# Varney - any fans?



## rsv1ho (Oct 16, 2019)

Founded by Gordon Varney in 1936. Varney's main significance to the model railroad community was his early advocacy of the HO scale and the development of a reliable motor small enough to power the locomotives of this gauge.

Recently after about 50 years in the hobby I became interested in belt drive locomotives. I bought a couple of rubber band models and was not impressed. 

Then I found a Varney F-7 that featured a coiled spring drive that worked off a three stage pully allowing different speeds from low to high depending on the selection and found them fascinating. 

Die cast and in poor condition I media blasted all and repainted conceiving my own road name. Eventually the plastic bodied conventional geared drive will be stripped and repainted.

Over built with open frame Pittman motors and cast transmissions they are quite robust and a pleasure to upgrade and work on.

Just wondering if anyone else has discovered these?


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

Never saw one, but it's certainly an unusual piece!


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## Lemonhawk (Sep 24, 2013)

My first Locomotive was a Varney Dockside! It was well used. It may still be packed away, but as I recall it was trashed long ago. The only reason I may still be packed away is that I also had a another engine from the early 60's that I'm sure I still have but so far it location has eluded me.


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## Old_Hobo (Feb 20, 2014)

Nope, only interested in more modern stuff....too much work for too little gain for me.....


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## Dennis461 (Jan 5, 2018)

I like the steam. I have three 4-6-0 Varneys.


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## rsv1ho (Oct 16, 2019)

Old_Hobo said:


> Nope, only interested in more modern stuff....too much work for too little gain for me.....


That's the gain OH, you have to work to get them to run properly. The knowledge you gain about these little gems is extra. 

I have a lot of "new" locomotives, nice but they just run on the track or sit there. Give me something I can get into and learn something.

Different strokes for different folks.

Just "won" another on ebay. Offered really, twenty bucks with a B unit. This one looks complete with the coiled spring belt. Much superior to rubber bands.

Still looking for my first steam Varney Dennis.


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## Old_Hobo (Feb 20, 2014)

You are very correct....different strokes for different folks....

I like tinkering with locomotives, but of a more modern kind....Intermountain, Proto 2000, etc.....

I'm glad you enjoy resurrecting those old locos though....:thumbsup:


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## rsv1ho (Oct 16, 2019)

Old_Hobo said:


> You are very correct....different strokes for different folks....
> 
> I like tinkering with locomotives, but of a more modern kind....Intermountain, Proto 2000, etc.....
> 
> I'm glad you enjoy resurrecting those old locos though....:thumbsup:


I'm quite familiar with the Proto 2000 series of locomotives having several myself including a few in Boston and Maine. 

But, thanks for turning me on to Intermountain a marketer/brand I am not familiar with. I visited their website and kicked the drivers around there for awhile. Quite the variety there.

https://www.intermountain-railway.com/


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## Murv2 (Nov 5, 2017)

I’ve built a couple Varney cars. The years haven’t been good on the card stock. Keeping an eye out for steam.


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## Dennis461 (Jan 5, 2018)

Attached parts list for power truck from my old Varney catalog. There was also a gear driven version in which both trucks had drive wheels


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## rsv1ho (Oct 16, 2019)

Dennis461 said:


> Attached parts list for power truck from my old Varney catalog. There was also a gear driven version in which both trucks had drive wheels


Thanks for that Dennis, I printed it out. Valuable and it answered some of my questions. I found a "Power Truck Assembly" on ebay a couple of weeks ago then found a F7 locomotive minus that part and married the two. Un-named locomotive in the picture above. 

The Union Pacific has a plastic shell and the dual gear drive, both systems work well.


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## Eilif (Nov 6, 2017)

I enjoyed seeing your work with those old Varney mechanisms. I've got a Varney SCL AB set but I've put them over slightly more modern Athearn frames. 

Varney is such an interesting case. With the possible exception of Marx -whose tooling lives on most recently in Lionel HO- there aren't many examples of HO rolling stock as long lived as the Varney-LifeLike-Walthers journey of Varney's first plastic rolling stock models. I did a little overview of the humble Varney 40' gondola on my blog not too long ago.








Evolution of the Varney 40' Gondola. Update 12/30/19!


UPDATE 12/30/19. A friend comes through with another clone for comparison. Jump to the end to see. One of the interesting aspects of the...




chicagovalleyrailroad.blogspot.com


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## SoShoresGuy (Jan 23, 2013)

Lemonhawk said:


> My first Locomotive was a Varney Dockside! It was well used. It may still be packed away, but as I recall it was trashed long ago. The only reason I may still be packed away is that I also had a another engine from the early 60's that I'm sure I still have but so far it location has eluded me.


Hah. My brother and I had a Dockside decades ago. It got too close to a heat source and melted some of the shell. I can't remember if it had one or two rubber bands. That guy was our only locomotive at the time, with us not having too much to spend.


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## tkruger (Jan 18, 2009)

I used to have a large fleet of Mantua, Varney, John English steamers. Powered with Pittman motors. When I went DCC it did not make sense to re-motor / convert all of these. Also at the same time I was moving towards a post WW2 era on my layout. All this lead to me letting go of most of these. If I still ran DC and steam era then I would still be running them. These old ones are just to costly to convert in volume.


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## Murv2 (Nov 5, 2017)

Here's your gondola's great uncle (or something like that). It's a Varney 65' with wood base, cardstock sides and lead ends and ribs. While looking for instructions I found instructions for a similar 40' gondola assembled the same way, wouldn't that be something?


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## rsv1ho (Oct 16, 2019)

Murv2 said:


> View attachment 539819
> 
> Here's your gondola's great uncle (or something like that). It's a Varney 65' with wood base, cardstock sides and lead ends and ribs. While looking for instructions I found instructions for a similar 40' gondola assembled the same way, wouldn't that be something?


Very Nice. Varney made some pretty wild stuff over the years. Some pretty innovative, some not so. I'm drawn to their locomotives, especially those coil spring band drives. Not sure why, maybe it's the integrated modular construction. 

I have one that runs for about a minute or less then overheats and shorts out, band drive connected or not. I have cleaned the commutator with emery cloth then washed it out with CRC contact cleaner to no avail. I know it's the armature not the brushes or field as I have swapped it out with a known good one. Ordered a new motor for it. .


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## SoShoresGuy (Jan 23, 2013)

Hah, what an idiot I am. It wasn't a Dockside, it was the Athern Hustler. Man, that thing would fly, litteraly.


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## kilowatt62 (Aug 18, 2019)

SoShoresGuy said:


> Hah, what an idiot I am. It wasn't a Dockside, it was the Athern Hustler. Man, that thing would fly, litteraly.
> View attachment 539912


Yep. I still have one of these lil fellers. It is indeed fast. Gotta be careful on the throttle while in the yard moving freight around. "No smashups please."


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## rsv1ho (Oct 16, 2019)

kilowatt62 said:


> Yep. I still have one of these lil fellers. It is indeed fast. Gotta be careful on the throttle while in the yard moving freight around. "No smashups please."


There is one on ebay right now. $15 BIN.









Vintage HO Athearn Band Driven Yellow Hustler Switcher Diesel Engine #58 TESTED | eBay


Nice condition.



www.ebay.com





I have a few, mostly AHM's Plymouth. My first HO model locomotive. It disappeared years ago, so I bought another, and another, and another...…..


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## kilowatt62 (Aug 18, 2019)

Rsv1ho, 
Indeed you do. I see afew 10 wheelers too. I need to aquire a couple those. 1880's through, oh say, 1910ish.


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## tkruger (Jan 18, 2009)

I have one of those in Yellow. Re motored it with a old Lindsey gear drive. The drive kit had this little motor that fit between the axles and powered the axles by a gear. Draws little current. Placed an NCE decoder in it and it runs a smooth and slow as any modern HO switcher. Only issue is that there is no weight to it, limited to only a few cars at a time, similar to the prototype.



SoShoresGuy said:


> Hah, what an idiot I am. It wasn't a Dockside, it was the Athern Hustler. Man, that thing would fly, litteraly.
> View attachment 539912


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## rsv1ho (Oct 16, 2019)

tkruger said:


> I have one of those in Yellow. Re motored it with a old Lindsey gear drive. The drive kit had this little motor that fit between the axles and powered the axles by a gear. Draws little current. Placed an NCE decoder in it and it runs a smooth and slow as any modern HO switcher. Only issue is that there is no weight to it, limited to only a few cars at a time, similar to the prototype.



These keep following me home. 

Found two more A & B units both powered. Unusual.

I can't figure the flywheels. Best case they limit they speed to the innermost pully which is the slowest speed. None ran when I got them tested on the track. Can't figure how they come off.

Removed the shell on one, dumped the whole thing is hot soapy water (that's right) and scrubbed. Completely disassembled and individually cleaned each piece cleaning the badly contaminated armatures commutator in the process. Put it all back together and it's one of my best performing locomotives.


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## SoShoresGuy (Jan 23, 2013)

Very nice. Good job.


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## rsv1ho (Oct 16, 2019)

Haven't given up on them. Added a few. Amazing part is they all run...……..now. Not so when I bought them. One or two barely made it around the track but most wouldn't even move. Some B units are powered, some not. 
Most are belt drive, a couple are gear driven. Only plastic model is center yellow/gray.


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## Hagan Meinke (May 26, 2020)

this is the only varney item I own


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## rsv1ho (Oct 16, 2019)

A lot of history regarding Varney, they managed to survive despite an unmotivating name alike Athearn, Rapido, Rivarossi etc. have. 

Ever since I have been hyping these, the ebay prices have risen. Last two ordinary examples went for $72 and $54. I had been used to buying them for <$20. I'm my own worst enemy.


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## Stumpy (Mar 19, 2013)

Lay off a bit RSV. You're bending the demand curve and driving up prices!


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## rsv1ho (Oct 16, 2019)

Well, as soon as the new owners see just how poorly these run, they will turn around and sell them again at vastly reduced prices. The challenge is getting them to run at all and that is what I enjoy doing.


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## cid (Jul 3, 2014)

And then you can invest in some more!! rsv, you got it going on!! 😃


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## rsv1ho (Oct 16, 2019)

cid said:


> And then you can invest in some more!! rsv, you got it going on!! 😃


I should qualify that "getting them to run at all" statement. Should be - when compared to some of the better running locomotives like Atlas, later Athearns, and Rapidos. For the technology of the times, Varneys run pretty good, surely the equal of most Rivarossis, Athearns, and Bachmanns. It's the coiled spring belt drives that I find intriguing. It's a balance between adjusting the motor magnet screw and the drive mechanism screws that's key.


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## cid (Jul 3, 2014)

Seriously, this kind of project is what's great about this hobby! "Making it work", whatever "it" happens to be!! 👍


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## alaft61ri (Oct 11, 2019)

I havent heard of them but pretty cool looking.


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## dsertdog56 (Oct 26, 2014)

My dad gifted me with some various Varney pieces when I received his trains. Unfortunately, the locomotives are all gone. There are a number of pieces of rolling stock. The boxcar/refers are not correctly proportionate to everything else, they tend to run small. The later plastic bodied stuff is much closer.
I intend on fixing what I can to put on the layout anyway.
Varney made some nice entry/mid level stuff back in the day. I wish my brother and I had been easier on it when we were kids!


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## rogruth (Mar 6, 2012)

My first HO loco was a Varney Dockside that I bought in 1947 or 1948. It cost $15.00 and did NOT have a spring or rubber band drive. It used a worm/gear drive and ran great, I last used it in June of 1952 when packing up my HO and Lionel O before going to college. All of trains disappeared while I attended college.


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## Big Bill (Nov 19, 2019)

A picture of my Varney / all nation in O scale


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## Diesel Fuel (Apr 10, 2018)

I have several pieces of rolling stock but they are all plastic models with spring trucks. They look pretty good with the Revell cars I have. I have never seen the locos but I have several Revell F-7 locos


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## rsv1ho (Oct 16, 2019)

May latest Varney purchase on ebay. .99 + $6.50 shipping.

Bought it for the motor, but will probably sandblast and restore.


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## Stumpy (Mar 19, 2013)

Nice weathering job!

Oh wait...


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## Lemonhawk (Sep 24, 2013)

Varney Dockside -- missing some parts?


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## rsv1ho (Oct 16, 2019)

I don't know, we'll see. Ninety nine cents. 

Thought it might be missing the coupler and the boiler cover, both common missing items but it has both. Sandblasting and a




























spritz of satin black may do wonders.


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## rsv1ho (Oct 16, 2019)

These a little better. ebay $30. Disassembled and painted the frames and trucks and added horns. Nice runner.


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## Diesel Fuel (Apr 10, 2018)

Has anyone else noticed how many similarities there are between Varney and Revell cars and locos? Revell used the talgo trucks and metal frame but that's about the only difference. And I have some Varney with the metal frame.


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## rsv1ho (Oct 16, 2019)

I don't have any Revell products to compare, but I did check Revell locos on ebay and I can't see any similarities to Varney's. Maybe I'm not looking in the right place.

A Revell F-7










Nice looking , but plastic with different trucks and drive mechanisms.

But I do have a funny story regarding my last two Varney purchases, both from the same seller and days apart.

The first A/B set had different roof inserts that did not match. Second set he offered had the inserts intended for the first set. Evidently, he or the PO swapped them around. I bought the second set + some Varney parts and got the originals back together.


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## briangcc (Oct 11, 2012)

Have an A-B-B-A F unit set in Santa Fe red warbonnet. Custom painted & detailed by yours truly. Have Athearn drives stuffed in them.

My dad has a set in NYC cigar band with Hobbytown drives.

Think we have 3 of the 4-6-0 steam engines. Also have a few SW7/NW2 offerings with either Athearn or Hobbytown drives.

And I think we have a couple more A-B-B-A sets in the making...been a while since I dusted off my HO collection....been mostly working in O scale with my boys.


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## rsv1ho (Oct 16, 2019)

_ NYC cigar band_ . Thanks, had to look that one up, hadn't heard that before. Guess a few more road names could qualify for that tag too.

So your saying that you use Varney shells for Athearn and Hobbytown drives?

I keep finding Varney F-3's with flywheels stuffed in them. Poor choice, inhibits turning radius among other things. Took this Pennsylvania RR F-3 and cut the brass insert down then finished on the drill press chucked up and held a file to it smoothing it out. This one arrived with no drive belt so I used a standard rubber band. Works great and runs as well as my coil spring drives. 

Pictures are in inverse order. Media blasted the PRR shell and frame and painted satin black, waiting for single stripe PRR decals to dress it up. Intact flywheel pictured is for reference.


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## briangcc (Oct 11, 2012)

Most if not all of mine were just shells. Cut the tabs off the blue box Athearn F7 and the chassis slides in nice and snug.

I glued the roof hatch in place. Installed gobs of detail parts - grabs, handrails, headlight castings where appropriate, etc.

Put a Hobbytown drive in there with a big can motor and flywheels...with right gearing it’ll easily coast 4+ feet.

For the switchers, same deal. Either use an Athearn SW7 blue box or toss Hobbytown underneath as they made a switcher chassis at one point....or make your own out of brass stock.


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## rsv1ho (Oct 16, 2019)

I restrain myself, but this is neat.

Like I did with the Cox Mercedes, I have gone a little nutz with these vintage Varney locomotives. Somehow the early open frame DC motors and the geared power drives intrigue me. No mass produced encased "can" motors here or plastic/nylon gears either. Brass only with wick lubrication, gears and motor. Quality construction and built to last.

Most of these were sold as kits that the customer put together and painted to their likes. Rare to find these with the add on kits that Varney provided that featured crystals for the head and running lights and a brass flywheel for smoother starts and stops. Die cast body too. All wheels are driven.

Out of my thirty or so, I have only three of these. Last week I found another on ebay. I always search "newly listed" and found this one. "Coal Mountain Route" custom done by some old timer of long ago. Talking 1940's/50's here.

https://servimg.com/view/19152833/6197
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https://servimg.com/view/19152833/6196
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This one has something I have never seen before, an additional weight with a cast in Varney name and part number. It makes the whole engine the heaviest in my collection. Were it a plane it would never get off the ground. This one arrived filthy, dirt, dust everywhere. I removed the body and dumped the hole thing in hot soapy water, yup, motor and all. These can take a punch. Blew out with compressed air, dried carefully with heat gun, put on on the layout and took right off running like it just came out of the factory.

A short time ago the same seller posted another one. Also $16.50 BIN. Snatched it up.

https://servimg.com/view/19152833/6199
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https://servimg.com/view/19152833/6198
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https://servimg.com/view/19152833/6200
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Copied and pasted from my Cox Engine Forum page. 
















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## Dennis461 (Jan 5, 2018)

Did we mention steam?


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## rsv1ho (Oct 16, 2019)

Dennis461 said:


> Did we mention steam?
> View attachment 569684





Dennis461 said:


> Did we mention steam?
> View attachment 569684


Wow, dormant for a year plus and we're back. 

Great. You actually DCC'd a Casey Jones? What's the Allen key/wrench for? 

Yes, steam. 

Something new? Tried to post a picture and got something like - Not an allowed extension. Curious as I have posted many pictures here, many on this thread alone.


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## Dennis461 (Jan 5, 2018)

rsv1ho said:


> Great. You actually DCC'd a Casey Jones?
> *Yup, still working out the kinks, motor trouble*
> 
> What's the Allen key/wrench for?
> *The top tender has a Allen key bolt for electrical connection to engine*


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## Dennis461 (Jan 5, 2018)

Replaced motor again, found a can motor (Ebay) to fit, with enough power to pull 10 cars on my grades. It is a 6VDC, 19000RPM motor with long shaft. I had to set max speed very low in DCC.

Started a Varney 2-8-0 DCC upgrade, may keep original motor in it.

*Mabuchi FF-170PA-2548 DC 3V 5V 6V 19000RPM High Speed Long Shaft Mini DC Motor




*


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## dsertdog56 (Oct 26, 2014)

Varney...
Boy that takes me back. All the train sets listed around Christmas with those dockside steamers.
My dad had several of those F series diesels, and a Varney "Old lady" or Casey Jones engine. He may have had more, but those I remember.
Sadly, they were scrapped many years before the internet.
Now rolling stock? That's another story. I have many examples of Varney, from undersized boxcars, refers, gondolas, metal and plastic cars, and cabooses. I love 'em even if they aren't 100% accurate.
Varney made a lot of great products. I also believe that Revell used Varney products, the resemblances are uncanny.
Kudos for resurrecting a "forgotten flag" of the hobby!


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## 498cm3 (Jul 30, 2021)

Did they make a diesel switcher in HO? Heavy solid metal, gears, shell, everything. Runs like a boss with a nice light...I have one very old but can't remember if it's Varney or I have it mixed up.
Doc

Sent from my moto e6 using Tapatalk


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## Old_Hobo (Feb 20, 2014)

A little Varney history….



> Varney relocated the company to Miami, Florida, in 1955. Some of the steam locomotives previously developed by Varney were acquired by Penn Line Manufacturing, which itself was later acquired by Bowser Manufacturing. In 1960, Gordon Varney sold his company to Sol Kramer of Life-Like Products. Gordon Varney died in 1965. Model trains continued to be produced under the Varney name until March 1970, when the branding was changed to "Life-Like." Gordon Varney was named a "Pioneer of Model Railroading" by the Model Railroad Industry Association (now the Hobby Manufacturers Association) in 1985.


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## dsertdog56 (Oct 26, 2014)

Varney love...
Die cast underframe, wood floor/brass frame, with metal bodies, and molded plastic underframe and body.


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