Prewar O-gauge American Flyer Minnehaha train is back in service ! (with a Marx motor)

Pretty much normal for prewar Flyer lower priced items.

Steve

Yeah, seems to be SOP for prewar Flyer lower priced items like Steve said. My 4 wheel and 8 wheel Flyer O-gauge all have the extra long axles and all I can buy is the low priced stuff!   LOL

The extra length makes it a little more difficult to remove the wheels. Maybe it was a way to keep kids from tearing stuff up so quickly?

Cool little Minnehaha train, Ace. The articulated trains like that and the various M10000's look like a lot of fun. Looking forward to seeing an updated photo.

I doubt that it is the original axle.

Eric

Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

Pretty much normal for prewar Flyer lower priced items.

Steve

Yes, some of the prewar American Flyer trains rivaled Marx for "economy of construction". But the paint and overall profile gave them a lot of appeal despite their simplicity.

The cars look "empty" with the open windows, so I stuck white paper inside the cars. Blue plastic straws on the axles help maintain better wheel gauge for derailment-free tracking through switches and crossings.

My Marx-powered Minnehaha now looks better with side rods on it. It has no drive rods because the motor pivots inside the loco shell. In theory it has inside cylinders. The side rods were from my junk box, adapted to fit. A pair of drive wheels needed to be drilled and tapped to attach the rods.

That's a great idea. I gave up on finding replacement drive wheels to put on mine, but did not think to adapt a Marx motor.

Tin-rodders rule!

RoyBoy posted:

That's a great idea. I gave up on finding replacement drive wheels to put on mine, but did not think to adapt a Marx motor.

Tin-rodders rule!

This Minnehaha loco has a narrow body shell, and the motor has to swivel inside the shell to take curves. To adapt the Marx motor I trimmed down the case of the E-unit with a Dremel tool for clearance and fabricated a hanger-bracket for the motor which attaches to a single pivot-screw through the top of the body shell. I used a double-reduction Marx motor (not a "fat wheel" version) so it can negotiate typical Lionel switches. My Minnehaha train can negotiate O27 curves although it likes wider curves for speed runs.  

For improved electrical pickup I ran ground wires to the trailing truck axles (green wire to left).

Minnehaha train on O72 - O54 curve.

Huge Thanks to Rob English who gifted this "handyman special" to me a few years ago. I finally adapted a replacement motor to it and added the side rods !!!

Ace,

Great looking train. I always liked that trick with the straw. Very useful and economical. 

Tom 

Nice to see the old girl back in service!

I just got one today, ugliest thing in the world with the nose sticking up. Which motor did you use?

Thanks, John

Looks way better this way, good job

any chance you have a template? Thanks

Very cool!