ETS diesel switcher 111

 On this cold and sunny winters' day a new diesel switcher joined the layout. It is an ETS diesel engine  no. 111, modelled after the CSD 704 engine, nicknamed "Lego". Since most of the ETS trains I originally obtained were 2-rail versions, I previously had to convert them to 3-rail operation. That was not necessary for this one. Unmodified, it skids on the Merkur tracks. The sun that returned and this joyful engine, just puts a smile on my face.

Toy trains enlighten overcast, weiry days

 For weeks the sky is grey and there is no proper sun in sight. The best remedy against a weiry mood is to fire up some trains and let them run. In this case a Lionel diesel with some Weaver cars. What a pleasure indeed.

Happy new 2025

During these overcast and weiry days, toy trains distract and give joy. So on this new years day there was heavy traffic on the layout. The Lionel 289E speeded by with some Paya passenger cars.

The Merkur freight service had a few heavy rocks to transport.

As a new years resolution, I will run the trains more often in the coming year. I do hope that all train enthusiasts will do the same. Lets run the trains and lay these "smart phones" aside.

Lionel 817 caboose

 Now that sand-blasting has simplified rust- and paint-removal, I thought it would be nice to tackle one of the nicer train cars waiting for restoration; the Lionel 817 caboose. It always looked a bit crappy with its fainted colours and rust spots. Especially the dark green roof was severely scratched and the brass had a bit too much patina. So time to bring it back to former glory. 

Lionel 817 as received

The roof can be removed easily and opens the main compartiment with a historic layer of dust. Then the bogies and the brass side panels are simply removed.

The bottom plate has a by-gone label with lubrication instructions. I think this is the last time we get to see it.

Lubrication instructions

Once the bogies are removed, the six tabs that fasten the main body to the bottom plate can be straightened as well as the four brass tabs securing the brass side panels to the bottom plate. Then the whole thing comes apart.

Then the further the disassembly is simple. The metal parts are cleaned (dedusted) and sand-blasted. Here you can see what a few seconds of glass pearls has done to the top. See, the before and after, below.

Then the rest follows quickly. Also the wheels, axles and latch couplers benefited from a quick blast of glass pearls. And after a few hours all parts shone. The paint disappeared fast and simple from the flat pieces, but it took more time to remove the paint around the window ridges and rivets.

So, the brass was polished first with a brass brush on a Dremel-type tool followed by the polishing disc with metal polish and cleaning with white spirit. All painted objects were first primed. Dark green and black glossy rattle cans were about and the "Peacock Green" had to be purchased from the local hardware store, where we argued to either use RAL6033 or what is "Peacock Green" according to the local paint producer. Personally, I found RAL6033 a bit dull and this colour much brighter, so I followed the company's recommendation.

The reassembly was straightforward. I added a third rail pick-up roller to one of the bogies to enable lightning. That pick-up assembly was purchased a few years ago at the late shop of George Tebolt.

After the light was checked, the roof was snapped on, and the caboose was ready. Ain't she gorgeous.

Time to take it for a run around the tracks.

The delights of sand-blasting, recreating a Lionel 265 tender

 Over the years, I have accumulated multiple highly dilapidated, rusted Lionel train cars and they are waiting for repair in my box with rusties. One of the more time-consuming steps in the restoration process is stripping the original paint. This summer I was treated with a sand-blaster box, that as you probably know works with glass pearls (200 micron beads) and not with sand, but that is fairly irrelevant. What is pleasant, however, is that old paint layers can be removed in a few minutes time. And that really helps. The barrier to grab an old rusty and to strip it from its paint and rust is now minimized. 

Anyhow, I had this old Lionel 265 tender laying about in my rusty car box, and I figured it was a good candidate car to test sand blasting on.

Lionel 265 tender

Backside of a Lionel 265 tender

As you can see for yourself, it pretty much is rusted all over and in need of resuscitation. After disassembly, which is dead simple due to the four big screws on the bottom, I first treated the surfaces with paint stripper and brushed the surfaces lightly to get rid off the tacky gunk. Anyhow, although most of the paint was removed, still sufficient was left in all the nooks and crannies. Moreover, the rust became more prominently visible.

Tender after paint stripping

The bottom plate was heavily corroded and so was one of the side panels. Time for sand blasting action. Within 5 minutes the surfaces looked completely different: only metal was left. Unfortunately, the rusting had gone deep in the bottom plate, where pitting is now eminent.

Tender after sand blasting

Anyhow, if you ever have an off-day, I would recommend sand-blasting rusted objects; it swings your mood right back to happiness. 

The pitting was serious in the bottom plate at both sides. But as this plate is hardly visible, I reckoned that filling these holes with putty would be a waste of time. So after priming the lot, the black paint was sprayed on. The assembly was straight-forward. The shiny rods on the sides of the car are made from a very soft alloy and therefore, difficult to get in the right shape and keep it that way. The connecting rod to the engine was too far rusted and had a non conventional hole, so I replace that with a piece of cut and painted aluminium. 

The tender is back on track, as you can see. And yes, I did clean the layout.

The lessons learned:

- Sand blasting is fun,

-You do not need to remove old paint with stripper, you can blast it off directly

-I needed a more hefty air compressor for sand blasting, but what a joy it is.

Bing electric engine brown 18V

Last week on the model train swap meeting in Houten, I acquired an old electrical engine made by the Bing Brothers in the roaring twenties, so now roughly 90 years old. It just mentions 18 V on the side, has a body that is brown lithographed with yellow stripes. It was more difficult than expected to find some information on this little engine on Internet, presumably because the name interferes with a now semi-popular search engine.  Additionally, Bing apparently did not number its products like Märklin or Lionel did.

Nevertheless, I found two hits on the web, one in historytoy and one in German image gallery of stuff that once was on Ebay. On Historytoy it is named "Elektrolok 22". When I compare the pictures with the engine that I obtained, I notice that some previous owner has replaced the third rail pick-up assembly, but that for the rest the engine is complete; all the buffers, pantographs, box journals, etc. are there.

The engine did not run properly, tough; it created a lot of noise, vibrations and ozone. So, it was time for thorough inspection. The engine disassembles easily with the two screws and nuts that fastens the body to the black chassis. Then the black chassis can be removed from the central motor block with again two screws and nuts. I removed the red spoke wheels with a wheel puller and then the engine could be completely dissembled in its components.

On the photo above it is from left to right, the wire to front-light, the connectors for passenger cars lights, the top motor-block piece, the E-unit (reversing unit, in Bing terms the Fahrrichtungsumschalter), the stator coil, the bottom motor piece and the third rail assembly. I reckoned that nobody every opened this motor in 90 years time and that I had to remove the lot of hardened lubricant, carbon black and dust.

The E-unit drum was filthy and did not easily rotate, so I cleaned it with a Dremel tool with a brass wire brush and the lubricated the E-unit-axle.

I noticed that the wires were still cotton insulated and crumbly, so I removed them all and soldered new wires on. Furthermore, I found a short in the wire from the third rail pick-up to the stator coil. It missed its insulation at the position were it ran through the bottom of the bottom-motor-block.

So, that was an easy fix as well. Then I cleaned years of carbon dirt from the 3 pole commutator. I measured the stator coil: 3 Ohm. That is reasonably for an old coil. Then I measured the resistance between the 3 commutator plates: all 2.6 - 2.7 Ohm, so also reasonable. I reassembled the engine and with some wiggling it started to run fast. It is a fast spinner for a 90 year old electrical engine. So, now it is time to clean the large gear wheels and the red spoke wheels. Then I better repaint them bright red.

Above the front side of the cleaned engine with left the E-unit and right the green stator coil.

The back side, shows a bit of the E-unit on the right side. It is a electro-mechanical system, A hooked lever is moved by the stator coil and hooks in a gear with 4 teeth. Every time the current is engaged, the lever is pulled to the stator and the hooked lever rotates the E-unit drum for 90 degrees. Fairly smart stuff for the twenties.

Emsland modelling & toy train fair 2018

Last month, on 13 and 14th of January, the annual modelling & toy train fair was held in Lingen. I had been planning to visit them for several years. Last year there was too much snow and this year we could finally visit them. It is a swap meeting and exhibition of many trades of modelling. One hall was packaged with trains, one with trucks, the other with planes, boats, mini-steam engines and sterling motors. So it is a fairly broad happening in the Emslandhallen.

In a corner they flew with model air planes. But as usual in flight they are too fast to take a snap shot.

With RC trucks, it was apparently a custom to hire a dumpster filled with dirt and to let the off-road trucks run through it. We saw three of these dirt containers.

The collection of modelled boats was impressive. Most of them were RC boats that sailed in temporary pond at great speeds

My personal favorite was an Märklin scale zero layout. The rattling noise and the ozone smell were gorgeous.

In the swap meeting hall there were many sale booths with trains, most h0 and N. You had to look pretty good to find some scale zero stuff, like a Fleischmann train, a bunch of Lima railroad cars and one MTH boxcar. But the 45 € price tag for one box car without box was a bit too steep for me. I liked the many sales booths with electronic components, these were very handy.
The bread buns with salami, curry sausages with mustard were excellent. We just did not grasp the ice cream booth which had a healthy turnover. It ain't summer yet! Luckily the had plenty of beer to observe it all and to enjoy it all.

Train world Brussels

A few weeks ago, we finally visited Train world in Brussels. We had planned to visit the Belgian railroad museum already for a few years, but due to the daily stuff, this has been postponed for too long. Nevertheless on a bleak winters day, we went to Schaerbeek railway station. I remember this station from my early childhood as the railroad station from which the sleeping trains to Biarritz left as the start of the summer holiday.
The entrance now is the side-hall of the original railway station. The original grandeur of the Victorian era can still be witnessed here, with the marble stone plating of the floor and walls. The personnel is friendly and for a relative small entrance fee you have access to a beautiful train museum. Via the restaurant (RN express) and the ticket tourniquets you walk in the large hall of the original train station Schaerbeek. There are several beautiful large scale models of old Belgian steamers. In the old wooden ticket booths there is a display of railroad uniforms, tickets and ticket vending machines. Next, you will exit the station at the back and you will see a remarkable large steam-powered railroad crane for accident recovery etc. It is an impressive large machine from  deep in the nineteenth century, loving named Juliette.

After a small stroll you will enter a new building that looks remarkably much as a metal box. Again you will have to scan your tickets and then you enter the real large museum building. It is composed of four different huge halls which are packed with trains.

The first hall is very dark and contains five early steam engines, including the Pays du Waes. A small original steam engine from 1844 (so not reconstructed, but the real engine from 1844).

The engines are magnificent, however, due to the darkness in the hall, they are not so easy to photograph. Which is another good reason to purchase the museum catalog. We spend a good hour in this first hall, just to appreciate these old and occasionally quirky engines, but then they were engineered in the UK, so what else could one expect.

The second hall is filled with the jewel of Belgian railroading; the 12-series. A record keeping Atlantic stream-lined steamer from the thirties. Although a small rail motor and beautiful preserved coaches are also present in this hall, you will not notice them, because it is the 12004 engine that stands in the middle. The driving wheels are simply huge and the engine itself is remarkably high.

The third hall is filled with old coaches and in a corner they pilled up the remains of a modern vehicle which recently crossed the tracks when a train passed and shattered it. Although the airbags must have blown, the driver did not stand a single chance; a pile as mortal reminder.
The fourth hall contains some classic Belgian diesel and electric engines, post coach and a luxurious TEE coach from the seventies. A beautiful refreshments car sells beverages from a forgotten time.

Then you will walk the metal stairs (or take the elevator) to the attic where some old goods cars are placed under the roof.

A long walkway with models of bridges and fly-overs, a large model train display, the noses of the Eurotrain and Italo will bring you to the Belge. This is beautiful steam engine that flies over the museum shop.

So, all in all, it is an impressive train museum. In my humble opinion a must-see for train-lovers. Since there is much to see, a true enthusiast can easily spend a full day here. And since the restaurant is placed outside the museum, it is wise to eat before you enter, otherwise you have to negotiate your way out and in with the help of the museum shop personnel.

Hjerl Hede vintage bog train

A small vintage heritage line is hidden in the North-West corner of Jutland. Inside the open air museum  named Hjerl Hede a small steam train runs up the hill and towards a large lake. The old tracks were laid to transport peat from the bog to the lake to further transport the peat to the small towns of nineteen century Jutland.

The small trip gives you a true feeling of the power of this small steamer and the effort it has to perform to push the load over the hill. The black smoke tarnishes the green leaves on the way. The way back to the peat bog is more a matter of braking the train in a controlled manner.