Maybe it was a last ditch effort to legitimize a model train company that had, by 1979, become the butt of every joke about quality control. The "TYCO Model Railroad Manual" takes what had long been relegated to the Saturday morning cartoon set and adds all the regular elements of a beginning modeler's primer on how to build a layout---if only they had put a better quality product out to back it up. Could anyone familiar with TYCO locomotives imagine running a serious operating session complete with a card order system...with Power Torque motors and X2f couplers?
My guess is that the folks at Chiltons realized a marketing error and came back four years later with a reissue of the same book under a different title, "The HO Model Railroading Handbook." All the same wording is there, the only exception being the mention of other producers such as Life-Like and Bachmann and a dozen pictures either added to or replacing other TYCO photographs---and an additional $6 to the original retail price of $7.95. Nice effort...but...could anyone familiar with Life-Like and Bachmann locomotives imagine running a serious operating session complete with a card order system...with Kader motors and X2f couplers?
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