HOMEMADE - your creations

I used pre cut 7/8thN2 ties to build my port wall. My water is paintable caulk spread by hand and patted to make ripples.

Here's a 4-6-0 I recently cobbled together:

From this:

To this:

Also made this a few months back:

This Seaboard Double-Door boxcar was built using a car identical to the ACL car behind it.

This one I built a while ago to from a MTH CA-1 caboose:

Here's a Seaboard Whalebelly Hopper I built a few years ago:

Seaboard had some unusual stuff which I had to have on my layout.  Also, the manufacturers seem to ignore these smaller Class 1 RRs, so anything that comes out with Seaboard lettering usually has to be modified to some extent.  I could post photos of all the mods I've done but that would take up too much bandwidth

My On30 one bay hopper car. Built from plastic with a few detail parts. I hope to build about 8-10 for my mine train.

Needs decals and weathering yet.....

Thanks for sharing, guys; nice work!

Bob, I've never seen a double-door box car, with the doors set off to one side, like yours. I like it!

That whale catches my eye, too.

Rick

Rick, where do you purchase those N2 ties?

On30 has a great look to it; so does your little hopper, Dave.

Rick

Rick,

Seaboard had 10 of this class, the door opening was 20 feet on opposite ends/sides of the 40' long car.  They used them for loading packaged lumber by forklift.

I almost gave up on this project a number of times because I couldn't find some parts I needed, but in the end I lucked out and stumbled upon them.  The Keil Line Dalman trucks and the Atlas 10' doors were critical for building this model.  Jerry Glow made the decals for me.

I'm almost positive no other RR had cars like these, at least I haven't seen them yet.

I wrote an article on the cars for the 1st quarter 2013 issue of S-CL Modeler, it's an online magazine and still available.  They have some fine articles in there regardless if you model SAL or ACL.

How about a backdrop that I came up with to try and bring out the toy and excitement of toy trains.    Not something realistic, but something that is fun!

matt,

Has a bit of 3-d a thing going on there; reminds me of a circus, or a fair. Definitely sets a bright, upbeat mood.

Well worth the effort, Bob; distinctive!

Rick

Rick B.

The ties were given to me by a fellow modeler. He purchased them at a train show years ago but they were cut from pine board by hand on a table saw. Should be easy to replicate.

Rick Bivins

We have a Hershey train and all the Hershey rolling stock produced so far; even picked up the S gauge Hershey stuff and re-trucked it to O... but the kids still want more Hershey!

Spotted the ice cream scoop in the kitchen drawer, remembered I had a spare MTH PRR flatcar body and a spare set of Lionel trucks... added a single wire tiedown to secure the load.

Zero talent required, total time investment of five minutes, and the kids think it's the coolest car on the train!

Fuel Tower

Beginning of refinery

Transformers

Here My pics of a bridge that I built this past year.

 I built it out of form and plaster had hand carved all the stone.

 The bridge is 8 feet long 2 feet hight. still working on the detail on the lower parts.

Scratch built russian rail tank with a lionel 0-4-0 mounted amidships for motive power.Requires wide radius curves!   

Scratch built NYC boxcab mounted on a K-line interurban chassis.   

Matt b,

Very nice backdrop.  It does enhance the toy aspect of your layout.

George

Is there no end to the talent on this forum? You fellows do some fine work!

Thats for sharing.

Made this little guy from wood and plastic. Did it just for the fun of it. Don

Not only the talent some of you guys have, it's the patience.   I need to be able to see stuff getting done and usually push to get things done.  That is not condusive to some of the great building that is shown above.   Lots of different skills and abilities involved in model rr'ing.   

Thanks guys; lots of creative minds, here.

Harry,

I'm really liking your 8' bridge; just about anything rolling over that would look good.

Don, I believe I have complimented you on that little guy, before; but, it deserves another tip of my hat.

BTW, catenary was mentioned, in my opening post, Surely, you have played around with a few ideas of your own?

Rick

Scratch-built P-47 Pylon.Utilizing a Power Wheels 6 volt gear box and a diecast Motormax Razorback.(click the pic to view the vid).   

How about a TMCC command Weinermobile singing the Oscar Mayer song?

John,

Looks like there's someone trapped inside that all beef unit?

All we need now is a bun and condiment car.

Rick

The thought crossed my mind to have it towing a bun behind it.

These well cars are made of 100% Evergreen styrene strips, glued with cyanoacrylate.

WOW Martin, that's some nice work!

I think the best homemade thing I have made, and certainly, as you requested, novel, is my moving boat on lake. The lake, in the center of one end of my layout is 94 by 36 inches wide.  The boat with skier in the photos below moves across the lake at realistic speeds in a loop that takes it nearly to the edges of the lake - no slots, no strings, no levers, no etc.  It took two years and three different drive systems before I got one that works dependably for hours on end.  I have numerous boats including a scale model of the boat James Bond escapes in in From Russia with Love, but most people love the ski boat most - it is a scale model of my youngest boy's ski boat (and fiancé.  Farther below I have attached links to two threads from long ago that have videos of some of the boats moving, including a regatta (the system can move more than one boat at once). 

Here is the forum posting on the basic moving boat on lake

https://ogrforum.com/t...30-and-final---video

And here is the posting on the “regatta” – a sailboat race.

https://ogrforum.com/t...finale-regatta-video

a simple fix for empty tenders, some small quartered twigs glued to a paper base

a small notch clearance in the rear helps to clear the sliding tab coupler.

and another game-watching pastime...

...making crates & pallets.

cheers...gary

WOW!! Did you have palns to go by or did you design them yourself??? I'd love to rty a few myself.

I made this operating coal trestle for Lionel operating hoppers...

Here is a video of it...

This is a Lionel 2056 I rescued from a parts box. It had a rough life, and someone had slapped some flat black paint on it. When I cleaned and lubricated the motor, it ran like a Hamilton watch. I tracked down original parts - rods, a headlight lens, and a smoke unit. When it was all together it ran better than new. I took it to a friend who noticed the missing classification lights on the smokebox front. He suggested painting this hardy little Hudson as Reading T-1 2124. He spliced two 1666T tenders to model a long, elegant Reading tender. This beauty won a blue ribbon in the "Fantasy" category in the first restoration contest at York by the TCA Standards Committee a few years ago.

In the 1970's and 1980's, Bob Gale of Horsham, PA, "kitbashed" small Lionel locomotives to make everything from switchers to "scale" GG-1's and UP Big Boys and 4-12-2's. Some (maybe all) of his 4-12-2's had two motors. He called his latest models "Super Classics." The TCA Quarterly published an article about him around 1982. Here is a "Super Classic" Reading T-1 I bought from Phil Klopp.

One of Bob Gale's final "Super Classics" was this model of Reading T-1 No. 2102, the third and final T-1 used on the Reading's renowned Iron Horse Rambles (1962-1964). He built her for The Christmas Putz in The Lutheran Home at Topton, PA, located on a hill overlooking the top of the grade on the East Penn Branch halfway between Reading and Allentown - hence the name "Topton." No. 2102 ran through Topton in regular service, on the Rambles, and on later excursions. That's her at the lower left.

R. J. Walpole of TM Books & Video built this "O" Gauge model of my hometown station - Berne, PA. It was torn down when I was a boy.

I came across this photo of Berne station under construction. Perhaps some modelers will benefit from the details seen here.

I just caught the last half of "Dr. Strangelove; including, Pickens riding the nuke...

and the movie got me thinking: a B five two fuselage might make a striking/an interesting shape, for the next big North American passenger locomotive body. A sort-of new take, re: the cowl body design.

Using only the first half of the B-52 fuselage design; including, the cockpit shape; but, don't use the rear taper, found in the last half of the fuselage design. Just continue with the full thickness of the front portion, all the way to the rear end.

Build that onto a locomotive platform, capable of handling B or C type trucks; and you've got yourself... one mean looking machine.

I like the faces of locomotives, and I think... a C-52 would be a beaut!

BTW, thanks for sharing, lads.

Rick

Monogram makes a 1/48 B52 so the concept is very viable.The hard part would be choosing a paint scheme that would do it justice.

Here's a small center cab switcher made from two Lionel Crayola switchers cut and sectioned and mounted on a K-Line s-2 frame.

    Ed

The fuselage of a B-52 is 159' 4"; to simplify things, lets say 160'; and, half of that is 80'. An O gauge locomotive platform that's approximately 20" in length; should be big enough, to house the front half of a 148th scale model.

You could also do a double cabbed version(with a cab at each end) that's made from joining two B-52 front sections(using a bit less of the fuselage) back-to-back. I'm sure there are ways, to accomplish this task.

Single cab or double, that should make for a great looking passenger locomotive model.

Rick

Here is my first attempt at catenary...