What are these?

[JHansen]

I've got four cars that I'd like to identify. All are N-Scale and made of die cast metal. The manufacturer is "Maisto". The couplers are non-Rapido but do not open and close like modern knuckle type. They will couple with my more modern cars though and have a copper piece projecting downward that should cause uncoupling on a magnetic track section. The wheel flanges are too deep to run on my Kato Unitrack. The cars are larger than the rest of my N-Scales but substantially smaller than HO. Two are single dome tank cars, one marked "Lion Oil Company" and the other "Red Crown Gasoline". An open hopper is marked "Southern". The caboose is marked "Rio Grande - The Action Road". To my uneducated eye all four are nicely detailed and are in excellent shape.

Can anyone tell me what I have? Why are they larger in size than they should be? Any value or should I just put them on a section of track and set it on the mantle as a display?

Thanks!
John

 

[rlundy90]

Could they be 1/120 scale usually referred to as TT? They fit your discription, but I am not sure if the wheels will even fit on N scale track

 

[bnsf971]

They are pretty much just for decoration, kind of like the Reader's Digest giveaways from a few years ago. From a couple of feet, they look pretty good, but, like you said, they are not quite to scale. Nor will they operate reliably. From your description, I'd say they are 1/144th scale.

 

[fiend540]

Miasto is a die cast car manufacturer and they make things form detailed scale models down to cheap china dollar store crap.

 

[UP2CSX]

They are Maisto diecast 1:131 scale diecast trains. These are bought mostly by diecast collectors. They are just close enough to both N scale at 1:160 and TT scale at 1:120 to fit on those tracks but they were meant to run on Maisto's own 1:131 track. I have no idea how rare or common those are but there is a collectors market for them, but not as N scale model trains.

 

[JHansen]

I think you nailed it. I've never heard of TT which isn't surprising considering how new I am to this. After I checked closely I see that the wheels don't fit the track. The flanges are exactly the same width as the track itself so you can't get the wheels to sit inside.

Thanks for the help. I think I'll put them on display. Maybe I'll make shadow boxes for them. They really do look good and are well detailed.

John