on its cover! The new 3rd Quarter 2017 edition of HOC presents a 12-page Athearn Blue Box-Era Diesel Timeline, a continuing examination of TYCO pre-production models, the unique TYCO/Mantua Plymouth Diesel, and a look at the early HO scale trains from Gilbert!

Athearn Blue Box Diesels

This cover story follows Athearn’s production of HO-scale plastic diesel models from 1954’s F7A through 2000’s SD40-2 phase variations, and everything in between! You’ll see vintage ads promoting and announcing products across this more than four decade period.

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TYCO Preprods

Tony Lucio presents another interesting group of never-released models in his second installment of TYCO Preprods. You may remember well the company’s Chattanooga releases, but you’ll be surprised to learn about the never produced City of New Orleans, Silver Shark, and Midnight Thunder lines proposed in the 1970s.

Plymouth Diesel

Also in the 3rd Quarter HO Collector, you’ll get an in-depth look at TYCO/Mantua’s Plymouth CR-4 release. Collector Larry Gibbs presents facts on the prototype, as well as the 1960s TYCO CR-4s and the 1980s Mantua releases.

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Gilbert HO Trains

Rick Tonet provides an introduction to one of the earliest lines of HO-scale trains sold in fully assembled ready-to-run format. Gilbert’s Tru-Model line dates from the late 1930s and was the company’s start in HO-scale model railroading.


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This article was posted on: July 11, 2017