Let us see your Homemade Lionel (or Other) Style Cars or Engines you have Made or Modified

Flanger made from a (shortened) flat car and plastruct scraps

Choo Choo Charlie posted:

Keep those great Homemade cars a coming.  I have really enjoyed seeing them and knowing other OGR members like making them and saving money.

 

Here are some of details of my Homemade Centerline Track Cleaning Car, a $3 to $4 version of the brass Centerline, O gauge track cleaning car and it works super.

The price of the Centerline Track Cleaning Cars is quite high listing for $133 plus postage. It is made from brass.  The brass Centerline car is a work of art and not required to do a mundane job like cleaning O gauge track.  I like the cars design as it has no pads to glue on to replace and no pad motor like the Lionel model. 

I worked from a picture of the Centerline track cleaning car and made a body out of wood.  The heavy weight of the brass for Centerline is not needed to clean the track as the roller brush rolls freely in the center of the car.  The center pit of my wooden version was lined with aluminum flashing and glued it in with epoxy.  This area gets wet from the cleaning solution and that would attack the paint and wood of the body.

I used 1 inch diameter mini paint rollers for the cleaning brushes and cut them 1/8 inch of less than the width of the pit (the rollers were the only out of pocket money spent).  Pit is 2 7/16 in wide, 2 7/16 in long and 1 5/8 in deep using a part of 1 in diameter paint roller 2 5/16 in long.   I used a short piece of ½ inch pipe coupling as weight inside the cleaning brush.

Rubbing alcohol is normally used the cleaning solution.  Two or three extra dry cleaning brushes are used after the alcohol saturated cleaning brush and run until the all the wet solution is removed from the track and the dry cleaning brushes show little of the dirty picked up cleaning solution.

The dirty cut off mini paint rollers can be washed in the home washing machine by placing them in a small nylon net bag used for washing small items.

 

 

Below is Track Cleaning Car, cleaning roller brush and 1/2 in dia pipe coupling used as weight inside roller when cleaning

Charlie

 

 

Great ideal,  And good looking.

I seen one made from square steel tubing and small "C" channel iron and welded together. Your 1/2" coupling is from the oil/gas fields and not the standard type find in hardware stores.

Gilly@N&W posted:

I built this magnet car to pickup ferrous material along the track. It collects everything from screws/nuts that may have fallen off to fuzzies/filings from any cutting or drilling activities.

Useful! 

One of my favorites, a rail gon-esque build.  This can be readily swapped out with Lego truck assemblies to go back and forth between formats.

Working on a little PRR lowside tender from a 265 waffle tender. 

These are my scratch-built ingot buggies (flatcars).

This one is hauling my scratch-built ingot molds.  Hot!

 

George

I made these 3 excursion cars from die cast Lionel post war flat cars.

After reading about Cass then going there just had to have them.

This is about as crazy as I get!

Canadian National Hudson tank engine, commuter service to Montreal.  I had to have one first time I saw a picture of one!

My homemade track cleaning car.  I have sent the plans, photos, and drawing to over 300 OGR Forum members.

Dennis

Several of you train men really have some imagination and building skills.  Great jobs, especially the prior four posts.  And a super job documenting and photoing your projects. 

Your efforts shame my attempts to copy Lionel and others rolling stock.

Keep them coming.

Charlie

Not really Charlie. Not at all.   It's a different style of build.  I respect "modelers" and "builders" both for what they do to achieve a goal.(inculde yourself in both catagories please).  A little better supplies is all you lacked imo.  The end result is more than inspiring; it's empowering.

   The knowledge behind an engineering degree, doesn't mean they turn screws the right way without a second thought; that is a gift  

  (I'm not making it up, and the guy designed for Caddy, Ford, and Tesla so far; which is fine by keyboard..... but hide the tools from him eh?  

Choo Choo Charlie posted:

Several of you train men really have some imagination and building skills.  Great jobs, especially the prior four posts.  And a super job documenting and photoing your projects. 

Your efforts shame my attempts to copy Lionel and others rolling stock.

Keep them coming.

Charlie

So true I work with several engineers that couldn’t figure out righty tighty lefty loosey. It’s a piece of paper that anyone can get if they pass a test and pay some money. You want to have some fun, start asking about the differences between MET’s and ME’s.... that can be a fun one....  l’ll stop before I get into trouble. It takes all types and everything in this thread is creative and neat. Grace and detail usually come with experience, so the more you do, the better you get for the most part. 

When my grandnephews were in their "lego phase", I added a lego baseboard to a few flatcars.  They could then customize a train with lego parts to build different types of cars... and whatever!

Open air touring car:

Not a car,  but a modified set of Lionelville buildings to make an M&Ms factory and adjoined store:

Minion train:

 

I bought a Reynolds Metal covered hopper car without the 12 roof hatch covers.  I made a more modern, easy to use center fill cover for the car.  The older 12 hatch covers require a special loading bridge with 12 filling spouts and require the opening, closing and applying a security metal seals on each of the 12 hatch covers.  The center fill uses 3 or so loading spouts into the center of the car and has a four part center car long cover.  The covers overlap each other and require only opening and closing four covers and only one security seal saving time and money.

 

Charlie

Eddiem, that Lego flatcar idea is brilliant!

Here are my Great Northern woodchip cars. MTH electric trains makes a smooth side woodchip car. They do not make one in the Great Northern Road name. None of these woodchip cars have ribs steel supports on the sides as the ones do in real life. I had to completely redo the car. It is a custom paint job with the correct big sky blue paint I am a member of the Great Northern Railway historical society and have color chips. The decals were also completely custom made. The only thing that is original about this car or the trucks the couplers and the square box belongs to MTH. Everything else is mine.

Schylling Rail Zeppelin powered by a Lionel motor.

Ivor the Engine created out of Lionel's Percy. Ivor is from a BBC TV show of old. Idris the dragon is poking out and he has a whistle from a steam calliope. 

I made a homemade Chicken Dispatch car.  A Lionel small stock car was used to make the Chicken Dispatch car.  Every other slat was cut out of the side boards and parchment paper was used to Sharpie paint the chickens on. Lights were added to the roof and a pickup made.    No chicken poop sweeping man though !

I later bought a Lionel Chicken Dispatch car with the sweeping man but I enjoyed making this car.

 

Homemade power pick ups were made for all homemade lighted cars from brass shim stock and Lionel plastic sided trucks.

Pickup detail.  A piece of tin can was added to improve durability of shim stock.

Charlie

A couple of cars for CIVIL WAR SETS

GG1GUYY

Lionel made a submarine that really floated and submerged and a rail car to carry it.

I found two toy submarines that may work but I have never tried them.  I did make mounts for the submarines on two rail cars and have a new different car from most of mine.

Charlie

K-Line flat car with scale wheel sets.

K-Line flat car with shortened Lionel caboose and booms from a BB-157 tow truck.

John in Lansing, ILL

Atomic Generator Car

This car started life as a Kusan  KMT (later K-Line) search light car Number USA 401098 without the search light and operator.  I added a mini Christmas tree flasher light bulb and socket, light for the new operator and control panel and a red plastic "thing a ma jig" red flashing light cover.

The car now enjoys life as an Atomic Generator Car.  Every train layout needs a portable power source for emergencies.

Charlie

A Christmas car......a red Lionel flat with a little wood decking.......and,  a ceramic manger set I picked up on Amazon....

Peter

Peter

I love the manger car.  My wife collects mangers and I hope to borrow one and make a manger car.  Thanks for the inspiration.  I would add it to my secular reindeer and Santa Christmas train.

Charlie

I modified a Marx work caboose by adding a flood light to allow night operation to be performed more safely.  I added a homemade light pick-up to power the light.

Charlie,

   Nice, clean and professional job.

Tom 

 

I made a ballast hauling gondola car load and placed a small back hoe machine on top to add to my track maintenance train.  The ballast load was made from a piece of Styrofoam (to keep it light weight) with ballast glued on with Elmer's glue.

 

Part of Maintenance Train

Keep your homemade cars coming in.

Charlie

"Prewar cast iron" loco made from an old Marx 999 with styrene and copper parts.

"Prewar" freight cars made from various parts...

Caboose is a real prewar Flyer item. Gondola and boxcar graphics were drawn on the computer and printed on photo paper. Gondola body is cardstock with the photo paper glued to it.

Beaver-tail observation made from AF prewar coach.

Had to build an Army Flat to match Menards Air Force missile  car

The "real" Nike Swoosh Darned like button never works on this thread; which is a shame because everyone deserves two.

Bob, the rocket car looks great!

My latest...  

Mitch

Nothing as awesome as what you guys have done; I  guess I'll need some stock to run on 3 rail track to go behind my new loco.

I've had an old Athearn boxcar sitting around for years, so I slapped on a couple of Atlas/Roco trucks and now at least I have a full-size O scale car with big flanges:

Still have to add details, but it's a start.

Disclaimer: I am not responsible for the crappy glue job on those grab irons; this car came to me this way, I swear! 

Mark in Oregon

I attached a coupler to the front of a General's pilot truck after figuring out with a body mount, the front overhang pulled cars right off the rails in curves, or if heavier, the cars dragged the drivers off. I imagine fast angle wheels wouldn't do as well; the flat tread and deep flanges of early and loco wheels do a great job keeping the pilot truck on the rails, though you'd likely think "not". I think it's that the center of gravity and attachment point is so low; nearly at pilot truck axle height.

  I expect making a "home-bilt" Vanderbilt tender would be pretty easy for you too Charlie.. hint, hint,

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Here is a homemade General Motors EMD Train Generator hauling car.  I figured this electric motor would be about the scale size of the diesel driven generators used on F3 EMD diesel locos.  I may be wrong but it works on my layout!  It fits well on a depressed flat car.

Charlie

Here is a project I just completed. I took an inexpensive Lionel woodsided reefer and transformed it into a representation of a Mathers outside braced boxcar...

The donor car...

and the prototype I am attempting to relatively mimic...

Here are some shots with the first color sprayed...

and then the second color...

and now the finished car with Protocraft decals applied and some weathering...

Mark

Great job on making the Lionel woodsided reefer into an outside braced boxcar.  I was unaware of that class of car and its rarity in being modeled.

Not having or not finding or not being made are some of the best motivations for homemaking a car allowing one to have the fun and experience at doing for yourself.

Charlie

Wow! This is probably the coolest thread of seen here! I'm 28 and love building stuff. In a hobby that is full of plug and play items it's awesome to see people still building things!