Deep within the Standard Gauge Train Mine.

Nice! Looks like that rare and valuable mineral, paper-mache-um, or tinplate?

Very cool. Even though it's made of tin, it kind of looks like crumpled craft paper. I love this tunnel.

Yeah, I'm in love with this tunnel. It's some sort of metal. This particular one had a very devoted and talented painter. (The 140s are all very singular.) I think they are wonderful industrial folk-art.

I think pressed felt on a mold or pressed metal on a mold. Could even be both. No paper-mache.

It's metal, top to bottom. It is pressed, folded,  tapped, then painted. They are all a bit different. I am sure they had a general mold that was fashioned and folded around it by each 'artist'.

The smaller tunnels like the 120 were made in a press, their shapes are rounded and they are all the same, although hand painted.  The 140 is a different beast.  As you can tell from looking at it, this was not born in a press - other than the actual portals of the tunnel, which obviously are pressed.  Basically, someone took a sheet of brass or tin-plated steel (there are some of each), fairly heavy gauge about 20 ga., and started whaling on it with a rubber mallet, as it folded and buckled.  Granted, there was a basic pattern so it wasn't completely random.  Nevertheless, each sheet folded and crumpled a little differently.  

then they were painted by hand, with features like the roads and waterfall following the folds in that particular tunnel. Sure, it was done relatively quickly, but the closer you look the more you realize there are thousands of brush strokes or dabs, in multiple different colors; then there was affixing the bridge railings and little hillside houses, again depending where the folds were.  They really are individual works of art, even though they were made in the Lionel factory; a lot of handwork by skilled and creative people.

It's definitely one of my very favorite accessories, just because of the audacity of it: piece of sheet metal, whack on it 'til it crumples, paint it. Mountain!  You wouldn't think it would work, but they pulled it off rather impressively!

Yeah, I heard brass, but on a couple of the edges I see a sliver of shiny steel color. They certainly are works of art, I can't stop looking at this thing. This artist really took his/her time as the paint is not slobbered on.  I love that it has it's original wires and fixtures too. All inner tabs are present that hold the wires. If I ever move, I will crate this bugger. 

hojack posted:

 They really are individual works of art, even though they were made in the Lionel factory; a lot of handwork by skilled and creative people.

It's definitely one of my very favorite accessories, just because of the audacity of it: piece of sheet metal, whack on it 'til it crumples, paint it. Mountain!  You wouldn't think it would work, but they pulled it off rather impressively!

 

Yes, this is what I mean by industrial folk art. Folk art has an audacity to it. Out of the ordinary methods and materials combining to represent something or someone, usually done in a simple way. The singularity of each of these is certainly the spice. I wonder if Lionel 'shopped' these out, or did they make them at the factory?

Great pics - I like the forced-perspective illusion of the houses.

If anyone has the new Greenburg book, do they discuss accessories, and if so; is the 140L mentioned?

No accessories in the new Greenberg SG book.

This is the Greenberg Lionel tinplate accessory book, by Peter Riddle.  1997.  Has not been updated recently, I'm sure it's on Bruce's list to do since he has done Standard Gauge and is now working on updating the prewar O Gauge book.

It does mention (list) the 140 tunnel, but not any more info than discussed here.