A few Standard gauge tinplate questions. HELP

Okay you have 100 serries Standard gauge cars basically ( I say basically as some are lager and some are smaller, this also will apply in the 300, & 400 serries) 12 1/2" long, Most you 300 are 14" long, then you have 400 serries and it really gets tricky here as the blue comet and the Stephen Girard are one lower and two a little narrower than the 418, 419, 428, 429, 430, 431, & 490 actually these are some of the biggest cars, Now 1766, 1767, & 1768 passenger cars are basically some of the Ives to Lionel. They are about 15" long. 

Now asking about MTH engines I know as a whole they are like Lionel but a lot have Proto which I'm not a fan of, they did make some with the bilt a motor and yes MTH made the remake of Lionel for Lionel. I have some modern remakes but most of mine are Prewar. 

here are most of mine 



The red passenger cars are the 1766, 1767, & 1768. The brown on the table are 338, 339, & 341, the mauve ( tan looking ) are 418, 419, 431, & 490

If I can jump in here as your interest has been piqued in let me say tinplate you have several decisions to make.

1. Do I want to do prewar which is what rtraincollector favors, or the modern MTH/TinPlate Traditions/ Lionel/American Flyer reproductions which I buy?  BTW MTH built both Tinplate Traditions, Lionel Classics, and later on Lionel and American Flyer bonded tinplate.  

FYI American flyer is my favorite especially their Brass Piper style engines, tank cars, and caboose.  But Ives and Dorfan are close seconds for their color schemes.

2. Do you want to do standard gauge or O gauge tinplate? Yes there is O gauge tinplate although you asked about standard gauge only.

As with most collections there are those who favor the originals while others favor the reproductions.

How handy are you? Do you want stuff that looks used until you might decide to restore it cosmetically and operationally, or do you want stuff that is more new looking and relatively ready to plug and play?

I am a lazy collector as I do not delve into the details that you are asking about. I go with color as the appeal of tinplate for me is mostly visual combined with simplicity.

As for size, standard gauge for the larger cars, Presidential/State cars for example can be quite large while some standard gauge rolling stock such as 500 series can accommodate smaller layouts.

400E steam engines are large and heavy. By comparison the 384 engine is more manageable.

You may find it useful to peruse the MTH website and see what they offered in tinplate standard gauge and O gauge.

Also Ebay is a good place to get intel about the different options you have.

Be forewarned, this era of trains can be quite addictive.

Wow. You guys have given me some great feedback. Thank you. But I want to follow up with some more details about me and some more questions. First I want to respond to runamuckchuck. Great questions back to me. I am really only interested in the post war newer trains. I love seeing big shiny new stuff. I do a lot of O gauge and that is great but for tinplate I like bigger. I do currently have some layout restrictions. The room for my builds is only 12'x8'. I have been stocking up on 42" curves and 72" curves along with straights. But I don't think my layouts will ever be much more than circles or ovals. Finding complete sets has been really hard especially since I want them in mint condition. Buy the way I just bought my first set this week. New old stock but no boxes. MTH traditions. The engine is a tan 318E and 4 matching passenger cars. Very nice looking set. I will get some pics in the near future. I currently have my O gauge Easter layout going. I have my eye on a 3 piece set of passenger cars MTH 3 series red for a possible Christmas set. I could match them with the 390E steamer in black would be nice. I also really want a blue comet set. The 400E and state cars would be a dream but not sure how well they would look on a small layout. Plus that set in new or mint condition is big bucks. There is a complete set blue comet online with an electric No. 10 engine and 3 series 3 cars that looks pretty nice. The hard part for me is understanding what is better the protosounds like PS1, PS2, and PS3 compared to build a loco I have heard pluses and minuses of both. Can someone explain them to me? Also, any suggestions for a blue comet set and a good engine for some red 3 series cars. I guess whether they are MTH or Lionel really doesn't seem to matter right?

Bild-A-Loco I do not know any disadvantages for it. I believe ( but probably wrong) there are no Proto3 tin plate unless someone upgraded it themselves. If you want command control on standard gauge and you have tmcc/legacy get a TPC300 or 400 or a powermaster. I kinda like the transformer control my self. I do have two TPC300's and one TPC400, none are hooked up. 
When I add O to my layout I will probably hook up my LegacyL system and one unit for the most inside track so I can run my conventional engines when I want. 

Near the end of the MTH tinplate run, conventional engines were preferred due to a concern that the electronics for Porto Sound would not be available the future.  Keep in mind this was when MTH was supposed to be going out of business; which did not happen.  The simpler design of the conventional engines means simply less things to go wrong/break/malfunction.  There is also the charm of recreating the original experience of the Build A Loco era.  That and cab chatter is to me more annoying than interesting.

In the simplest terms conventional ( Build a Loco) has no sound and is transformer controlled while Proto Sound has sound and can be remotely controlled with DCS or via transformer.

As for the Blue Comet, there was what is called a Baby Blue Comet set that had a smaller standard gauge engine (maybe a 384E?) and two smaller style passenger cars with an optional add on car.  To my knowledge this was only offered as a Tinplate Traditions set. However Lionel Lines cars of the same size and color scheme could be mixed in if you wanted to have a longer train.  I do not have the set number but info will show up in a search pretty readily.
The one thing that I especially like about the Baby Blue set engine is that the road name is Jersey Central not the typical NYC on the 400E Blue Comet engine.  That little nod to authenticity is a nice touch and all that I need from tinplate.

Putting on my collector hat for a moment in the current market place the so called value of Tinplate Traditions versions as compared to the same items also available as LionelLines/American Flyer (all built by MTH) is declining modestly compared to the LL/AF versions.  This may be due to the consistent rumors of late that MTH is going to try their hand at tinplate production again but on a more modest basis.

The new tinplate if produced would likely be all Tinplate Traditions with no LL/AF licensing from Lionel.  But otherwise to my eye they all look the same and are of the same build quality from Lionel Classics on through the last production runs. 

Question: How much did your train collection cost?

Answer  : $200,000.

Reply    :  $200,000?!  Holy smokes!  I knew model trains were expensive but I had no idea that expensive.

Answer :  Well to be exact, the trains only cost $75,000.  The addition to the house for the layout was $125,000.


Dollar amounts are for illustrative purposes only and to keep the math simple.  We all know the costs for both the trains and the addition are much higher! 

I just bought a Bild-A-Loco on eBay.  It is a complete set new old stock but checked and tested.  It is a 1990 Lionel Classics 6-13001 Standard gauge freight set with a 318E engine.  It looks really nice and has that classic look I wanted but still shiny.  lol.  I am ok that it won't have sound.  I do have another MTH 318E with sound if I want to use that one instead but probably won't.  I went to having 0 tinplates to 2 sets in 1 week.  lol.