April 30, 2024
While attending the York Train show in April 2024 I happened upon a unique engine in the “White” member hall. This American Flyer engine was one of the rare 1950 releases that had “wire hand rails”. It is hard to see the difference between this version, and the one that simply had the handrails painted in black. The green card is actually slid between the wire handrail and the engine body, so that you can see it better.
IIn addition, this particular engine is the one that Bob Tufts used in the Greenberg book on Variations. (Officially written by Joe T. Deger, Bob Tufts wrote portions of this book. Though out of print for many years, this book can sometimes be purchased at train shows, eBay etc. Copyright (c) 1991 Kalmbach Pub Co)
While the engine is in much worse condition than this photo indicates (part its nose is missing), I am still thrilled to have this piece of American Flyer history in my collection.
Chuck
November 10, 2020
MyFlyeTrains.Net now has an SSL certificate. I did this to try and slow these warnings from browsers saying that the website was somehow a security risk to visit. Seems crazy, since we don’t have any credit card processing, or even anything to sign up to, but I caved in. So if you come in to the site by http:// rather than https:// (the secure version), the first time you click a menu you will be taken to the https:// version of the site, and will often see the little padlock in the address bar of your browser. Similarly, if you come in by the MyFlyerTrains.Org or MyFlyerTrains.Com, again the first menu you click on will put you onto the secure SSL https:// site. I hope that people will have less problems with their browsers crying wolf all the time. Some of the links on the site, like in the catalog section are still http:// and it will take me a while to address that.
Thanks for using MyFlyerTrains.Net!
Chuck
November 9, 2020
The chat room has been successfully fully migrated and upgraded to the latest version. All of the user logins along with your avatars are there. My thanks go to Ciprian Murariu, the developer of the chatroom software, for making this happen. It has been an interesting 3 weeks, but the website is pretty much fully migrated and updated! There will be some minor tweaks but the website should stay up from now on! There will now be 3 ways to get to MyFlyerTrains: MyFlyerTrains.Net, MyFlyerTrains.Org, and MyFlyerTrains.com. As always, thanks for using MyFlyerTrains!
November 5, 2020
MyFlyerTrains was hosted by the same company for over 15 years. I will spare you the ugly details, except to say that they are going to be turning off their servers, which forced me to move this website. Much of the content at MyFlyerTrains.org was using old software, that when applied to the new web hosting server, did not work. The problem I faced was huge, and had it not been for the encouragement of Dale Smith of http://americanflyerdisplays.org this day might never have come. Thanks Dale!
Dale suggested a piece of software called Jalbum, and Jalbum now displays the photo album content making it look better than ever. Phones and tablets are now supported, and you can just swipe through the photos on your tablet effortlessly. The new site is also hosted by a well known company that has been around a long time. I plan to pay everything years ahead, so hopefully even if something happens to me, the site will still stay up for a long time.
Deep in the archieves of the old MyFlyerTrains.org I found some real gems that were posted years ago, but long forgotten at least for me. Stumpy Stones kit-bashing articles are wonderful! The photos you photo album owners have uploaded are spectacular!
There has been a price to all this. It has taken me over 100 hours of work to migrate the photo albums to Jalbum. Part of the problem with the old album software (Gallery) was that every time the hosting company updated there MYSQL or PHP, the album broke. The albums are now just plain old HTML. YES, YOUR ALBUMS HAVE BEEN MIGRATED!
But, if you have an album here, you will have to send your new photos to me at email myflyertrains@cfl.rr.com and let me post them for you. Also tell me where you would like them put. Many of you have done this anyway in the past. I am sorry for this inconvenience, but it is just me managing this website, and I do not have my own IT staff. I can not deal with the MYSQL and PHP updates. Also, although in many cases I have copied the original view counts to the photos, these counts will never increment, because of the change away from the “Gallery” software. If you would like an album, let me know, I would be happy to add your train related photos to the website.
My work to update the website will continue, but I believe it has come far enough already, that I can share the new site with all of you.
To all of you that have contributed content to the website of over the years, go my thanks! And as always, thanks for using MyFlyerTrains.org /.net!
Chuck
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04/17/2019
Modular Layout at York
York had many great train layouts on display. The Atlantic Coast S Gaugers had a great one in the White Hall. I really liked their use of an Erector Set Bridge. It really fits in when you are running American Flyer!
I was sorry to see the York Train Show end. My first show since 2011, and my first time camping right at the show. That is the way to go to the show! I had a great time, and spent way too much money. LOL
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4/11/2019
York Flyernut Meeting
For many years a special event has taken place during the York Train Show, The Flyernut Meeting. Tonight’s meeting of about 100 Flyer enthusiasts was largely focused on variations of Circus cars, especially the flat car that carried the cages, the cages and the animals.
Having never owned a circus set, I had no idea that there was so much to know about them. A couple of the people presenting had recently purchased on eBay pre-production prototype flat cars, that were actually hand lettered. One gentlemen boosted that he owned about 40 different cages, that he has been collecting for about 10 years. I was reminded that this is a very diverse hobby, that even the smallest details you can make a career of studying them! A good time was had by all!
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