Lionel pre-war train with some modern Merkur power

Here is a small video of a string of Lionel 800 serie pre-war cars pulled by a modern tin-plate Merkur engine. But first the ETS beer train passes.

Merkur 9406 red boxcar

Today, I played with the new red boxcar of Merkur. As you can judge for yourself, it adds great to a string of prewar Lionel goods waggons of the 800 series.

The old Lionel 814 box car is slightly shorter than the Merkur 9406; 8.3 vs 10.8 inch (21 vs 27 cm). But they are both equally wide and high. The Lionel boxcar has only two doors, the Merkur four. The Lionel can have shining journal boxes and some brass details on the sides. The modern full-metal tin-plate Merkur box car is more realistic.

Here you clearly see the level of detail on this modern tin-plate box car. Mind the slightly smaller axle-to-axle distance as compared to the Lionel cars.

Here you can see how the Merkur waggon with Bing couplers couples easily with the latch type prewar Lionel gondola. Time to take the lot for a run.

Ok, Frank, message understood. Here are some pictures with the Merkur box car coupled to a crisp, freshly restored Lionel 812 Gondola. Much better indeed.

Scale zero swap meet in Zutphen

This weekend the annual Dutch scale zero model railroad gathering was held in Zutphen. As usual, it was a relaxed meeting of train enthusiasts. Both the scratch building 2 rail rivet counting community was present and a group of cheerful coarse scale 3 railers. Although I like to see what these precision builders are up to, it is obvious where I spend most time. And the day brougth me a surprise. I was introduced to another Dutch Lionel collector and operator, that started commenting on this blog. We had lots to discuss.

The last three pictures are from the 3 rail corner. With some great engines and waggons. I could not resist and treated myself with a Merkur closed goods waggons, or as the Americans would call it a red four door boxcar.

and there was light

Last weeks I spend much time on wiring my layout. Today it is time to enjoy the lot. Several of the streetlights have been connected and the AC-DC toggle system to operate both AC (MTH, Lionel) and DC (Merkur, ETS) 3 rails zero trains needed to be tested thoroughly. Here are pictures of the fun.

Model train power statement

Surfing the web, I stumbled on this Czech video of a Merkur coarse scale zero engine clearing the tracks of a winter garden layout. Although two rails instead of three rails, the power statement is clear. Honestly, I am amazed that the power pickups on this snowed over rails is so good. Awesome, I would reckon.

In Czech language this train is nicknamed the goggle-train, but this model would better be named Hulk-train, or Muscle-train or something similar.