THE GILBERT HALL American Flyer, Operating And Assembly Instructions Manual

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You now have
a
freight or passenger train. You can’t leave the train on the
main line so you’ll need a freight or a coach yard. Leaving the station for a trip
around town and back to the station
is a rather aimless job for a railroad.
Better lay tracks to the next town, a t least. Keep in mind the fact that space
must be allotted for future expansion.
The freight yard will eventually have a number of tracks and switches
with an assortment of cars and a switcher scurrying back and forth picking
up cars and backing them onto the make-up track where a transcontinental
freight train is being assembled. A powerful locomotive steams u p from the
round-house and waits to be coupled to this freight. Over near the station a string
of stainless steel coaches, headed by a sleek looking two unit Diesel, stands
ready for a long journey. The train caller, baggage smasher and station hands
become alert a t the approach of the express. I t stops at the station for a moment.
Passengers board it while succeeding stops are announced and then, whistle
blowing, away it goes with its club car and Pullmans to resume its
race against time.
While it screams over a trestle and rushes through a tunnel, the block
signals all show a green light indicating a clear road ahead. Meanwhile the
freight gets a highball as the man in the signal tower clears it onto the main
line. The signal lights, now red since the passing of the express, become
green again and the freight train proceeds to a factory siding at the out-
skirts of town where it picks up a car
of scrap iron just loaded by a mag-
netic crane. Thundering along, it crosses a highway over a massive girder
bridge and pulls into an oil depot, uncoupling and leaving several tank cars
of
gasoline. As it travels on, it enters an open switch onto a passing siding.
The switch is then thrown back to the main line leaving the train beneath a
water tank, to fill its tender while the excursion train goes through to the
Big City, drawn by a sturdy American Flyer K5-Pacific.
The excursion train finally reaches its destination The express is now
far out into the country whizzing by wayside stations and billboards, whistle
blowing and smoke streaming from the stack.
It cuts across the tracks of a
branch line with
a
great clatter of wheels, while the local stops to allow it to
pass, and on it goes over miles of rail to some distant city. Meanwhile the
freight leaves the siding and continues its journey towards its western terminal.
Every bit of this action is automatic or operated from a control board
when you use American Flyer equipment. You sit in the dispatcher’s chair
with train orders before you and run your whole railroad system by simply
pushing buttons and throwing levers.
Of
course, you probably won’t be for-
tunate enough to have all this at once but you must start with a definite
plan
in mind, similar to the above system, and add to your present equip-
ment, piece by piece, making each purchase increase your sphere of opera-
tions
along
the lines
of
your plan.
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