This 4-4-0 started life as a Lionel Christmas General. It was a close out loco and it sat until Toy Story III came out and I noticed that the movie loco looked a lot like the Lionel loco. So I figured I make a model of the movie engine.
I had to remove the funky bay window front of the cab Lionel had to add to make room for the motor in the fifties. It's no longer needed and there was never a loco that had it so I cut it off and made a new cab front. I also had to add a little to the boiler to make up this room. The only other mod I made to the loco was the tender. It comes with a big rubber wood load that looks bad and did not match the movie loco. Made a new tender top, added a water hatch and a wood load from twigs.
Everything else was decals and paint. Tamiya paints on the loco and tender. Making the decals was the biggest problem I had. I could not find a good shot of the tender anywhere. I had the DVD and single framed the whole segment with the train....no good side shot. I finally found a video game screen grab that showed it. Did the art work, printed them and applied. The runnig boards and tank bands are BMF gold. Overall I am happy with the end results. I think Lionel would have been smart to have do this themselves!!
