Weekend Tinplate photos 📸 and videos 📽 3/19/20!

I have a Ives 3242 and two cars that are the same burgundy color. This set has been in the family since new, it was my wife’s Grandfather’s  childhood train, I am guessing it’s almost 100 years old.

Don’t know if it ever had the 189 Observation car or not, but if they did it’s gone now, I am looking for that car if anyone has one to sell, please let me know.

I haven’t touched the paint for fear of making it worse, would like to at least gently clean it with soapy water and a soft cloth, at best follow the wash up with a liquid car wax. Any advice or warnings, or should I leave it as is?

Lionel standard gauge "Baby State Set" on the layout. 318E loco in two-tone brown with matching 310, 309 and 312 cars. This is a set I picked up a while ago that cleaned up very nicely. Runs great as well, one of its previous owners had installed new wheels.

Got my winding key in todays mail, so the Duke of York is in charge of the local today on the LMS.  Ran live steam earlier and will be running more live steam later today.    AD

Gate/Switchmen anyone?

Ran some Tinplate yesterday on the RiCHY RR, I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy...Rich Murnane 

Track 1 – Lionel Lines #262E Steam Locomotive (Lionel Corp Tinplate 11-6022-0 circa 2012)

Track 2 - Lionel #253 Boxcab Electric Locomotive (Lionel Prewar Tinplate circa ~1929)

John here is my gateman

A few weeks ago, I tried pulling a very long consist of Ives and American Flyer cars. I had some trouble with the middle cars falling over on curves. I don’t remember how many I was able to pull successfully. No problems today pulling almost all of my 800 / 2800 series Lionel / MTH cars! I was going a little too slow when I reached the switch in the first video. Enjoy!

George

I love my Prewar Tinplate, and I like to run long trains. Might just be my O27 curves, but it takes some finesse getting the cars just right so they don't tip over. I have better luck when I start out halfway in a straight stretch, and get decent spped, then it usually works OK. 

Beautiful Tin George!

Looking good George! 

George S posted:

A few weeks ago, I tried pulling a very long consist of Ives and American Flyer cars. I had some trouble with the middle cars falling over on curves. I don’t remember how many I was able to pull successfully. No problems today pulling almost all of my 800 / 2800 series Lionel / MTH cars! I was going a little too slow when I reached the switch in the first video. Enjoy!

George

I have pulled up to 60 Marx 3/16 freight cars. It takes hours of prep work to pull it off.

Steve

Lionel 384-E, an early standard gauge purchase for me back in 1996. A classic of 1932-33. Somewhere along the line this particular one traded out its original red spoked drivers for some plain black ones.

Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

George S posted:

A few weeks ago, I tried pulling a very long consist of Ives and American Flyer cars. I had some trouble with the middle cars falling over on curves. I don’t remember how many I was able to pull successfully. No problems today pulling almost all of my 800 / 2800 series Lionel / MTH cars! I was going a little too slow when I reached the switch in the first video. Enjoy!

 

George

I have pulled up to 60 Marx 3/16 freight cars. It takes hours of prep work to pull it off.

Steve

Wow! I don’t think I could fit 60 cars on my loop. I had about 24 Ives and AF cars. I couldn’t fit them all on any of the straights.  Starting them on curves is more difficult. To your point, I probably had wheels that needed cleaning and oiling, trucks that need adjustment and couplers that needed tweaking. The Lionel cars are also heavier and have better couplers, wheels and trucks. 

George

JohnnieWalker posted:

A MTH  Standard gauge 514R car converted into a working automatic milk car . Still in the process of fine tuning it .

Pretty cool. I have been thinking about a similar project in O gauge. How did you fabricate the loading hatch? Do you have photos of the whole car?

Will posted:

JohnnieWalker posted:

A MTH  Standard gauge 514R car converted into a working automatic milk car . Still in the process of fine tuning it .

Pretty cool. I have been thinking about a similar project in O gauge. How did you fabricate the loading hatch? Do you have photos of the whole car?

 

Hi Will . Thanks for the compliment .  I took photos along the way and they can be found on my thread here on the forum called    Another Standard Gauge Project .  I posted the project just this past Friday night .   I hope this helps you  and good luck.

George S posted:

Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

George S posted:

A few weeks ago, I tried pulling a very long consist of Ives and American Flyer cars. I had some trouble with the middle cars falling over on curves. I don’t remember how many I was able to pull successfully. No problems today pulling almost all of my 800 / 2800 series Lionel / MTH cars! I was going a little too slow when I reached the switch in the first video. Enjoy!

 

George

I have pulled up to 60 Marx 3/16 freight cars. It takes hours of prep work to pull it off.

Steve

Wow! I don’t think I could fit 60 cars on my loop. I had about 24 Ives and AF cars. I couldn’t fit them all on any of the straights.  Starting them on curves is more difficult. To your point, I probably had wheels that needed cleaning and oiling, trucks that need adjustment and couplers that needed tweaking. The Lionel cars are also heavier and have better couplers, wheels and trucks. 

George

This is what 60 Marx 3/16 freights look like on 54" curves.

Steve

https://youtu.be/XRLS3zIrjFE

Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

George S posted:

Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

George S posted:

A few weeks ago, I tried pulling a very long consist of Ives and American Flyer cars. I had some trouble with the middle cars falling over on curves. I don’t remember how many I was able to pull successfully. No problems today pulling almost all of my 800 / 2800 series Lionel / MTH cars! I was going a little too slow when I reached the switch in the first video. Enjoy!

 

George

I have pulled up to 60 Marx 3/16 freight cars. It takes hours of prep work to pull it off.

Steve

Wow! I don’t think I could fit 60 cars on my loop. I had about 24 Ives and AF cars. I couldn’t fit them all on any of the straights.  Starting them on curves is more difficult. To your point, I probably had wheels that needed cleaning and oiling, trucks that need adjustment and couplers that needed tweaking. The Lionel cars are also heavier and have better couplers, wheels and trucks. 

George

This is what 60 Marx 3/16 freights look like on 54" curves.

Steve

https://youtu.be/XRLS3zIrjFE

Pretty amazing. I may need to try again.

George

JohnnieWalker posted:

Will posted:

JohnnieWalker posted:

A MTH  Standard gauge 514R car converted into a working automatic milk car . Still in the process of fine tuning it .

Pretty cool. I have been thinking about a similar project in O gauge. How did you fabricate the loading hatch? Do you have photos of the whole car?

 

Hi Will . Thanks for the compliment .  I took photos along the way and they can be found on my thread here on the forum called    Another Standard Gauge Project .  I posted the project just this past Friday night .   I hope this helps you  and good luck.

Johnnie, I did check it out- Looks like a fun project. But the photos are very small so it's  hard to make out some of the details.

I do have some questions. Are the mechanisms and doors from O gauge cars? To load the cans, I gather you have to take the roof off?

Thanks, Will

Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

George S posted:

Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

George S posted:

A few weeks ago, I tried pulling a very long consist of Ives and American Flyer cars. I had some trouble with the middle cars falling over on curves. I don’t remember how many I was able to pull successfully. No problems today pulling almost all of my 800 / 2800 series Lionel / MTH cars! I was going a little too slow when I reached the switch in the first video. Enjoy!

 

Georg

I have pulled up to 60 Marx 3/16 freight cars. It takes hours of prep work to pull it off.

Steve

Wow! I don’t think I could fit 60 cars on my loop. I had about 24 Ives and AF cars. I couldn’t fit them all on any of the straights.  Starting them on curves is more difficult. To your point, I probably had wheels that needed cleaning and oiling, trucks that need adjustment and couplers that needed tweaking. The Lionel cars are also heavier and have better couplers, wheels and trucks. 

Georg

This is what 60 Marx 3/16 freights look like on 54" curves.

Steve

https://youtu.be/XRLS3zIrjFE

awesome Steve!

With some extra time at home these days I've been making progress on the pile of toy train projects. This weekend I resurrected my Varney-Sirius made repro of the famous Ives 3245 standard gauge "Olympian" loco. I got this some years back on Ebay for a great price. When it arrived I found out why; it was a dead short on the track, and also the front and rear trucks would derail when you pushed it by hand around any kind of a curve. But it looked great, so it was relegated to a display piece.

Will posted:

JohnnieWalker posted:

Will posted:

JohnnieWalker posted:

A MTH  Standard gauge 514R car converted into a working automatic milk car . Still in the process of fine tuning it .

Pretty cool. I have been thinking about a similar project in O gauge. How did you fabricate the loading hatch? Do you have photos of the whole car?

 

Hi Will . Thanks for the compliment .  I took photos along the way and they can be found on my thread here on the forum called    Another Standard Gauge Project .  I posted the project just this past Friday night .   I hope this helps you  and good luck.

Johnnie, I did check it out- Looks like a fun project. But the photos are very small so it's  hard to make out some of the details.

I do have some questions. Are the mechanisms and doors from O gauge cars? To load the cans, I gather you have to take the roof off?

Thanks, Will

Hi Will.  First off the Standard Gauge car I used is a MTH 514R refrigerator car . All the components are from Lionel automatic milk cars , the spring loaded doors are from a 3472 Automatic Refrigerated Milk Car. They were pretty much the same size doors that were on the 514R car.  At first I used the mechanism out of the 3472 to throw the cans out but it was too unreliable , luckily for me I also had a # 36621 Automatic Refrigerator Milk Car on hand so I took the unloading mechanism out of it and installed it into the 514R car .  All this was done so I could have an automated 500 series car .  Just for your information, there are a few automatic milk cars out there to be had . I know of two from Lionel , the #s I mentioned above and I know of one from K-Line .   If you you Google  O gauge automatic milk cars you should come up with a few videos of the ones I mentioned  above . There may be another , I don't know .  I hope this is helpful to you  and good luck with your project . Cheers .

Tail End Tuesday, early Dorfan observation car. Same as a coach, but the fish eyes on both ends. Later cars had platforms.

Steve

For those not familiar with the Dorfan STD Gauge coupler.

together

female

male

guess tab and slot wasn't an option?

Steamer posted:

guess tab and slot wasn't an option?

Not in STD Gauge

Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

For those not familiar with the Dorfan STD Gauge coupler.

together

female

male

Steve,

I'm looking at an MTH Dorfan STD gauge steam engine online. It looks like it has Ives couplers. I know they are basically the same engine as the Ives model. Do you know if the Dorfan models came with Dorfan couplers? Thanks.

George

It almost looks like the Ives coupler would mate up with the female Dorman coupler. 

George S posted:

Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

For those not familiar with the Dorfan STD Gauge coupler.

together

female

male

Steve,

I'm looking at an MTH Dorfan STD gauge steam engine online. It looks like it has Ives couplers. I know they are basically the same engine as the Ives model. Do you know if the Dorfan models came with Dorfan couplers? Thanks.

George

George, from MTH it would have come with only a Dorfan Coupler. Many bought on the secondary market, many couplers are switched to Lionel or Ives because so few have Dorfan cars.

Steve

Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

George S posted:

Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

For those not familiar with the Dorfan STD Gauge coupler.

together

female

male

Steve,

I'm looking at an MTH Dorfan STD gauge steam engine online. It looks like it has Ives couplers. I know they are basically the same engine as the Ives model. Do you know if the Dorfan models came with Dorfan couplers? Thanks.

George

George, from MTH it would have come with only a Dorfan Coupler. Many bought on the secondary market, many couplers are switched to Lionel or Ives because so few have Dorfan cars.

Steve

Awesome! Thanks Steve. Now you're just going to need to wait to find out why I asked... 

George

George S posted:

Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

George S posted:

Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

For those not familiar with the Dorfan STD Gauge coupler.

together

female

male

Steve,

I'm looking at an MTH Dorfan STD gauge steam engine online. It looks like it has Ives couplers. I know they are basically the same engine as the Ives model. Do you know if the Dorfan models came with Dorfan couplers? Thanks.

George

George, from MTH it would have come with only a Dorfan Coupler. Many bought on the secondary market, many couplers are switched to Lionel or Ives because so few have Dorfan cars.

Steve

Awesome! Thanks Steve. Now you're just going to need to wait to find out why I asked... 

George

Dorfan couplers May still be available from Henning’s 

Steve

Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

George S posted:

Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

George S posted:

Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

For those not familiar with the Dorfan STD Gauge coupler.

together

female

male

 

 

Steve,

I'm looking at an MTH Dorfan STD gauge steam engine online. It looks like it has Ives couplers. I know they are basically the same engine as the Ives model. Do you know if the Dorfan models came with Dorfan couplers? Thanks.

George

George, from MTH it would have come with only a Dorfan Coupler. Many bought on the secondary market, many couplers are switched to Lionel or Ives because so few have Dorfan cars.

Steve

Awesome! Thanks Steve. Now you're just going to need to wait to find out why I asked... 

George

Dorfan couplers May still be available from Henning’s 

Steve

I saw some on their site under MEW parts. If I end up needing them, I'll go there.

George

@Greg J. Turinetti posted:

Here is another symptom of my affliction (the train collecting one).

I thought that it was red when I bought it to go with some other Ives O gauge cars that I have. It is more of a wine color or maroon.  I have not seen any of the trains made for Wanamaker in person, but it looks a lot like that color.

Oh well, now I have an excuse to contine looking for something to pull those passenger cars.

Have a Great Tinplate Weekend

Northwoods Flyer

Greg

wondering what the value of Ives loco is. I have one but missing the bell and light

It all depends on the condition and the color.  I don't remember what I paid for this engine.  Recent sales on ebay indicate that it would sell for about $60.00 to $80.00.

Northwoods Flyer

Greg

Are we back here for good? If so, HOORAY! :-)

Check the date of the thread. Its from a year ago.

I realize that, but it is on the Tinplate Forum instead of the Photos Forum. Guess it will be moved!

@Nation Wide Lines posted:

It would likely grow a caboose! 

Or a passenger car ?