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I now have a passenger train to pull behind my Lionel 262E: two 2640 Pullmans and a 2641 Observation. They were definitely run but there's no rust and the paint looks original to my untrained eyes. Lights in two of them work, as do the electro couplers on all. Some of the window covering sheets are broken or falling down, but that's not bad for a toy that is from what I read 84 years young, at least. The original boxes may have protected them through the decades.

I learned that my 1033 transformer lacked the required jiggawatts of oomph to make this engine pull these cars. (The 1033 did ok when the same engine was only pulling 3 shorty tinplate cars.) So I pulled out a ZW transformer that was in my friend's bundle of trains that I bought. It needs to be refurbished, but someone had replaced the cord, so I gave it a try and it's got the right stuff for the job.

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Turned an old Ives passenger car into a fantasy South Shore trolley.  Sandblasted it and painted with rattle cans.  Made and printed my own decals.  Powered and non-powered trucks purchased from Dan Furmanski (Trainmakers).  Sound unit is an old K-Line interurban sound board.  Added a few LEDs.  Planning to add an e-unit in the future.

South Shore trolley side viewSouth Shore trolley rear lightsSouth Shore trolley front lights 1

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Last edited by Mallard4468
@Mallard4468 posted:

Turned an old Ives passenger car into a fantasy South Shore trolley.  Sandblasted it and painted with rattle cans.  Made and printed my own decals.  Powered and non-powered trucks purchased from Dan Furmanski (Trainmakers).  Sound unit is an old K-Line interurban sound board.  Added a few LEDs.  Planning to add an e-unit in the future.



Kudos! Love your creativity (and your skills)!!

George

Reviving 1930s Lionel 238 Streamlined Torpedo Locomotive with Marx motor and Tinplate Tender

I have owed a Lionel 238, the Loewy’s 1936 designed, torpedo streamlined body and old style metal tinplate tender for several years, origin unknown.  It needed a motor and I found an old Marx four wheel one from a Marx 999 that seemed to work and fit.  The Marx motor did not have the mount and two front wheels like the 999 does.

I have looked into adding a pair of wheels on the front and on the rear to make a 2-4-2 but could not come up with "something" that would work but believe if I can find a mount and set of wheels from a 999 they would work.  They can be added later so for now I am going with a 0-4-0, which will run with no derailments of front or rear wheels.

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A metal mount was made for the rear and front of the motor into the engine and J B Welded them in.  Also made was a small metal tube to hold the head light, which is a 12v mini Christmas tree bulb, bulb holder, wire and socket.  A small hole was drilled into the top of the metal hole to let hot air out and added a small piece of red clear plastic to make a little red glow on the stack.  A locomotive coupler was installed.

The coal tender had a set of Lionel trucks, one with a Lionel coupler, were installed and a tender coupler was added to the front.

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Marx 999 motor and coal tender coupler shown below installed

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The engine and tender were painted with flat darkest gray spray primer and then covered all with clear glossy paint.  A small metal strip was labeled with "L I O N E L "letters and sprayed with clear.  This was installed were the original engine had a strip labeled "Pennsylvania".  I decal-ed the engine and tender as "Pennsylvania" and used the side strip to show "Lionel" as the manufacturer not the fictitious "Lionel Lines" as Lionel had done.  The decals were sprayed with clear glossy paint to seal them on.



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This picture shows the head light and the Red lighted smoke stack glow from the fire box

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Below is my Marx cars tinplate train , most from a Marx 999 freight car set,  being pulled with the new to me Lionel 0-4-0 Torpedo stream lined steam locomotive.  This is an easy pull for the low powered Marx 999 style motor in the Torpedo.

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This was a fun project and is my first Torpedo Locomotive.  I now have a late 1930s streamlined torpedo loco and tinplate metal tender.  I do not know if a Lionel 238 torpedo die cast body is tinplate but the coal tender and sheet metal cars are tinplate.  I also run my Marx’s Santa Fe 3152 and 3197 tinplate passengers cars and Marx 999, 666 and 333 locomotives pulling mostly Marx tinplate cars.

Charlie

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Last edited by Choo Choo Charlie

Here is my original Lionel standard gauge 392E engine and cars. I bought it awhile back but it was not running. 20240627_192821I took out the motor, replaced the wires, gave it new brushes and cleaned/lubricated it. Interestingly,  the inside of the engine had sunflower seed shells and the wire was apparently chewed. 20240627_171144How did someting get in there, I don't know!! Now, this set runs great on the floor layout!                                                                                     

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Last edited by GZ
@GZ posted:

Here is my original Lionel standard gauge 392E engine and cars. I bought it awhile back but it was not running. 20240627_192821I took out the motor, replaced the wires, gave it new brushes and cleaned/lubricated it. Interestingly,  the inside of the engine had sunflower seed shells and the wire was apparently chewed. 20240627_171144How did someting get in there, I don't know!! Now, this set runs great on the floor layout!                                                                                     

Sounds like mice...

PD

I had some Marx cars with fixed plastic knuckle couplers. Then I got a Marx 666 whose tender had the tilt/wedge/fork coupler. I don't have anything with those couplers, but wanted the option to pull both that kind if I ever get them, as well as the plastic knuckle cars. On YouTube and I think on this Forum, somebody added a coupler to an existing truck, so I decided to try that, since I had a plastic Marx tender that was willing to donate its tab/slot coupler. I drilled out the rivet and chose the donor coupler that would clear the overhanging edge on the tender chassis. I positioned the new coupler between the chassis and the truck. My junk box had a screw and a couple nuts that were the right size. The tab/slot coupler couples to the Marx plastic knuckle and it works great. If I get cars with the other kind of coupler I can flip it around. This was my first project like this.

John

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Last edited by John's Trains
@cbq9911a posted:

Some customized 1670 - 1680 series Lionel lithographed freight cars.  The customized sides are cardstock (photo paper) overlays.  Lionel never made a refrigerator car, so the Blatz reefer is a resized car side.  The stock car is a Lionel 1678 (very rare) inspired by an Ives 1678. DSC_0373DSC_0374DSC_0379DSC_0380

These look very good. But just to make sure I understand: Did you create the car side images in a grahics program and then print them on photo paper and glue them to the car bodies? Because they're excellent.

John

This beautiful Unique Art 2000 AA set arrived Friday from Trainz. I've been watching this since, I believe, late December and have revisited the webpage dozens of times thinking for sure it would be gone. $5 or so at a time it came closer to my range. "If it's God's will for me to have this beautiful toy it'll be there," I thought. Unbelievably it came down to less than half the original price and I used my points to drop it another $5. The dummy unit has one bruise on the nose. Otherwise just a few small scratches. Inside the shell is spotless. All these months I've expected that these would be little more than eye candy because I've read that the most pulling power I could expect would be a few cars. I don't think there's any mod such as added weight, but they run smooth and pull 5 scale size cars including a heavy Atlas car and lighted caboose without strain, which is a normal size train for me. They do seem huge. 14" each, so about 56' scale. F7s were about 50', but now I see that Rock Island did have 10 FP7 units and those measure a little over 55' so these are pretty close to scale size for something that's a toy. I love them.

John

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Another item I received from Trainz on Friday is this Lionel 48W Whistle Station, dating from 1937-42. It's in great shape, with just a few minor scratches. Trainz again had an accurate description and photos. Since Spring I've been collecting trains and accessories for what I hope will be a Prewar/Postwar Tinplate/Marx/Lionel/Unique Art/And-anything-else-that-fits old-school style layout. This is my first building for that. It also helps because none of these really old trains I've gotten has any sound.

John

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I've been working on some layout renovations and decided to create a tinplate style convenience store and gas station.  Sheetz is a local convenience store chain up here in the northeast.  Roof is from a small Lionel station and the rest is custom laser cut sheet metal.  The landscaping is done in a style similar to the newer MTH landscape plots.

Tom

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Just arrived from Trainz yesterday: my first Marx 3/16" scale cars. They are beautiful. A couple have the metal tilt/wedge couplers, the rest have plastic tilt couplers. Another purchase where I think they look better than as described. Rated "Very Good," so I expected a little rust, but there's only the smallest bit on the axles/wheels of a couple, and a little bit of corrosion on the dome of the tank car. Got them for what I thought was an excellent price. I continue to be amazed that toys this old can survive in such good shape. I'm going to run them, and I don't expect that they'll survive me looking like this. Now I have enough to run two Marx trains: one with 3/16 Scale cars, and another with other Marx cars.

Marx 1950 GAEX-DF-a

Marx 174580 Pacemaker Boxcar-a

Marx 652 Shell Tank Car-a

Marx 33773 B&M Flatcar with Lumber-a

Marx 33773 B&M Flatcar with Pipes-a

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Last edited by John's Trains

Have posted this on some other threads, but she just arrived about 1 week ago.  This is a Hornby, Type 50 tender locomotive in her GOODS livery of BR black.  She carries the post nationalization symbol on her tender, the "Lion and Wheel".  She is from 1954 and was available until about the end of Hornby 0 gauge in 1961.  In most of that time (1957 on) she served in Goods set 50 with a consist of Type 50 freight wagons.  Like most Hornby, she is clockwork and she does run well and is equipped with both brake and reverse.  She also came with her large die cast "Mecanno" labeled key for winding (WOW now that is a miracle!).

Hornby Type 50 loco

She came to me with a passenger coach and a passenger brake van, not what a Goods livery locomotive would normally pull but they are in the "suburban livery" so maybe for branch service it might be realistic.  These are Type No 1 coaches available from Nov 47 until Mar 59, so this consist is at least time era feasible.

Hornby type 50, No 1 Coach and Passenger Brake Van

Don

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A paper model version of a Flyer no. 90 station:

I used Paul Race's graphics for his no. 77 Lewis Park station from his Tribute to Tinplate site (with a few modifications by yours truly). A bit of an experiment, actually, as I wanted to see if I could make something using matt board and cardstock that would give the illusion of embossed tin (roof). Seems to have worked reasonably well.

PD

Last edited by pd

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