Kitbashed a Box-Cab or Steeple-Cab Locomotive? Lets see them.

Made from a bunch of spare Marx parts, powered by a K-Line speeder power chassis.

Steve

My Grandfather used to talk about watching them, he loved them. In the 70s he had found an old Lionel 44 ton non-painted but not quite "Ford" blue. But no blue Ive seen on a 44ton. The Ford logo on the cab was correct, and not a decal or screen ink, but a stamp, in white. A flawless bash on a dark unit?(Wouldn't a bash that good include a more correct silver logo?) "Asked for" or Lionel prototype?(it could explain the color/white as a more current match) MPC nearby was rumored to have had employees produce/smuggle unapproved items, one off shells, or dumpster dive tossed experiments.

 Wish I could show it to you all. (if you have it, we gotta talk) 

Steve and All

I have to tell you that the photos ( as well as this one ) not only impressed me and as a result renewed my enthusiasm for kit and scratch-building..but the ingenuity  skill sets and tinkering behind quite a few of them was even more impressive . I have enjoyed this thread more than any other in quite some time. After being in the hobby for over fifty years, its inevitable there gets to be a sort of sameness to topics..this one is an exception to that.

Thanks to all of you.

In a perfect world it would be great to have a regular section on scratch building...kit bashing..what have you..especially locos...

That looks awesome well done

I have seen photos of that Ford #1000 diesel switcher for years, and would like to

see a good model kitbashed of it.  I don't guess there'd be enough demand for a

commercial model, with the unique body.   I presume the original worked River Rouge

or elsewhere in the Detroit area?  My kitbashes have been of steam and gas electrics,

so don't qualify for this posting, but box cab diesels had been around decades before the E-1's, so I opened this up to see if anybody had done one.

Yep Detroit, Dearborn, and/or Rouge area. I don't know how limited the travel area really was. Scenes like those with smoke stacks in the background are everywhere so  exactly where it is would take me a bit to figure out. But lots has changed since that time too. That view might not even exist anymore. More than just 2 made at 125-132 ton (around 8.. or 18? or between?). Most then sold, Most to sold to the Wellsville, Addison, & Galeton. Lasted years, good locos. Overton makes it in HO. WA&G livery for sure, & I think blk&red for Ford too.

Check out the Lake Shore Railway Historical Society to see this one.

Wow! it linked & a posted photo on its own somehow while I was typing. Then a Hoopla error screen gave a 500,000 character warning(oversize?) Ill skip the photo, you guys can find the LSRHS site or Overton image with a Bing,Google, etc,...not a bash anyhow! Right?

Rumored?  I know it for a fact!  Worked there for a little while.  One of the foremen told me about a GG-1 he had painted red and had a friend in Decoration apply the Lionel GG-1 graphics to.  Years after I worked there I picked up a C&NW FM at a Detroit area show - which turned out to be a prototype.

"Rumored".. Yes, Im being nice. Thanks for the info backup John. Its very appreciated as others in unrelated threads have questioned my integrity recently.  

Photo location of Ford switcher: Narrowed to City of River Rouge, Ecorse, or Detroit, on/near the Detroit river. Maybe on end of the Rouge River near its mouth to the Det.river. From Zug Island "ore" area or south a few miles max.(Some background smoke stacks are for large ships. They are just too big for use anywhere else in the area.)

Hmm very interesting never knew that happened

One interesting item that I saw in the plant back in 1977 was a box of General type passenger cars molded in white plastic and decorated with the standard W&A graphics. The roofs were painted brown.  Since I have never heard of these turning up anywhere I assume that they were all destroyed.

Now back to the topic. 

An on-and-off toy-ish project from a Marx 490 with a smashed cab. Using cut-down Marx boiler as a base for the Lionel 520 body. Non-reversing so far, and using the Marx pilot fitted to one pony truck. Still have to figure out the 1/2 Marx caboose-frame pony trucks tracking and weight, maybe go with 4-wheel trucks instead.Also hacked up the side-rods to get a jackshaft/juice jack effect. Also have to experiment with rear truck / cutting down the metal cab platform.

FW

Looks great

Thanks much. The Lionel pantograph was filed down a long time ago for a scale loco project and 0-80 bolts put in place of the through-pins. Mounts are 2-56 plastic screws and the insulators are samples that House of Duddy used to send out with their catalogs back when.

FW

I meant to ask how you killed that thar biar? Stripping the plating off enough, high heat, two cans of flux, assorted cursing, and puddles on the edges would be my best guess. Mig welding it is a nightmare without the galv. flux core wire. I can hardly imagine trying get solder to not to ball & run from you.