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

  IMO building things by hand was what made trains a "real" hobby vs another eccentric's collectable "toy" or model.  I don't feel I do enough really.

Another quality job Mark!

Thanks for the kind comments. I love doing these kinds of projects. Here is one I did earlier, converting this Weaver reefer...

into a double sheathed box bar...

Here is the prototype used for inspiration...

midnightwrecking posted:

This is about as crazy as I get!

First off happy orctober to you. Nice to see anothe 40k player on here. Love the way you orcifid it, really had that look to it. Sadly I play black Templar’s so....... but great work I’ll be showing this to the orc players at the club this.

I didn't make these.  I don't have that much imagination. 

This may be one of the first mass transit cars or a rail fan excursion car.

I don't think this was part of a circus train but looks like it could quality.

I have no idea on the next car.  But I am pretty sure that is a man in a bath tub.

I once did a series of articles for the TTOS publication, in the theme, "Getting what YOU want", and l have done and continue to do dozens of Lionel and Marx based  bashes, three railed kits,  and scratchbuilds. Many have been posted on here.  I am glad many others do the same.  Most of mine are intended to be prototypical, but l have a whimsical pickle shaped tank car and pepper shaped water tower to support my Menards, now pickle, plant, and kitbashed packing plant . Keep posting...

Good Afternoon,

These are my USCG kit bashed cars. They include the CV 4924, flat car with MK 110 57mm with hoists flat car, Stringray helicopter car and my Surfboat Car.

Thanks for looking,

Larry

I did not make this modification to a Lionel General 4-4-0 but thought this is a good post to share it.

This past weekend (11-3-2018 in Ponchatoula, LA at the TCA meet) I purchased  a Lionel 1862 General 4-4-0 w/tender that has a home made wooden cab and cow catcher.  I think the prior owner did a very good job in this improvement.  I do not know if any real 4-4-0 locomotives had wooden cow catchers but this fellow went to a lot effort to build it and the cab.  I wonder what happened to the original cab and cow catcher?  Maybe the best part is this Lionel 1862 is a great runner, better than my other one and only cost $15 (probably low priced due to wooden cab and cow catcher) !  I will have to be extra careful not to crash that wooden cow catcher into another car or loco.

Charlie

Since Mountain Dew, or Pepsi for that matter, saw fit to Pepsi or Dr. Pepper everything they could get their logo onto, and Mountain Dew got shafted, the only things I could find were a tanker from a set that was sold on Ebay as a separate item, jumped at that one.  A K-Line box car with some a surfer wearing sunglasses, and the most ridiculous Lionel fat car with a box truck on it that had Mountain Dew on the side of it.  Looked liked something an 8 year old would design.

So I found a Tractor/Trailer that was 1/64 scale, had the modern Mountain Dew logo on the truck and trailer, bought an intermodal flat car with the proper accessories needed to mount the trailer, and managed with some crazy glue to fit the trailer to the flat.  Not exactly the right scale trailer but it looks cool.  Sorry, no picture, but let me get my trains set up and I'll fire one off to you.

Hi Folks,

I wanted to add a roller coaster to my amusement park section of my layout (2 Lemax items so far, still trying to figure how I will fit this in), so I decided to do a Disney-like coaster based on the new Slinky Dog Dash coaster in Disney World.  So this is the first part, and I intend to have a car with seated "guests" pulled by the Slinky locomotive.

I will paint the non-running surfaces of the rails (and the ties) bright red, and perhaps cheat the minimum radius of the O27 down to O24. Hard to see, but I have LEDs in the track for the 'proof of concept' demo above.

Take care, Joe.

Joe

I really like your Slinky Dog Dasher coaster. 

I encourage others to watch your super video on your post as it not only shows it running but shows you building it like one of those U tube videos on repairing a carburetors!

Great job on building it and making the video.

Charlie

Choo Choo Charlie posted:

Joe

I really like your Slinky Dog Dasher coaster. 

I encourage others to watch you super video on your post as it not only shows it running but shows you building it like one of those U tube videos on repairing a carburetors!

Great job on building it and making the video.

Charlie

Thanks, I hope to have a follow-up at some point.

As part of a year 'round informal train gang that met Wednesday evenings at Richard Sherry's home in Chicago in the late '80s, I'd seen a photo of the "Silver Sky" dome-obs car on the California Zephyr and thought a PW 2531 could make a reasonable facsimile.

Fortunately, one of the guys worked in a machine shop and told me all I needed was to give him the shell and a dome which I did.  A week later I had this.   It languished in a box through a couple of moves until a few years ago when it made its maiden voyage pictured below.

I didn't physically make it, of course, but it turned out pretty nice.  And I have more plans for this resurrected 2531 in 2019.

Adriatic posted:

  IMO building things by hand was what made trains a "real" hobby vs another eccentric's collectable "toy" or model.  I don't feel I do enough really.

I really admire you folks who, after spending good money for a model, have the guts and skill to modify it to make it unique or otherwise more interesting. My fear is that if I tried to do that, I would just turn it into a piece of junk.

I took a K-line long flatcar, added some tool boxes from an old Lionel work caboose, and painted them olive drab. Found a Revell Nike missile kit, built it and had a Nike flat car. I was stationed at a Nike base in the Bay Area from 1965 to 1968. It's now a Nike museum. Makes me feel old. Don

I posted these before.  Made from discontinued boxes.  I have four right now.  Two more on the way.  Great circus train

I repainted Lionel aluminum TCA passenger cars into the "Golden State". I even made my own blunt end sleeper, complete with drumhead, for the rear of the train.

Here is a standard gauge MU that I made from some 300 series cars.  And yes it does work off the homemade live catenary system.  The power is provided by a MTH trolley truck.  I need to figure out how to make my own power trucks  because I have two other standard gauge projects waiting to be worked on. 

Looks great and lots of fun. One thing to think about when filming. Horizontal. I know it feels funny to hold your phone that way, but that's the way we see. Horizontal. Don

E-82  Milw Rd steeple cab computer model almost ready to 3D laser print

cab frame removed showing interior

I had a Marx 1998 switcher missing the Marx shell.  I found a Lionel SW2 shell and cut out about 1 inch of the Lionel shell to shorten to fit the 1998.  I painted it black, white and red in the colors of ALCOAs Bauxite and Northern short line railroad from the Bauxite, ARK alumina and chemical plant in Bauxite, ARK to the a major railroads main lines.  The Marx1998 is a great running engine and I love to run it. My adult daughter loves to run it very fast and  always beats other engines in racing through the oval and figure 8 on my layout.

Charlie

I've created the following two items:

The sailboat, above, I found on eBay and subsequently on Amazon. It fits perfectly on the boat/rocket frame. The mast for the sail can be inserted into the boat. The boat is wood and does float.  This is a recent build.

Mint car with shredded money load.  The car is the KC Fed Reserve. The attention to detail part: The shredded money is also from the KC Fed Reserve. Car and money found on eBay.  I  built this earlier this year.

Steve

For the past few years I've been purchasing the rubber tube style diaphragms from Atlas-O and retrofitting them onto other cars to give them a more modern appearance. Here's one end of an Atlas-O California Zephyr car with the rubber tube diaphragm installed.. 

Thanks,

Mat

Got the idea from another forum member...

joe krasko posted:

Got the idea from another forum member...

Yesssss...Yesssss...Come to the Dark Side of the Force,  my son...  

For the benefit of those not following "What did you do on your layout today,"  I just rolled my own signs for my Plasticville garage...

Mitch 

Pingman posted:

As part of a year 'round informal train gang that met Wednesday evenings at Richard Sherry's home in Chicago in the late '80s, I'd seen a photo of the "Silver Sky" dome-obs car on the California Zephyr and thought a PW 2531 could make a reasonable facsimile.

Fortunately, one of the guys worked in a machine shop and told me all I needed was to give him the shell and a dome which I did.  A week later I had this.   It languished in a box through a couple of moves until a few years ago when it made its maiden voyage pictured below.

I didn't physically make it, of course, but it turned out pretty nice.  And I have more plans for this resurrected 2531 in 2019.

my late father made one also years ago, however the one he did had a damaged roof, I don't know if its packed away in on of the boxes, or if he sold it off.......

Mitch that's a great collection of automobiles outside Joe's Garage!

The sheet metal worker grandfather I never met made this for my dad.

It is made of sheet copper.  We always called it the copper car

I always got a kick out of pulling the Gang car around the track in it.

He also fitted this 248 with copper fenders.  I'm told it had postwar knuckles attached at one time.

I rebuild the motor and running gear for my dad this past summer.

This is a quicky to build special interest car.  I made it this week.

I have had a couple of HO toy 0-4-4 General locomotives for several years probably from a garage sale (where else?).  A plus was they had different style smoke stacks.  Picked up a few Lionel flat car bodies at a recent train show and have lots of trucks in a shoe box.

Found a section of HO track and the locos fit perfectly.  I glued the track to top of one flat car with Aleene's Tacky glue and strung some fine black elastic cord to hold down the locos.

Now I have a neat looking flat car load of half size 0-4-4 General locomotives that could be used for pulling small real trains at for fairs, large city parks, train museums or used to provide paid rides at other sites.

The car looks good in my giraffe car train and in a 0-4-4 General civil war period train for a change of pace.

Charlie

Hay Nate, Your pics have "Steampunk" written all over it!  I like it!  Thanks for serving our Country

John J. Giuliano - retired Electrician of 45 yrs.

Coordinator for the Raritan Valley Hi-Railers

Check us out on facebook - Raritan Valley Hi-Railers

I think the "Steampunk" actually belongs to Midnightwrecking John.

Currently making with my brother an "inspection" locomotive using a redwood valley MPC general, the body will be made using a lionel passenger car body. Body will need to be cut and shortened to fit on The loco. The loco will need a few changes like the drive rods to be changed out so they work with both wheels, rewiring to run on A.C. track and seperate details fitted. Not sure yet on what color it will be painted or what railroad it will be lettered for 

None of my creations hold a candle to the imagination I'm seeing here.  All I did was find a way to secure three bulldozers to a three different flats and used store bought jewelry chain on line to fake that they are chained down to the deck.  The most creative part was done by a friend of mine who is good with a drill press and had the right sized tap to tap out the hole for a screw.  The only part of the custom flats that's me is that I dreamed up the idea, bought the cars, bought the dozers, and then farmed out the critical work.  I did however glue the chains to the deck.  I really like this thread.  It's given me ideas for future projects that I will probably farm out.

By 1910, Northern Pacific Railway still had on their roster a handful of flatcars 28-36' long from the 19th century. I worked with a few railroad historians, a historic-railcar wood kit maker, and several historic-railroad brass & plastic parts makers to create models of these cars.

The consist uses link & pin couplers; trucks with Lionel couplers are used for the loco and caboose.

I never found just the right custom decals to add roadname & numbering; maybe I'll restart that search soon.

Lionel's Silver Dawn transformed into D&RGW Colorado Ski train car.

got this in Wayne ,N.J.....complete new fabricated frame with PW GG1 parts....no horn... 

Blake posted:

Currently making with my brother an "inspection" locomotive using a redwood valley MPC general, the body will be made using a lionel passenger car body. Body will need to be cut and shortened to fit on The loco. The loco will need a few changes like the drive rods to be changed out so they work with both wheels, rewiring to run on A.C. track and seperate details fitted. Not sure yet on what color it will be painted or what railroad it will be lettered for

I can't wait till we get started.

Here ya go