This post is a how to on upgrading the early 18" heavy weights from Lionel. I had two larger sets of Lionel 18" heavyweights (C&O and NYC) that I purchased when they were released in the mid 90's. When released, these cars looked awesome, but as the manufactures have been upping the bar over the years by including interiors, they look dated and the bright lights seem to overwhelm the visual details on the exterior of the cars.
It has taken a few month of waiting for various interiors to become available, but I have now updated ~14 of these cars. They look pretty good (or better if you ignore the chunkier trucks) than what is being offered today, but with out the zinc rot trucks and crazy dark green windows. I really like the flat dark green color of the original NYC release (I think they look the best) and excited to have these updated. For comparison, below are two C&O cars, one updated and one left alone.
I have been debating about doing this for several years and planned to purchase the more modern 18” heavyweight interiors available from Lionel during one of their half price sales in the fall. I made the assumption these would be close to perfect fits for the swaps (and they were, with a few modifications). While these were available initially several years ago, Lionel has not offered them for sale for years. Even the most recent heavy weight cars released don't show the interiors available for separate purchase. About this time last year, Trainz started selling the interiors from part stock. I have acquired a few that way as well as purchased some of the more recent Lionel cars with crumbled trucks at a significant discount.
In going through this process, I came to realize there are only a few different heavyweight interior arrangements available ($15 each from Trainz). They are the following:
- Baggage ( I didn't use these)
- Combine
- Sleeper (available on Trainz)
- Coach (available on Trainz)
- Diner (available on Trainz)
- Observation (available on Trainz)
In my upgrade efforts, I do the following where the car upgrade consists ~ $20 in parts (except for the diner and observation car which have more add ons). Below are the steps.
- Modify the vestibules to accept the new interiors
- Remove the bayonet bulb mounts from chassis and replace all the center roller wiring with new lighter gauge and remove all the structural supports (the grey pieces)
- Establish a new reliable ground on the chassis
- Remove the silhouettes and residual glue and replace with thin clear plastic, attaching with canopy glue
- Update to LED Lights
- Dull Coat Interiors
- Special updates made to the diner (include new kitchen and interior details such as candles) and observation (include marker lamps) as shown below
Lets get into each step!
- Modify the vestibules to accept the new interiors
- Once the car is pulled apart, one can see how the screws on each end of chassis thread into the vestibule ends. We need to remove the the stud from the inner part of the vestibule as the screws instead will thread into the interior platform. The picture below shows one prior to change and one after.
- The vestibule can be taken apart to allow easier clipping of the studs from the inner part and also give access to doors to add window glass,
- Once the car is pulled apart, one can see how the screws on each end of chassis thread into the vestibule ends. We need to remove the the stud from the inner part of the vestibule as the screws instead will thread into the interior platform. The picture below shows one prior to change and one after.
- Remove the bayonet bulb mounts from chassis and replace all the center roller wiring with new lighter gauge. Remove structural supports.
- For each of the four bayonet bulbs, I took a pair of pliers and gently rocked the base back and fourth on each until it was pulled through and off of the chassis. I also pulled each truck off and replaced the existing center roller wire with a new more flexible wire gauge. I removed all the grey pieces attached to the chassis and the body (except for the baggage car). Having these pieces gone allows for the interior to fit in. While not as strong, I don't think strength is critical when being pulled behind a train. Additional under frame detail will be reattached and will help prevent the chassis from being pushed into the car, but if you pull it away (down) it will flex and bend and not return
- For each of the four bayonet bulbs, I took a pair of pliers and gently rocked the base back and fourth on each until it was pulled through and off of the chassis. I also pulled each truck off and replaced the existing center roller wire with a new more flexible wire gauge. I removed all the grey pieces attached to the chassis and the body (except for the baggage car). Having these pieces gone allows for the interior to fit in. While not as strong, I don't think strength is critical when being pulled behind a train. Additional under frame detail will be reattached and will help prevent the chassis from being pushed into the car, but if you pull it away (down) it will flex and bend and not return
- Establish a new ground on the chassis
- I cut a small piece of flat copper (or brass) and drilled a hole through it. A ground wire was then soldered to it. I then tapped a hole into the chassis and used a screw (purchased from Home Depot). At this point, I tried to route the wire to match the traces on the underside of the interior. Blue painters tape is helpful to hold the wires in place during reassembly.
- I cut a small piece of flat copper (or brass) and drilled a hole through it. A ground wire was then soldered to it. I then tapped a hole into the chassis and used a screw (purchased from Home Depot). At this point, I tried to route the wire to match the traces on the underside of the interior. Blue painters tape is helpful to hold the wires in place during reassembly.
- Remove the silhouettes and residual glue and replace with thin clear plastic and attaching with canopy glue
- After I removed the silhouettes, there was lots of glue residue left over. I used both rubbing alcohol and acetone (be careful with this both aggressive and flammable) to remove this. Lots of elbow grease involved here. I didn't paint the interior shells and left them as is. While the NYC ones did not look bad on the insides, the C&O ones were pretty crazy looking. I left them alone in the end. I bought clear lexan plastic sheets and cut into strips matching the size of the silhouettes strips removed. I then put little dots of the canopy glue every inch along the length of the car, both above and below the windows before setting the plastic strip. I purchased the Clear Lexan (0.01") from Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085...ob_ap_share&th=1
- While the original cars didn't have this, you also might want to add window glass for each of the six doors on the car as well. An added step I did here was removing the hardware for baggage doors from the baggage and the combine and glued them permanently in place to not see the hardware on the back of them.
- Update to LED Lights
- I have been updating my lights on a lot of my passenger cars to LEDs. I have been buying the roles available on amazon and cutting them to fit. For powering them up, while there are fancier voltage regulator set ups with capacitors to prevent flickering, I am not really bothered by this. I have just been using 12 Volt regulator with a diode inline with it to produce only a more DC like signal. This only rectifies half of the AC wave, so there may be times when taking pictures that it appears to be off. I still think it looks fine and I like it because it is cheap, simple and small (hard to see this from the outside).
- I have been updating my lights on a lot of my passenger cars to LEDs. I have been buying the roles available on amazon and cutting them to fit. For powering them up, while there are fancier voltage regulator set ups with capacitors to prevent flickering, I am not really bothered by this. I have just been using 12 Volt regulator with a diode inline with it to produce only a more DC like signal. This only rectifies half of the AC wave, so there may be times when taking pictures that it appears to be off. I still think it looks fine and I like it because it is cheap, simple and small (hard to see this from the outside).
- Dull Coat interiors
- Most of the interiors were really shiny when received. I decided to dull coat all of them so the walls and chairs were not shiny.
- Reassembly
- The last step here is to make a change to the center mechanism. There is a large screw that threads up through the bottom of the chassis into the plastic centering device for the coupler. This screw should be cut down to not interfere with the interior directly above it. Once cut, I then tightened the screw until not sloppy and then applied some thick CA glue to the top of the plastic centering device with the screw and add an accelerator to give the screw threads more to bite into. Also, for plastic undercarriage piece that slides into the chassis, before being screwed on, I would cut a slice into the center of the slide so the wire running down the center is not pinched. Once this is complete, I would reassemble the entire car except for leaving the vestibule side off where the wires were going to pass through to the upper body. This is a great way to contain the wires ahead of time and manage them to be hidden behind the utility cabinet found on the interior, completing the assembly.
- Diner and Observation
- For the observation cars, I purchased lanterns and and added a brass tube to them to allow the wired for the LEDs to pass through and also give them a solid attachment point. I mounted mine a lot lower and father back on the car then the lionel does as most every picture I saw of these had them with in reach for folks on the platform. I replaced the NYC railings with a modern set and the C&O one I repainted in blue and yellow. I have a picture below showing an upgraded NYC car and a non-upgraded C&O car. Pretty stark contrast.
- For the diner,
- I wanted to do something special. While a bit whimsical, I create something similar to what Jack Pierce shows at the York show where there would be fiber optics used to create candles, add dishes, flowers and plates. I was not able to purchase a diner interior with white tables, so painting the tables while was my first step. I then created the fiber optic candles shown below.
- I also drilled holes in each of the tables to allow the fiber optic to be routed for the candle and created the fiber optic candles shown below. I used clear orange Tamiya paint for the flame color. I found that about 4 fibers per stand alone 3mm warm white LED is about the limit to before they start to not look good. I tried to route some of the fibers into the pantry as there were no windows and also lower part of the diner. When routing fiber, do not glue it with CA as it causes the light to be disbursed at the glue point and not as bright at the candle tips. Instead, I used clear shrink tubing that was glued and then routed the fiber through that. I am not sure why Lionel had designed the tables tops to be above the windows, but because of this, I had to paint the fiber flat black just below the table to not see it.
- The diner interiors are the only ones that needed to be modified (shortened) as shown below to fit in the older cars.
- Lionel's more modern releases usually fill the kitchen interior with electronics for the station sounds and fogs the windows in this area. I wanted a kitchen so I created a rough kitchen with some sinks out of polystyrene and added some fixings. Hobby Lobby sells various beads I used for cups and other things. The pictures don't capture how nice the candles look when they are lit. I thought these cars came out great. It's hard to believe they are almost 30 years old.
- I wanted to do something special. While a bit whimsical, I create something similar to what Jack Pierce shows at the York show where there would be fiber optics used to create candles, add dishes, flowers and plates. I was not able to purchase a diner interior with white tables, so painting the tables while was my first step. I then created the fiber optic candles shown below.
