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!