# Aristo-Craft - Back to the Future?



## Jerry McColgan (Feb 8, 2008)

I like reading old train magazines whether they are about real trains or model trains. I was surprised when I found this ad in the August 1961 Model Railroader - almost 50 years ago!










It seems that Trolleys and Consolidations were first in the Aristo-Craft product line a 1/2 century ago!!!

Perhaps our wait for the Consolidation since its announcement has not been very long - relatively speaking.

Jerry


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## Al McEvoy (Jan 3, 2008)

OMG! I HAD ONE OF THOSE TROLLEY SETS! I remember paying $12.95 for it at the local toy & hobby shop (think it was around 1961 or 62), which was about two weekends' worth of lawn cutting for the old ladies who lived next door. The bus was yellow on the bottom and silver on the roof. It actually worked pretty well: the trolley poles were on a pivot that somehow steered the front wheels. I never took it apart because it seemed like a precision model. It was a bit noisy - the little electric motor was geared down of course and you could hear the whine of the gears as it rolled along. Headlights (and taillights too, I think) worked when it ran. I thought it was one of coolest things on my HO layout at the time. The only problem was that my toy shop did not have any extra trolley poles and "wires" to extend the layout beyond the basic oval.


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## Torby (Jan 2, 2008)

Too cool! 

Since I've been back in trains, I've thought the name "Aristo-Craft" seemed familiar. I wonder if it was part of that first train set. Maybe the crossing gate or the house.


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## Jerry Barnes (Jan 2, 2008)

Gee, maybe that Consolidation will show up yet!


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## dadreier (Jan 2, 2008)

Back in '61 I was just getting started in HO scale and did own a few Aristo products from that era.

Aristo actually offered quite a variety of HO steam locomotives which, if I recall properly, were made mostly of die-cast metal. Aristo cataloged all sorts of wheel arrangements, including 2-6-0, 0-6-0T, 4-4-2, 4-6-0, 0-4-0, 2-4-2, 0-8-0, 4-2-2, 2-8-0, 2-8-2, and 4-8-2. I had some of the smaller locomotives, but only dreamed of owning the big ones.

The old Aristo stuff was imported even then and wasn't quite up to current HO standards. On the other hand, the domestic competition back then wasn't anything like we have today, either.


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## Spule 4 (Jan 2, 2008)

The old Aristo steam locos will appear at shows from time to time. The pot metal they were cast from suffers from bad rot. 

Also, Aristo was an importer and not a model maker. For example, the bus set was a EHEIM/Brawa set, made up until a few years ago. AHM also imported these busses. Ther were also overhead and bucket trams. 

http://www.modellbahnboerse.org/eheim.htm


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Uhh, isn't Aristo still an importer and not a model maker? I thought their stuff was designed and built by Kader? I know they specify the paint jobs. USAT is in the same boat, as well as Bachmann, although Bachmann is owned by Kader. 

AML/AMS/Accucraft does make their own stuff in their own factory. 

Greg


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## Spule 4 (Jan 2, 2008)

Enjoy, whole list of Aristo diagrams and catalogs. 

http://www.hoseeker.org/otherhotrains.html 

Dad had one of their mother hubbards, forgot all about it. Unfortunately, it died from the white metal rot. 

Thanks Jerry for the memory jog. I do wonder who made their building kits? Revell, Faller, Pola perhaps?


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## Jerry McColgan (Feb 8, 2008)

There is a column in that old Model Railroader that caught my interest. I wonder about its accuracy and, if true for HO, could it also be true for large scale?

Can curves really create greater traction?




























I have always thought that curves generated friction and reduced traction. The idea of a curve increasing traction is hard for me to accept.

What do you think?

Jerry


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## rdamurphy (Jan 3, 2008)

I think it depends greatly on the size and weight of the models. N scale locos and cars behave far differently than HO, and when it comes to G, even more differently. While the above is probaby true for HO models, G and Fn3 models actually have enough weight to make physics a reality. 

Thanks! Robert


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

I think you were dealing with locos that did not have a lot of tractive effort and huge flanges... so they really did have more friction on the curves... but of course there was much more rolling resistance of the cars if they had similar flanges. 

In today's locos, they have better tractive effort, so I don't think anyone would be telling you what you read above. 

Greg


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## markoles (Jan 2, 2008)

Uhh, isn't Aristo still an importer and not a model maker? I thought their stuff was designed and built by Kader? I

Greg, I am pretty sure there is an engineer or two at Aristo. How else could they have US patents on their gearbox?


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## Jerry McColgan (Feb 8, 2008)

Posted By Greg Elmassian on 10 Mar 2011 10:41 PM 
Uhh, isn't Aristo still an importer and not a model maker? 


Greg 
I think that is pretty much true of just about anything and everything these days. Perhaps Aristo-Craft (the Polks) were simply ahead of their time.

As I understand it a Chevrolet Suburban is either made in Mexico or Canada, my "IBM" computers were made by Lenovo (a Chinese company) in China.

In my opinion we no longer have many "American" companies making "American" products but instead we have multi-national corporations without national loyalties.

The reality for me is the brand name which indicates who will hopefully fix it if it breaks and the brand to some extent indicates the price level and quality I expect.

If we really cared about where our toys were made we would probably be buying a lot more Hartland since as far as I know they are about the only large scale trains that are made in the USA. Once production goes overseas I for one tend to lose interest in which country something was made. I may prefer "made in Germany" over "made in Communist China" but my receipts prove me to be a hypocrite.

Jerry


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## eheading (Jan 5, 2008)

Jerry, in support of what you said, I am sure that all of the design work for Aristo's train products is done in New Jersey. From the many discussions I have had with Lewis Polk, they operate much like we did when I worked at Bell Labs. We did the design work on the products, and Western Electric did the manufacturing. And I find it interesting, because we had the same problems with the manufacturing engineers making changes that we didn't know about and causing product problems. The only advantage we had was that we were only 50 or 2000 miles from our factory, instead of having our factory on the other side of the world. 

We also sometimes subcontracted with outside companies to manufacture components or sub-assemblies for us, and again we had exactly the same kinds of issues that Aristo has today.

Ed


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## rdamurphy (Jan 3, 2008)

Aristo-Craft brass locomotive:


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## rdamurphy (Jan 3, 2008)

Here's a Youtube Video of a 2-4-2: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoSr2zGbic0


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## Jerry McColgan (Feb 8, 2008)

Posted By eheading on 11 Mar 2011 03:55 PM 
Jerry, in support of what you said, I am sure that all of the design work for Aristo's train products is done in New Jersey.

Ed


Hi Ed,

I found this on the Aristo site and it is a sort of history of Aristo-Craft:

Polk's Model Craft Hobbies celebrated its 60th Anniversary in 1995

Nat started out as a retailer and has been a wholesaler, importer, and now a manufacturer of Hobby products. 

http://www.aristocraft.com/artic...1.html


Jerry


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## Dr Rivet (Jan 5, 2008)

Jerry 

IBM sold their entire "ThinkPad" laptop product line to a Chinese company who rebranded it as "Lenovo". Big difference is that the Chinese embedded malware into the BIOS and their version of the OS. It is an undocumented feature.


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## Jerry McColgan (Feb 8, 2008)

Posted By Dr Rivet on 12 Mar 2011 06:33 AM 
Jerry 

IBM sold their entire "ThinkPad" laptop product line to a Chinese company who rebranded it as "Lenovo". Big difference is that the Chinese embedded malware into the BIOS and their version of the OS. It is an undocumented feature. 

Hi Jim,

Apparently sold their ThinkCentre line of tower computers to the Chinese as well. I bought a dozen or so IBM/Lenovo 8113-24U, 8113-34U, 8113-35U computers from Arkansas State Surplus several months ago. The BIOS is clearly Lenovo so I would be very interested in knowing about any malware etc. in the BIOS along with a fix for it if you know of one.

Why would the Chinese embed malware into their BIOS and OS? That would appear to be technological suicide.

Thanks,

Jerry


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## Dr Rivet (Jan 5, 2008)

Jerry 

Remember that "malware" does not have to do ANY DAMAGE" to your system.. Let's just say it may contain "undocumented features" that the owner has no control over. This sort of thing has been done to the processor code in network gear like routers, switches, and firewall appliances. Everything works just as advertised, it just does "a little more". A little more can be collecting and forwarding network addresses, configuration files, network metrics like packet sizes [which can be used to identify the types of hardware on your network based on hardware interface characteristics. 

In the case of a laptop or desktop BIOS chip, it might contain a backdoor to allow your system to be taken over by a system with a pre-defined IP address. You could be used as a part of a BOTNET and NO virus scanner would ever find the code because it isn't on your hard drive anywhere. 

If you want to continue this discussion, lets take it off line. There are many opinions on this topic and I do not choose to get in a protracted debate over the relative "truths" in this area. 

V/r


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## Jerry McColgan (Feb 8, 2008)

Posted By Dr Rivet on 12 Mar 2011 07:27 PM 
Jerry 

If you want to continue this discussion, lets take it off line. There are many opinions on this topic and I do not choose to get in a protracted debate over the relative "truths" in this area. 

V/r 

Hi Jim,

I suspect we tend to think alike. Yes I would like to continue this discussion off line.

Thanks,

Jerry


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