Introducing the Gilbert American Flyer HO Index
A Catalog Reference with Photos
| This website was originally
conceived to be a simple reference to the Gilbert American Flyer HO trains that appeared
in the catalogs, with links to the online catalogs from the MyFlyerTrains.org website. Chuck Harrington, who
created that site, and those who contributed catalogs, have provided a great resource for
collectors of the trains manufactured by the A.C. Gilbert Company. From that modest
beginning things sort of took off, with interested Gilbert HO collectors offering me
photos of their collections to put on the website. After much work by these
individuals taking the pictures and by me putting them on the website, we now have an
almost complete collection of all the HO items manufactured by the A.C. Gilbert
Company. At present, there are only 2 items of rolling stock and 2 accessories
that are not illustrated with a photo. Our photos of track and power items are not
quite as complete with about 50 items remaining un-illustrated by photos. To the maximum extent possible, this website relies on original documentation in the catalogs, augmented with individual collector reports concerning uncataloged items. This index is not intended as a replacement any books that are available on the subject of Gilbert American Flyer HO, some of which are not easy to obtain. To my knowledge, there are 3 books available that cover the subject of Gilbert American Flyer HO. The first of these works is Gilbert American Flyer HO, 1938-1963 by Gary Klein. This book, which is now in its 3rd edition, is available directly from Mr. Klein. You can click here for information on how to order this book. The first edition was in hard bound form and the second edition was available on CD ROM, complete with color photographs and 3 dimensional views. The 3rd Edition is Spiral bound with plastic covers. The second book covering Gilbert HO is The Standard Catalog of American Flyer Trains, by David Doyle, which devotes a chapter to them, but lists only rolling stock and accessories with no separate listing of the sets. This book is currently available from many bookstores and online merchants. The third book is a reference work by Charles Sommers, which appears to be out of print. All of these books are valuable references and I strongly recommend them to anyone with a serious interest in A.C. Gilbert HO trains. I wish to thank Chuck Harrington for allowing me to use images from his website to illustrate the items on this website. I also wish to thank Daryl Olszeski whose contributions of photographs of his collection helped this website to become more than just the catalog index it started out to be. I also wish to thank Gary Klein and Paul Beno who helped immensely by providing photos of some of the harder to find items. With each new photo, I learn more about these interesting trains and will attempt to share that new knowledge with you. I welcome your contributions in the form of additional photos, new information, or correction of errors. Even though the pages were thoroughly checked before putting them on the web, there are bound to be errors. You can contact me at gilbertafho@att.net. I hope you enjoy using these pages. |
Dale Smith |
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