Tinplate interurban inspired by McKeen

Very cool.

Very nicely done. I would say yes to marker lights, but no to ditch lights. I don't think there were ditch lights in the prewar streamliner era.

I would love to see some "before" photos or how-to photos.

Beautiful work.

Marker lights of some type sound good, but IMO the cheap green ones in the picture don't do justice to the quality of your work - I hope there's something better available. 

Good job! It looks very nice and perhaps you could add exhaust stacks to the top? There are reproduction exhaust stacks designed for the prewar A.F. 9900 Zephyr that might work and attach easily. I believe that Trickel makes them. Regarding marker lights, I agree with Mallard4468 that the green ones pictured are not attractive. Perhaps a name like "Red Comet", "Red Diamond", or your choice, when tastefully applied would kick it up a notch. If you never change a thing you can be proud of your efforts!

Eric  TCA, LCCA

Thanks for the feedback on the marker lights!  I agree, but the only nice ones I found are the really expensive Tomar units.  I am just too cheap to buy those. 

I did not take any pictures before restoring the coaches.  Just look at any rusty ones on ebay and you will get the idea.  Here are a few more pictures.  The boards pictured are in my MTH Brill trolley.  The PCC boards are upside down from these, but mount the same way to the chassis (by the heat sink).  I glued nuts to the heat sink mount since I had to fasten it from the outside with screws.  I made a thick styrene  base for the motor and re-enforced it with brass rods.  For a speaker mount, I cut a plastic lid to match the contour of the bottom of the interior (minus the top) and glued it in.  The speaker is glued to the plastic.  Even though the wires still look messy, I did a lot of work to try to clean up the routing.  The large bundle of unused wires are for optional lighting.  I added quite a few additional plugs to ease assembly.  You can see how the motor flywheel just clears the top of the coach in the second picture.  The Brill trolley has a thicker flywheel than the PCC.

Exhaust stacks sound good!  One of the V&T McKeen engineers in the 20's nicknamed #22 "The Red Devil".  That, or "The Red Rocket", or maybe "The Red Racer" (name of a snake).

Fantastic job !!

How about "Little Red Rooster" Don

https://youtu.be/x5g9HaUs3qo

Very good!  I could just call it "Red Streamliner"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBzitaeeFsg

How about "red Arrow"  there was a Marklin  made model of a swiss streamliner of that name.  Also Ives used it for same of their sets.

RoyBoy posted:

Very nicely done. I would say yes to marker lights, but no to ditch lights. I don't think there were ditch lights in the prewar streamliner era.

I would love to see some "before" photos or how-to photos.

Ditch lights were mandated in Canada in the 1970's although the CN experimented with them during the 1960's.  In the U.S., they were mandated in late 1990's.

Rusty

Red Arrow also sounds good.  I guess I will eventually need a drumhead. 

I figured ditch lights were a much newer device, I just like the way they flash when the horn is activated.  A Mars light would be good also, but I don't know where I would mount it.  I am not sure how the MTH mars light works, but I guess it is one light that is lit constantly and one that flashes - anyone added it to a locomotive that did not come with one?  For marker lights, I am considering 2mm LEDs mounted on the side, perpendicular to the track. I could apply a small dab of matching paint on the end so it doesn't shine in my eyes as the train goes by.

Love it!!

I finally added marker/classification lights, a blinking end light and ditch lights.  For the markers and ditch lights I used 2mm LEDs - they turned out perfectly.  The rear markers and blinking end light are powered from a dc supply at the end of the train.  The 3mm blinking light is on 1.5 seconds, off 1.5 seconds.  I used a 555 timer for that.  The ditch lights are mounted on the bottom of the "prow", so they are nearly invisible when off (in case I don't like the appearance).  I put the ditch lights on just for fun.