TT scale trains and models

Here is a 1954 HP Products TT Scale catalog that I bought recently, scanned in to share with everyone here:

Can you imagine where we might be now if HPP had kept it going? ....................

ConducTTor wrote:Can you imagine where we might be now if HPP had kept it going? ....................

I wonder that myself. It is pretty damn neat, though, how TT came to be, and how it was largely the efforts of one man at first that brought out a scale against the HO/OO juggernaut and actually hung in there for some time.

Pretty much every manufacturer that has been around for a long time is no longer the same. Lionel has gone under several time, Marx, Varney, and A.C. Gilbert are gone, and Atlas, Athearn, and Bowser have made so many changes that they are not the same company any more...

It is interesting to consider. What if N scale came in 10 years later? What would that have done?
And according to John Harmon, a big part of wht HP decided to sell off it's TT division wasn't just because of the slow sales- Most of the work was done as a side business outside the regular HP factory. But the "real" business got busy with government contract work during the Vietnam war and that's what hurt.
Or my big question- What if Irv Athearn had decided in 1955 or so to give TT a shot? We'd probably have Genesis TT with DCC and sound by now!

areibel wrote:It is interesting to consider. What if N scale came in 10 years later? What would that have done?
And according to John Harmon, a big part of wht HP decided to sell off it's TT division wasn't just because of the slow sales- Most of the work was done as a side business outside the regular HP factory. But the "real" business got busy with government contract work during the Vietnam war and that's what hurt.
Or my big question- What if Irv Athearn had decided in 1955 or so to give TT a shot? We'd probably have Genesis TT with DCC and sound by now!

That is something to ponder. If Athearn had tried TT, I doubt that I would hate that company as much as I do now.

I have a Gandy Dancer booklet that I am scanning in now, and should be up here in a little while.

Here is a Gandy Dancer newsletter from April 1954 that I scanned in to share with everyone here. Enjoy!

Here is a scanned copy of the 01December1949 HP catalog for all to enjoy.

On the very last page there is a "ripple ramp". Anybody know what that is??

ConducTTor wrote:On the very last page there is a "ripple ramp". Anybody know what that is??

Yes. I have a few of them myself, and I did a review of them about two years ago.

Ripple Ramps were a method of remote uncoupling using the link-type automatic couplers that HP used on most of their products (said couplers were very close to the contemporary HO and OO scale couplers of the 1940's and 1950's).

Here is a link to my review: http://www.ttnut.com/hp-products-ripple-ramps-t798.html

Aha ok. At first I assumed it was an uncoupling mech but got confused over the term "ripple".