Hmmm...I beg to differ. When John Tyler (or perhaps those in his family) stopped being Mantua Metal Products (I believe, like many early manufacturers, including Gordon Varney and Rollin Lobaugh and Charley Pittman, their primary industrial manufacturing base subsidised the model railroad production as an add-on) there was a discernible drop in quality. I would assume Mantua (located in Mantua NJ) did industrial die-casting as a day job. In the late 1950's, as they began to use more plastic (rather than the earlier brass stampings and zamac castings), they entered the ready-to-run market under the name of Tyco, and the corner-cutting to compete on price in that market significantly reduced the quality. I'm not sure they ever quite recovered, at least so far as the scale model market is concerned.
Jace Kahn General Manager Ceres & Canisteo RR Co./Champlain County Traction Co. > > From another list - I give you this. http://kdrv.com/news/local/226703 While > > "American Made" is mentioned throughout the piece, please don't go down the > > "American vs. Chinese" road. > > > > > > > > This reminded me of when I toured Tyco in about 1975. Everything was in > > house from die casting boilers to winding armatures and painting. LOTS of > > homemade wooden fixtures etc. To test motors was 2 wires attached to 2 nails > > in a well worn board - high tech all the way! > > > > > > > > Thank You, > > Bill Lane > > > > . . .and it worked just fine for all those years until someone decided to > "improve" it. Mantua/Tyco was one of the premier makers of fine model > railroad equipment. Where are they today? > > Bob Nicholson ______________________________________________ > > > > ------------------------------------ > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
