Show us your first or current Lionel train customization/restoration project.

Don't have a picture of it (since I don't have it any more), but I made an operating covered hopper car from a Lionel MPC Morton salt car.

I added a electro magnet between the shoots with a piece of brass for a sliding doors that was solder to a iron nail that would slide to open the shoots.

I had to file the bottom of the car to make the shoots have an opening.

On the trucks I added slide shoes for controlling when the shoot would open.

  My very first's were not my own. I would "help" Gramps repair trains (read as he taught me a lot).  They were all gone by the time I was an adult.

  But, I found Grandmas childhood Marx Commodore Vanderbilt buried in the dirt floor of an old family carriage house. The dirt was solidly packed into the motor and shell. I washed it. More precise is dunked, soaked, blasted with a shower massage, oiled, oiled again, oiled again, oiled again, it ran, oiled again and kept it up till it ran like a Marx should. When paint flakes were over 50% of the shell, and rust was creeping, I painted it. Rustoleum gloss black, tack dried, then cured in the freezer for weeks to dull the gloss. (and another month for the milk-tint to fade (moisture)). Put side by side with a nice CV, it is had to tell which paint job came out of the 30s and which came out of a rattle can.   And I like my added "coke bottle" lens too. (a magnifying glass lens )

I need to dig deeper or take new shots. This was all I could find, and those cars aren't from its set either. Some cars were like new,(R.I. gon, SF tanker, caboose, tender), others were literally just rust stains in the dirt filled set box.  I lost a Bessemer cattle car, GN hopper, and State of Maine car at least. I know because the paint survived mostly intact, even though the car's metal didn't at all.

This with the other two cars as well as a Standard gauge #8, all the same color were done about 1978. Many more mostly Post War after that.

The condition of the track will give you some idea what the car looked like before restoration.

Pete

Couldn't begin to remember the first restoration, but here's the first custom job I performed on standard gauge.  The 390E was originally black, which would have made for an easy respray.  Although 390's did come in 2 tone green, no attempt was made to duplicate the original shades here.

Bruce

Nice work on the 2025 Ron!

Here's my first one, a 2333 that was itself repainted...

from this...

to this...

This was probably my first, back in the 1980's.  Rebuilt from a basket case 736, some reproduction parts, a spare MPC tender shell, MPC tender trucks and the"Mighty Sound of Steam."

My dad always enjoyed the prolific smoke output from this kluge.

Rusty

I only have 2 Lionel engines, a GP9 the I repainted from Wabash to Seaboard Air Line:

And a 4-8-2 that I repainted from Southern 1491 to Seaboard 240:

I built the Vanderbilt tender from a piece of brass bar rail and swapped the electronics out for BPRC.

The Lionel 4-8-2 is a smooth running engine with great slow speed, it has become one of my favorites!

SAL 1912 was the only GP 9 SAL had that was painted in that color scheme.  A week or so ago a fellow SAL freak sent me a color photo of the real engine!!!

brwebster posted:

Couldn't begin to remember the first restoration, but here's the first custom job I performed on standard gauge.  The 390E was originally black, which would have made for an easy respray.  Although 390's did come in 2 tone green, no attempt was made to duplicate the original shades here.

Bruce

Colors look great, 

Did this 249E in LCT colors a few years back and then sold it for some reason.. Working on the Army train as I type.