Parade of pre-war Lionel toy trains

Francesco, you asked for it and now you are going to get it. Here is my attempt to make a video of the pre-war Lionel toy trains running around on the little layout. Let's hope you will like it.

I bought railway crossing lights of Lemax at Lemaxworld for the pleasant price of 3.50 Euro / pair and placed one on the layout. Well it still has to be connected properly, but that can be sorted out later. Then I placed the pre-war trains in a queue and let them run by. In order of appearance: 289E, 1688E, 1664E, 259E and 1668E.

Much of the Lemax houses are too fantastic for me. They still would blend in nicely with a Lionel Polar express or Halloween set, but they are too Dickens-like for my taste. Some items, such as railway crossing signs, benches, lanterns, telephone booths can, however, mix in nicely and since these items are available cheaply in Europe, they are welcome on my layout.

Progress on the Lionel 259E engine

The pilot wheel of the Lionel 259E engine kept derailing on the 027 switches that were directly after a curve. I could not find the reason quickly, but after some time I noticed that the pilot wheel was stuck in the turned position as if it wanted to continue the previous curve. The reason for that was that the switch pushes the pilot wheel upwards and since it is still in curve position it can press one side up, whereas the other side is still locked behind the guiding metal sheet (yellow object in drawing), tilting the pilot wheel and starting the derailment. After I finally realised how the pilot wheel derailed, I came up with a simple solution. I soldered a piece of brass sheet (blue object in drawing) in between the two notches on the pilot wheel bracket and now it runs continuous over all my layout without derailing! This piece of brass is just visible on the photo.

The engine finally also has a matching tender (259T). It is in poor condition, with quiet some rust, no handrails, circular L sign and drawbar. The drawbar was made easily from a piece of brass sheet of 2 inches length and 3/4 inch width. The corners were smoothened with a dremel grinder and two holes were drilled in: one for the engine pin and one to screw onto the tender. They have made their first joint trip on the layout already. This is the start of a new restoration project.

Train trucks

The Williams stock car made me curious to compare the detail level in the train trucks a bit better between four brands of 0 scale 3 rail toy train producers. I was quiet surprised to see the difference between the four brands: Lionel, Weaver, Williams and K-line / Husky. Perhaps, this comparison is a bit outdated, since Williams has been purchased by Bachman and K-line by Lionel and also not complete, since I currently do not have MTH or Atlas cars. But the comparison shows how much difference in toy train truck quality one can get. Three brands have springs in the trucks, but only the springs in Weaver and Lionel cars are functional. This obviously does not mean that I have converted myself into the tradition of rivet counting, just an impression.

Williams stock car

St. Nicolas has been good to me on 5 december. He gave me a yellow Reading stock car #FC04 from Williams Electric trains. The cattle car is relatively heavy compared to similar cars from Lionel and Weaver, since the floor plate is a thicker variety of sheet metal. It has a highly detailed body in 1:48 scale. The trucks are a bit simple of pressed metal and that is a pity because that really makes it a toy train in stead of scale model car. It runs perfect on my 027 layout, I just had to put some insulating sticky tape on the metal un-coupling discs, because they created short-circuits with my Lionel 027 switches. Below the car, near the middle is a gas cilinder like structure. This is perhaps the brake system. Any way, a very nice car and more than welcome on my layout. THANK YOU St. Nicolas!

Layout maintenance

Saturday we visited the 'modelspoorbeurs' in Arnhem. A toy train heaven for h0 and N scale enthusiasts. One stand had quiet a few Athearn American trains in h0. For 0 scalers there were two stands interesting selling pre-war Märklin and JEP for enormous prices: one passenger car from Märklin for 220 Euro or a lantern for 70 Euro. This is quiet in contrast to the low prices for conventional h0 wagons of 5-10 Euro per car. It has been suggested before and it is probably true, due to the global Ebay trade common toy train cars are becoming cheaper and less common cars are becoming extremely expensive. We enjoyed the three layouts on the side. The real steam powered engines in scale G (LGB) were running and those are the most impressive to watch and smell.

Sunday was a good day for redoing a part of the layout. Because the new engine house requires a track distance (center rail to center rail) of 13 cm (5 1/5 inch) instead of the common 16 cm (6 1/4 inch) on Lionel 027 layouts, a special Z-bend had to be made. I took two half curves in 027 topped them off at 10 cm curve length and soldered them back together with brass pins. This brings both tracks just the 1 inch and a bit more to each other and indeed the engine house is now ready for use. While being busy soldering I decided to connect one switch more and to make a circular power line for accesories. I only managed to connect two red bumper lights, but this simplifies the connection of other fun things in the coming months. For instance, the rotary beacon that still does not turn.

B and O Lionel freight express

This rainy weekend was very suitable for playing with Lionel toy trains. With the help of a tripod and a little natural sun light I was finally able to produce a reasonable video.

On the photo and for those with sharp eyes also on the video is the new orange AC-2 covered hopper from DT&I. It arrived this week. This club car from the TCA-MG forum is for blended sand only and was specially produced by Weaver models. It is amazingly detailed and has die-cast trucks and springs. It is still a light weight car. It states that is for 031 curves, but it runs perfectly on my 027 layout as well. The hopper is precisely 1:48 scale, so up to now I have only run it with the few 0 scale cars that I have. But the mismatch with Lionel cars that are a fraction smaller is only minimal, so I think it will run with some more trains soon.

Building a big 2 stall engine house

This weekend, I used almost all evening hours to construct the BIG 2 stall engine house that I purchased a few weeks ago. This nice model structure was made by IHC and although clearly intended for the American toy train market, it mentions "made in Denmark", well that is a surprise. The building instruction is one piece of paper with one drawing and that is a bit short, but the construction is straight forward. One aspect is not completely clear. There are two rectangular holes where we could fit two different ventilation blinds in, I just chose one. The construction time is about 6 hours and the resulting building is enormous: 27 1/2 inch long (70 cm), 10 1/2 inch (26 cm) tall and 12 inch (30 cm) wide. Four engines easily fit inside. It is a model-MEGA-structure or a train cathedral. I didnot bother about the BIG when buying it, but buyers beware, this thing is HUGE. My layout is full now. But it sure looks good.
One aspect is a bit daft though. The center-to-center rail distance for the two tracks is 5 inch, whereas for Lionel 027 6 1/4 is conventional. Well, this means I have to cut and solder a special rail to get it fitting. But for the rest it is a great structure.
Unfortunately, IHC do no longer offer 0 scale structures, in month time they vanished from the IHC website. Fortunately, Atlas 0 has included this engine house in their catalog, so most likely they have purchased the moulds. But this Atlas structure is with 2 chimneys, whereas the IHC has four!

Running pre-war trains

This weekend was great for playing with the pre-war Lionel trains and running them on the layout. I like the sound of the wheels on the tubular tracks and the sweet smell of ozone.

Anyway, it was also the first round for the restored 259E. The pilot wheel does not negotiate all switches good, when a switch is directly after a curve the pilot wheel still point inside the curve and derails on the switch. Hmmm, lets try to readjust the spring and lubricate the suspension point a bit better.

Furthermore, the E-unit buzzes enormously and when it is switched off, the engine runs much better. Perhaps, I need to change there also something.
For the rest it run smoothly.


A few pictures were made to show the fun.

Lionel 259E restored and ready to run

The Lionel 259E steam engine is ready! The final chapter of the restoration process involved the complete rewiring of the engine, since the old cotton covered wires crumbled to dust when touched. The brushes were short and had a scratched surface and were replaced. At first the armature did not turn any more: the new brushes were so long that they pressed the armature gear firmly to the gear plate. So, I added two spacer rings to the brush plate screws and everything turned smoothly again. After a full lubrication the engine was a real smooth runner. The three copper armature plates are a bit damaged due to scratches, probably due to friction with the old brushes. The armature plate was thoroughly cleaned and lightly smoothened with a brass brush on a Dremel tool.
After that the wheels were removed with a wheel puller tool and they were cleaned in white spirit, brushed, polished, cleaned and the interior was painted red. The copper domes, smokestack and handrails were cleaned and polished. Then the whole lot was reassembled. Most difficult was getting the thick nickel side wires in. The black paint was scratched while doing so and I had to repaint the damage again. The new rear truck wheels and axles of George Tebolt fitted in nicely and the new circular L signs on both sides of the cab really finished it off. The main driving rods have a little corrosion damage, because the nickel luster does not return completely after polishing, but they are the originals and they still look good. Lets not forget that this engine was build and sold in 1933 and 1934 and so it is allowed to have a few age marks. It is impressive to see it smoothly drive by. What an elegance and what a large light beam ( I placed a blueish - white LED lamp inside and that really gives a beautiful strong light beam).
Now the hunt is on for a matching tender: 259T or 262T, preferably in poor condition so I can restore this as well.

Scale Zero weekend in Zutphen

This weekend the Dutch Scale Zero foundation had its annual gathering in Zutphen. A few small layouts with nice scenery, a long central loop with many trains and almost all 2-rail zero trains.
Fortunately, in a corner there was toy train enthusiast who collected 3 rail zero: Märklin, Buco, Elletren and Lionel.
Surprisingly many really made their own trains, from brass and tin or from plastic, wood and even from cardboard. Honestly, I was a bit surprised to hear that the beautiful 1200 locomotive was cardboard based, but from the outside one can not see it. Here are a few pictures to catch the spirit.
And on top of all, I found an Scale 0 building kit from IHC, # 300-100, Big 2 Stall engine house. That will make my layout look better. I wonder when this kit was made. According to the manufacturer it is no longer available. Anyway, it is complete and has never been assembled yet. So, about time to do so.

Lionel in Europe

Several hunderds of European toy train enthusiasts prefer North-American toy trains over European ones for a manifold of reasons, to name a few:

• Scale. Most (recent) European toy trains are in scale H0, N, Z or G. A large fraction of the American toy trains are in 0. Zero (1:43.5) is a much nicer scale to hold in your hand and play with. It is just the right size for a toy for humans. Europeans that admire scale 0 can either collect expensive old or modern European toy trains in 0 or join with the Americans: much cheaper and much more choice.
• Design. Streamlined steam engines and classical diesel engines like the F3 belong to most nice looking trains this planet has withnessed. Since many American toy trains are also the best looking engine models they have created, it is pleasure for the eye. Obviously, there are many exceptions to this opinion and we have occasionally also observed some nice looking engines here in Europe, still the golden age of good looking trains was the 30's - 60's in North America. On top of that, in those days there were many competing railroad companies and they painted their engines in bright colours (well not all, but many in comparison to Europe, where competition between railroad companies was not an issue). The Santa Fe Warbonnet paint scheme on an F3 is one of the most attractive ones and that is probably the reason why so many of these engines were in starter sets.
  
• Great options. Many modern American toy-trains are dressed up with horns, whistles, crew talk, realistic train sounds, etc. It is very impressive to hear and see such a realistic toy train run through your house.
• High quality. Many early American toy trains are highly detailed. They simply look so much better than their European produced counter toy trains. Furthermore, it is easy to see that several classical Lionel trains are very well produced, resulting in very robust, stable products that show little wear. Also the old pre-war and postwar electromotors are easy to maintain and keep on running. Similar quality from European producers is simply much more expensive.
  

Globalisation speeded it up. Nowadays, it is getting much easier to import your own trains than a decade ago. Paypal, Ebay, Internet and many on-line dealers in combination with the low USD/EUR exchange rate make them much easier attainable. Paypal is important as Americans work with strange things like cheques and money orders and Europeans remit money directly with IBAN and Paypal made intercontinental money transfers between individuals much and much easier. Obviously the mailman and sometimes also the customer officer need to get paid, but still the total price remains small in comparison to European scale 0 trains.
The power issue (100V / 60 Vz versus 230V / 50 Hz) slowed it down. Because, importing these toy trains is one thing but getting them to work with all the modern electronical gadgets is another. If you want to have a full train show at home, you will need to generate 110 V / 60 Hz in your own home. There are few AC current converters on the market that do a decent job, but depending on the power required it remains a few hunderd Euro's extra. A German shop sell a converter with enough power for one train, but if you need more, you will need a bit more stout equipment. Several European Lionel train enthusiasts have developed their own solutions to deal with this.

Sneak preview of the 259E

I just finished with spray painting the Lionel 259E locomotive black glossy paint and it really shines and reflects. Great. The pink undercoat of Hamerite was much less attractive, but now it starts to look beautifull again. I could not resist to put on some shiny brass bits and to make a few pictures. The brass bits are not ready yet, they do not have the full luster yet, so I will polish them some more. Also the driving rods are too dull at the moment, but the brass brush and the polishing disc will do their work eventually.

Ebay was down

Lionel collectors like to use Ebay. Unfortunately, Ebay is down since friday morning 31 august CET. Also other American sites are apparently affected: Yahoo groups, Hotmail. Here we can still get to the welcome window, but can not pass the sign-in window. Smaller sites are still operational. This situation bears resemblance to hacker attacks of two weeks ago. Lets hope these guys find another hobby soon; for instance toy trains!
Sorry, Hackers. This was a Dutch disease. The largest Dutch internet providers (KPN related: Hetnet, Planet, etc.) have send updates to routers of their users and this caused the trouble. Sure, they deny, but when the preferred DNS number in the TCP/IP protocol is changed, suddenly it all works again. I hope that Ebay reps. will have a word with KPN about this.

corrosion on tin-plate

After dissembling the 259E engine completely, I stripped the paint by immersing the parts in boiling soap water for 30 minutes. The black paint just fell off by stirring the hot liquid along the items. Although there was little corrosion visible from the train in the original state, it is very obvious after stripping. Here on the photo you see the roof part of the cab and many fine brown lines are visible. These crooked rust lines that start at defects in the tin plating and form pin-hole defects. The ironoxide (rust) formed under the tin coating pushes the coating upwards, forms more defects and the rusting starts to walk over the surface forming webs of crooked lines. Much like moles digging tunnels just beneath the surface of a meadow. Nice to see and beautiful for metal-chemists, but a danger for my toy train. So, I will bring out the brass brush and sanding paper to get rid off these corrosion lines and then prime the lot with corrosion retarding paint.

Lionel 259E

A few months ago, I found a Lionel 259E engine in relative poor condition on Ebay. Precisely good for Lionel's junkyard. When it arrived two things were crystal clear: 1 much work would be necessary to get this engine running again and 2 what a beautiful detail this engine has. Basically the engine block and the drivers were covered with rust, dust and hardened grease. The boiler front was bent and the rear truck was missing. When placed on tracks it didn't move an milliinch and only made some rumbles and noices.

Yesterday, I disassembled the engine and cleaned the engine. First, with a cloth and toluene / white spirits to remove the black tacky hardened grease and then with a brass brush to remove the residue. Oh boy, my hands were black! The brushes are relatively thick and have a scratched surface. I sanded them gently and placed them back for the moment. Eventually they need to be replaced. The armature was cleaned and then everything was lubed again. I placed a LED light bulb in the socket and that lighthed directly, but the engine did not do a thing. The wires are in poor condition. They are old cotton covered and this crumbles when you touch them. For the moment I protected a few open spots with insulation tape, but it is clear that I need to get the soldering gun ready for rewiring. Then I focussed on the E-unit. I unscrewed it and dust fell out. After light shaking two small corroded copper rings fell out. The drum had been fully disintegrated! No wonder that the engine did not move. I cleaned the E-unit out and found that the plunger was stuck. After more cleaning and lubing it started to move again. Next, I placed a new drum in the E-unit and worked a little more on getting the plunger falling freely down again and yes the engine runs again!

It is a relief and a feeling of satisfaction in one. The engine has made many loops already on my layout and the E-unit is still not 100% OK ( a few times forward motion is passed), but it runs and runs good. Surprisingly, relatively high voltages are needed to get her moving, but then she runs smoothly. This high initial electric potential could be related to the poor brushes. Next the rewiring needs to be done and after that the engine need a rear truck and a good derusting treatment. Priming and repainting will be necessary and since many of the brass pieces lost their luster, these need to be polished or replaced as well. Papa-Les-Trains placed some really nice photo's of a restored 259E on the web and I do not think I will get it so far, but I will try to bring her close. It just will take a few months.

Decal trouble

Progress on the Lionel 1722 caboose is much slower than hoped for. First there was trouble getting the yellow paint decently on the red body and now it proves difficult to get the decal on without wrinkels, bubbles and nasty reflections on side view. I used Clear Trimfilm 02-0 of Microscale Industries Inc. Hitherto that always worked nice, but these were relatively smaller surfaces (square quarter of an inch etc.). This is the first time that I really wanted to cover the complete side of a car (about 10 x 2.5 inch) and then it really gets difficult to cover the full surface without: wrinkels, gas bubbles, water pockets. The transfer of these water slide decals was improved slightly by adding dish washing liquid to the water, but not enough, still nasty reflections are visible in side view, probably caused by an insufficient contact between the paint and the decal, which cause thin bubbles to form.
Well, I do not like it and and will probably start all over with an another decal material. I do not know which one yet, but I am going to look for it. There must be something out there that works better than this. Any tips are appreciated.

A new house on the layout

Sometimes you are lucky and today I had a good day. I received a beautiful tin building with a nice lithograph for free from a person who cleaning his house and gave it away. So, the best thing to do, is to put along side the tracks and run some trains. The house is made by Bing and has a diamond sign with GBN (Gebrüders Bing Nürnberg) in the middle, which means that it is German from before 1923. Although the house has many scratches - a proof of much former joy- it will be easily restored with some paint if I really feel like it. But, currently I am hesistant to put a brush on it and reacon I will leave if as it is, well for the time being. The house has two floors, one door, seven windows and a chimney. Perhaps it was meant to be signal house along the tracks of a toy train. Well it has found a suitable place on my layout.

Lionel 604 observation

The 604 observation was waiting to get cleaned and restored for quiet some time. It was dirty and rusty. Initially I made a mistake by not priming this car. The black paint came off in a month due to some electrochemical reaction and I could redo the whole car again. Nevertheless, it is finished now and looks great. The brass fence was very dirty and was cleaned with special Brass polish and polished for several evenings. But it shines again!

The nickel air tank covers were corroded and not easily mended. I could not find new air tank covers at part suppliers and hence I started sanding them. After sanding the rust reappeared in a few days at the cracks in the nickel coating, so I decided to sand, polish, clean and varnish the covers. And up till now that seems to work quiet good. It is time to run a passenger train now!

The last find

The Lionel 653 pre-war hopper is in my opinion one of the nicer cars of the 650 serie. The hopper hatch below the car can be opened and closed with a brass wheel and that raises the play value. Therefore, it is more sought after and less easy to obtain one for a reasonable price. Nevertheless, I managed to find one in France a few weeks ago and this dusty and rusty beauty has finally arrived. Besides two missing journals it is complete. Well there are a few shining new journals waiting for this car, but it better be cleaned, stripped and repainted before those are put on.
Furthermore, the bottom hatch is always open because the brass crank rod can rotate freely, so we have to create some friction somewhere to be able to keep it closed as well.

Easter trains

The Easter holiday is very suited for playing with trains. It is still too cold to stay out all day and too warm to do nothing. Anyway, pleasant for running some trains. It was time to play with the 289E engine, 3 812 gondolas and the 817 caboose. I gathered three 812 gondolas and the caboose over the last years and it was about time to line them up and to run them over the tracks. The 810-serie of freight cars is one size larger than the 650-serie and they fit much better with the 289E than with the smaller 1664, 1668 and 1666. These are better off with 650 serie cars.


Furthermore, the new cleaned Reading boxcar also had to be lined up with the other Reading cars. That looked great. It is so amazing how smooth both engines run. That is the joy of railroading in a nutshell, or in egg-shell for these days.

Zinc pest or plain corrosion?

Recently, I acquired a Lionel 9440 boxcar from 1981. I had been looking for this boxcar for a few years, but I couldn't get a hold on one for a reasonable price. Since, Greenberg estimates its value in between 45-60 US$ in good - excellent condition it is no wonder.









Anyway, I finally got lucky a few weeks ago. The trucks were, however, not black but more off-white. Initially, I was afraid to have purchased a boxcar with trucks that are falling apart due to zinc pest. Fortunately, I mild brush with the dremel brass brush quickly removes the white dusty coating and leaves a beautiful black truck. So, it is just a matter of cleaning time and I will have a nice Reading boxcar, ready to run with my steamer.
So, I reacon that is some kind of corrosion. Additionally the axles have a light rust orange color, which make the corrosion a bit more likely.

Lionel 812 finished

On Friday the new parts that I needed to finish the 812 gondola arrived: new couplers, a brass brakewheel and new horseshoe clips to mount the trucks. This evening I finished the gondola. Really a beauty again and so different than the rusted wreck I bought on Ebay. It was a little bit more work than planned, due to the rusted base plate that was so badly affected that the holes could not be filled easily and a new brass plate was used. A good example of transforming trash into treasure. It is not economical (because it is much cheaper overall to buy a car in good condition), but it is very rewarding to feel you saved an old toy train from oblivion.
Now, I first want to finish the 1722 and then choose a new trashure project.

Removing corrosion from brass plates

The Lionel 812 was in poor condition when it arrived. The tin plate was corroded on many places. In one place the corroded tin-plate contacted the brass plate directly and made it turn dark brown (second plate from the left on the photo). Although I do not understand the chemistry completely, but then the exact composition of the tin-plate and the brass are also unknown, it is clear that the brass was affected quiet strongly. I tried to clean this dark-brown brass with a household brass cleaner, metal polish, washing and basically it did not work. Only carefull light sanding did the trick and got the brass back in original luster. I am still sanding and polishing, but it alreday looks much better.
The photo's on the left show the plates when I started cleaning and on the right how they are now.

Transplanting an E-unit into a 1664

In the summer I bought an old Lionel 1664 steamer for a soft price with some corrosion on the nickel driving rods and an issue with the E-unit. After the steamer crossed the ocean, I soon discovered what the issue was: the steamer only reverses and did not drive forward. At first I cleaned the E-unit drum and checked the contacts, it appeared to work correct in the dissembled state, but as soon as put it all together the damn thing only reversed again... Three times I dissembled it, controlled it with a Volt-meter and thought that it would fine, well every time it proved not to be so. After 2 months, I gave up and started to look for replacement, which I soon found on Ebay. After I assured myself that the second E-unit worked correctly, I removed all the wires and solder-residu from it, cleaned, rewired it with modern wire and soldered back into the 1664. Seeing both E-units connected and step by step disconnecting another wire from the old E-unit and soldering it to the 'new' one, reminded me a bit of heart transplantation. Moreover, the E-unit operates a bit like a hearth in a toy train: controlling the flow of electricity through the motor. The good news is: the patient survived and the steamer enthusiastically runs forward and backward again. All that is left to do is a thorough cleaning job and finding some new shiny nickel drivers and linkers.

Billboard reefer fun

Well it is a holiday, so a good time to run some trains. This time the billboard reefers with soap, pickles, liquor, cigarettes and beer are running down the track. Quiet suitable for the new year!