I've been having a lot of fun in my spare time the last few weeks. I really like the look and feel of "shorty" tinplate train sets: cars that have just one fixed 4-wheel truck, the cars being shortened to fit the one truck. I have McCoy's "Black Diamond" shorty freight set, and the Richart mining set, both in standard gauge.
A couple of years ago, I saw for sale a set that some one had made from early Lionel standard gauge freight cars, and I've been remembering it ever since. Finially got around to making a set of my own. Found derelict 10 series cars - an 11 flat, 12 gondola, 13 stock, 14 box, 15 tank. Just couldn't come up with a #17 caboose in miserable enough condition to warrant hacking into it, but there seemed to be plenty of beat up 117's around, and it looked like the window pattern would make the 117 easier to shorten, so I went with that, using all 10 series trucks and wheels.
Interesting project, a lot of planning ahead and deciding how to do the shortening. The cars are about 5" to 5-1/2" long, which was pretty much dictated by the structure of the 10 series cars. Blast the paint off, unsolder the cars to take the components apart; then cut, bend, and resolder.
I decided to stay with recognizable colors and lettering for the most part, to make the heritage of these cars more obvious. And I recently bought the red Little Chief locomotive from Bonnie McCoy, which is perfect for the set.
These little bobbers have a lot of "toy" about them; they hustle along behind the Little Chief like a row of little ducklings. Definitely not scale modeling. Just a lot of fun with tinplate.
Enjoy the movie!
-David
