Bachmann - 24005 - Passenger Train, Steam, North American, Old Time - Santa Fe - Iron Duke

Specific Item Information: Bachmann N Scale Iron Duke Train Set With E-Z Track - Item No. 24005

The Iron Duke train set comes complete with Bachmann's exclusive E-Z Track® snap-fit track and roadbed system, plus:

An 0-6-0 steam locomotive with slope back tender Single dome tank car Box car Covered hopper Off-center caboose 34" x 24" oval of nickle silver E-Z Track® including 11 pieces Curved track, 4 pieces straight track and 1 curved plug-in terminal rerailer. 12 telephone poles 24 railroad and street signs UL listed power pack Illustrated instruction manual

Prototype History: Passenger train service has been around as long as the railroad itself. In general, early passenger trains, especially during the railroad industry's early years, were relatively dangerous. While steam allowed for faster, and a more efficient means of transportation, this did not necessarily translate into a safer way of travel. Our country’s first railroads like the B&O, Mohawk & Hudson, Albany & Schenectady, South Carolina Canal & Railroad, and others used mostly trial and error in learning what worked and what did not which, unfortunately, sometimes resulted in injuries or deaths. To make matters worse, shoddy construction practices and lack of government oversight, as railroads raced to build new rail lines and rapidly expand their networks, caused numerous deaths and injuries in the 19th century. For instance, early railroad roadbed practices involved using simple large stones to support the track structure, which quickly sank into the soil. This caused tracks to go out of alignment causing derailments. Also, the early rail designs of iron strap rails on wooden track caused deadly “snake heads” when they worked loose, disintegrating the wooden floors of passenger cars, sometimes killing the occupants inside.

Road Name History: The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (reporting mark ATSF), often abbreviated as Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. Chartered in February 1859, the railroad reached the Kansas-Colorado border in 1873 and Pueblo, Colorado, in 1876. To create a demand for its services, the railroad set up real estate offices and sold farm land from the land grants that it was awarded by Congress. Despite the name, its main line never served Santa Fe, New Mexico, as the terrain was too difficult; the town ultimately was reached by a branch line from Lamy.

The Santa Fe was a pioneer in intermodal freight transport, an enterprise that (at one time or another) included a tugboat fleet and an airline (the short-lived Santa Fe Skyway). Its bus line extended passenger transportation to areas not accessible by rail, and ferryboats on the San Francisco Bay allowed travelers to complete their westward journeys to the Pacific Ocean. The ATSF was the subject of a popular song, Harry Warren & Johnny Mercer's "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe", written for the film, The Harvey Girls (1946).

The railroad officially ceased operations on December 31, 1996, when it merged with the Burlington Northern Railroad to form the Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway.

Read more on Wikipedia.

Brand/Importer Information: Bachmann Industries (Bachmann Brothers, Inc.) is a Bermuda registered Chinese owned company, globally headquartered in Hong Kong; specializing in model railroading.

Founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the home of its North American headquarters, Bachmann is today part of the Kader group, who model products are made at a Chinese Government joint-venture plant in Dongguan, China. Bachmann's brand is the largest seller, in terms of volume, of model trains in the world. Bachmann primarily specializes in entry level train sets, and premium offerings in many scales. The Spectrum line is the high quality, model railroad product line, offered in N, HO, Large Scale, On30, and Williams O gauge all aimed for the hobbyist market. Bachmann is the producer of the famous railroad village product line known as "Plasticville." The turnover for Bachmann model trains for the year ended 31 December 2006 was approximately $46.87 million, a slight increase of 3.36% as compared to 2005.