Hello, my name is Nicole. I am an avid model railroading enthusiast with a particular focus on models produced by the manufacturer Varney.

This will be an ongoing project of mine to document the history of Varney, and showcase my own Varney model trains.

Varney as a company was founded in 1936 by Gordon Varney, in Chicago, Illinois. His company specialized in HO scale model railroading, and played a big role in making HO scale as popular as it is today. Gordon Varney is often referred to as the grandfather of HO model railroading. Varney specialized in producing purposely generic locomotive kits. They were not designed to specifically match any prototype, rather it was intended the models be used as a base for a modeler to modify, and build whatever specific prototype they desired. For the most part, this worked well, and the kits were very popular in their day. The company lasted on it's own until 1960, at which point Gordon sold the company to Sol Kramer of Lifelike, who continued to produce a few models under the Varney name until it was finally retired in 1970.

Many of the old Varney toolings went on to see use long after the company was sold in 1960. LifeLike continued to utilize a couple locomotive toolings, as well as various rolling stock toolings. These would eventually end up under ownership of Proto who likely still owns them to this day. Through Penn Line, Bowser models acquired the rest of the steam locomotive toolings and are believed to own them to this day. Bowser continued to produce a few of the locomotives, as well as a number of various parts.

A Complete list of Varney locomotives: Varney Locomotive List

Varney Locomotive Diagrams and Literature from HOseeker: Varney Literature

The holy grail of Varney collecting: The Varney Yellowstone

This website is a work in progress! I will gradually be adding more pages and a gallery of photos of all my locomotives and rolling stock. Thank you for having a look!

- Nicole

PS: If you have any reccommendations for the website, anything you think needs corrected, or would like to potentially submit a photo for use when I set up the gallery, send me an email, peterbilts101@gmail.com

It would be much appreciated.

Last updated: January 2nd 2025