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.