Converting Flyer to Lionel car or vise-versa

I had a bunch of NOS Flyer cars in the early 1970's. I took off the Pikemaster trucks and put on Lionel ones. I must not have been particularly happy with the results, because I did not hold on to them for any length of time.

Isn't this against the law? I know a lot of guys that have put Marx trucks onto Flyer cars.Can't say I wouldn't do it if I came across some truckless Flyer I liked and wanted to run them.

There's a guy who has an American Flyer layout he displays at several local train shows that has a few Lionel Scout type boxcars that he put Flyer trucks on and runs on his layout. They are a pretty good fit. I would imagine most of the starter set sized rolling stock would look OK running on Flyer track.

And some of the Flyer S gauge stuff was originally made for O gauge track before the war, so apparently it can work both ways.

J White

I have a scale Marx cattle car I bought with Lionel trucks. I didn't buy it to run though, I just wanted the car and never got around to converting it back to Marx. PW Flyer is the same scale so I'm sure it was done.

I have a few of the Scout boxcars on my Flyer layout, most of them from before Lionel resumed production of Flyer,as well as a few Lionel Gondolas and a few plastic Marx cars on Flyer trucks which are look acceptable, especially if repainted and decaled.

Much better looking is a Lionel two tier auto rack (which, IMHO) looks better with S gauge trucks and 1/64 scale cars on it than it ever did as an O gauge car. Likewise the Atlas O Industrial Rail Gondola and the Pre-Atlas Industrial Rail Santa Fe Caboose are really sharp, especially the caboose. 

My pride and joy is the diminutive Atlas O Industrial Rail Atlantic which Ballston Locomotive Works converted to S gauge.  It is about the same size as the Flyer Atlantic and is awesome.  Carl Tuveson did a similar conversion here https://youtu.be/Dkzy6JTqExc

Little Tommy

  I have a few Lionel O-27 cars converted to S scale. Took some chopping and detailing but was fun work....DaveB

Also in the mid 1990s Lionel put American Flyer trucks on their TTUX cars.

Lionel postwar included a lot of freight cars (mostly in the 027 line) that were exact 1:60 models as far as the bodies were concerned, altho they rode on 1:48 trucks.  The Baby Ruth boxcar of the early Scout (1948 in my case) sets were even smaller in the body-- I assume 1:64 on this one.

A car that everyone would have assumed, being included in premium O sets, to be a "scale" model of a 40' boxcar at 10"+ in length (vs the earlier 8"+ boxcar models of 40-footers at 1:60 on 1:48 trucks), was the well-known boxcar 6464 and all its variations.  These cars were introduced by Lionel in 1954 IIRC, and interestingly the railroads introduced the 50' boxcar about this year.

The reason why the 6464 lacked the height and width of a 40' scale (at 1:48) car is that they were actually models of a 50' boxcar at 1:60 as far as the body went.  Some say the width was based on 1:55, but actually these cars were 10'-8" wide in the original.

All of these questions can easily be checked with the two 12" triangular rulers cheaply available in stationery/office supply stores.  There are two basic styles, called respectively an engineer's scale and an architect's scale.

The engineer's scale originally included 6 ratios on its six faces:  1:10, 1:20, 1:30, 1:40, 1:50, and 1:60.  (Variants are now found with 1:25 in place of 1:60, which is also suitable for this purpose.)  The 1:40 scale is used as a 1":4' scale (where 1" will measure off 4 feet on the 1:48 model in feet and tenths of a foot).  The 1:50 scale is used as a 1":5' scale (where 1" will measure off 5 feet on the 1:60 model in feet and tenths of a foot).

The architect's scale has a regular 12-inch and sixteenths ruler on one of its six faces; the remaining five faces have ten scales on them, in pairs running (the numbered feet) in opposite directions.  The smallest of these is 3/32"= 1 foot; the largest 3"= 1 foot; those on each face are usually paired in a 2:1 ratio, for example the pair to 3/32" is 3/16"=1 foot, which you will want to use for S gage at 1:64.  There is also a 1/4"= 1 foot scale which you can also use for O scale at 1:48.  Here you have the advantage of having the inches exactly on the architect's scale.  Each end of a face has an additional foot before the zero mark, which foot is subdivided into one-inch markings.  This enables both feet and inches to be read off the model from one position of the scale.

The plastic versions are relatively quite inexpensive.  The professional will want the engine-divided faces on boxwood, which are most accurate; these can be difficult to find and somewhat expensive. Unless you are making the cars, or are a real rivet counter, plastic should do fine.

--Frank

Near the end K-Line also cataloged some 027 cars with AF trucks. I don't think they ever got made though.

I have converted the Hershey hopper, the Chessie depressed flat, and several S boxcars over to O gauge sprung trucks.  Nestled in among other smaller O gauge stock and pulled behind a beep, they look just terrific.

I took a K-Line inexpensive Chicago & North Western two-bay, open-top hopper with S Gauge trucks and put O gauge trucks on it. The two-bay, open-top hopper produced was almost the same size as the Industrial Rail CNW two-bay open-top hopper.

I will have to take a photograph of the two of them together sometime.  

Andrew

The Lionel Scout freight cars can be easily put on S Gauge trucks since they are so close to 1/64th scale.

The Lionel traditional O gauge cars and intermodal trailers are wider than S Scale cars.

It is possible to put American Models 1/64th scale box cars on Weaver Models plastic trucks if nylon washers are used to keep some space so the trucks do not hit the underside.

Andrew

I converted several MPC 3 tier auto racks, which look perfect for S scale.

I also have converted the smaller 0-27 boxcars.

Here's a picture of my Flyer-converted-to-O flat alongside traditional O stock (first pic) and scale stock (second pic).  

It looks right at home with the first group, definitely out of place with the second.

AMS,

Nothing like a picture(s) to show the contrast!  So as long as you run semi-scale, AF will look right at home or vice versa with Lionels.

I have two Marx diesel switchers, 1998, that are good runners and with detailing and a good paint job would fit right in. I have looked at them trying to figure a way to mount a Lionel coupler but no go. Instead I use an adapter I made-knuckle coupler fixed to a hook which fits a slot in the Marx scissor coupler. I have on AF metal flat car that I put Lionel trucks on. ltitle narrow but OK. If you watch a nice mixed freight roll by you will see many sizes and shapes.

Since the PRND&L runs O27 sized equipment exclusively (Lionel Scout boxcars, gondolas, and single dome tank cars, short flatcars, Marx/K-Line boxcars, hoppers, etc.),  I tried some American Flyer cars a few years ago. The gondolas were the only ones that came close, and, after a year or so, I decided they just didn't look good enough.