LIRR MP-54 Commuter Car

[Train-O]

Bob.M,

Though, I've been living on the Island of Long since 1973, I really am not sure of the actual cars, but I believe the color of the L.I.R.R. cars in your photo. are of a blue, or green and there are no pantographs, which indicates a self contained motor, or a third rail pick-up shoe, as shown by the third rails in your photo.

I know, I am not much help, but I've seen so many different shapes, sizes, types and colors of cars on the L.I.R.R., of old and new N.Y.S. Mass Transit equipment, that for all I know even a flying saucer could have rode on the rails.

Ralph

[Bob.M]

 Now that I have figured out how to include videos, here are the LIRR MP-54s in action.

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/11157878@N06/4321928601/

[Bob.M]

phillyreading

..... The other thing that may be giving you problems is the traction tire on the powered unit, take the shell off and run the interurban unit thru the switch and see if you lose power to the center rail pick-up or the outside rail pick-up, ...

Lee F.

 

Thanks for the info. I wish I had checked the forum before adding the wire for the center rail. When I got them back together I found out that it was the outside rails causing the problem. (Maybe both). Now they are back apart and I am putting a 2nd wire from dummy to powered unit. One bit of good fortune is that 2 of the wires in the connector that was supplied between the cars are not used, so I did not have to add any wiring external to the wire bundle. I will find out if it works later today.

[phillyreading]

I don't see any disadvantage to having power come from the second unit, no problem other than maybe appearence if you don't use a stranded wire, about 18 AWG should work & a connector of some sort to seperate the cars if you want to run the one by itself. The other thing that may be giving you problems is the traction tire on the powered unit, take the shell off and run the interurban unit thru the switch and see if you lose power to the center rail pick-up or the outside rail pick-up, the way to do that is with a wire that has an alligator clip on it to stay in place while you attach it to one of the rails and then to center or outside rail pick-up inside the interurban. The 022 switches interupt power to the outside rail so that it can throw the switch when an engine or other car goes over the outside rail that is seperated from the other part of the switch.

The problem I had with a Williams SD-45 engine going over a highway crossing activation clip-on was that the outside rail lost power to the circuit board, and put my SD-45 into nuetral. I finally figuired out that the traction tire was causing it to lose power, so added a wire from a Lionel quad hopper frame to the Williams SD-45 and that helped it.

Also look inside the K-Line powered unit and see if you get both center rollers to supply power to the circuit board or not. With some K-Line and Williams passenger cars that I have the center roller pick-up supplies only the light closest to the pick-up.

Lee F.

[Bob.M]

 Now that I have the train table up and running, I find there is a problem with these cars. The Motor Unit tends to stop on my O-22 swirches. There is a gap in the center rail, and power is lost. I first tried cleaning the track, and it improved, but these K-Line units stop where other engines don't.

My proposed solution is to run a wire from the dummy unit along the existing wire cable between the cars. I need to take them apart again to see if I can do that. Is there any disadvantage to having both cars supply power to the engine?

[Bob.M]

 The most difficult part of this conversion was finding the lettering. At first I thought I would find a pre-made sheet of LIRR transfer letters. I did, but it is for HO. Nothing is available for O-Gauge.

So I tried to find a custom made set of lettering. I found 2 suppliers. One wanted $140 for one sheet. Next was a search for White transfer letters 1/4" in an alphabet. One dealer wanted $18.95 plus  $8.95 shipping plus $5.00 handling fee. Woodland graphics makes the size I want, but there are only 2 Ls per sheet. At $4+ per sheet I would need 4 sheets to do my 2 cars. I settled on my third choice: press-on letters from ChartPak. #01006. Reasonably priced at $2.59, and there are 23 Ls per sheet. DiscountOfficeItems.com got them here in about a day.  UPS Ground was $7.95. They could have put them in a USPost office envelope for about 1/2 that. Here is the result. One advantage of the press on is you can remove them and try again.

 

 

 

[Bob.M]

Here is a picture of another LIRR MP-54 from way back when. This one has no protruding headlight on top, so it more closely represents the one I am modeling.

 

 

 

[Bob.M]

 Here is the repaint job. I am pleased with the color match. See the photos posted earlier in this thread. Next comes the web search for a supplier of custom lettering. I may repaint the roof with flat black. The original glossy finish does not look exactly right. One detail I wish I had not bothered with: I removed the chains before painting, but later noticed that the photo of the original LIRR train has chains matching the bright orange. No biggy.

 

 

[phillyreading]

My interurbans will run on 036 curves like Lionel's fastrac has but nothing smaller as they are the 18 inch units.  The 15 inch interurbans or semi-scale will run on 031 curves but maybe not 027 curves.

Lee F.

[Bob.M]

phillyreading

I bought a K-Line Heavyweight passenger car of the same dimensions and painted it Reading green to match my interurban set.

 

Thanks for the reply. I will keep that in mind after I finish the 2 cars I am working on. If I recall, yours was an 18" long car, which may or may not  make the turns on my O-31 track. I have seen different websites which say it needs O-31 or O-42. I will look for another 15".

I finished painting the ends bright orange, have not painted the body yet. The tiny leds were difficult to mask. I used vaseline on 1 set of leds. It was easier than the masking tape.

Next is to find how/where to get custom lettering. I don't know whether to look for rub-ons, decals or stencils. I can't say I ever saw custom stencils offered, but it looks like the original "Pennsylvania" lettering on the K-Line model was spray painted. That would solve the problem of lettering over the rivets. My plan now is to get lettering that fits between the rivets. Grinding them off does not sound like a good idea.

[phillyreading]

Not sure if you can buy dummy passenger cars for the interurban set, but here is what I did, I bought a K-Line Heavyweight passenger car of the same dimensions and painted it Reading green to match my interurban set.

Hope that helps you.

Lee F.

[Bob.M]

 Here it is November, and all the leaves are raked up. Time to get back to trains. I just received the K-Line K2780 as pictured in the 1st post in this thread. On the box it says:

"Vestibules with opening doors." Mine would not open. Here is the reason why:

 

I took it apart for painting, and noticed the little white plastic things that prevent the doors from opening. They are easily removed by pushing the door hinge out. 

The other thing on the package : "Diaphragms"  I did not see any. I guess they are the accordian like things between cars to keep out the weather. I do not really need them.

I had expected the windows to slide out, but they are glued in place. Easily removed with a razor blade, so I dont get any paint on them.

The RailSounds are nice, but are of a diesel engine. This is a model of an electric motor powered commuter train.

I am overall pleased with the train, and will post pictures as I convert it over to looking like an LIRR MP-54.

I may want to buy some more "Dummy" units later on, but I do not see them offered anywhere.

[phillyreading]

Hard to say if those 2004 items exist or not as K-Line was having some financial problems back then. I tried ordering some stuff from the 2005 K-Line catalog only to find out that the items I wanted were never produced at that time. One of the reasons I now buy stuff that I can see in person and not from any catalogs any more.

My Interurban set is 18 inches long on each passenger car.

Lee F.

[Bob.M]

phillyreading

The K-2703 TT Grn.(like philo426 has posted a photo of)(from the early 90's, K-2700 made in China on the motor unit underneath) Reading Interurban two car set has working headlights on one end of each car with color reversing lights(green/red), when the green light is on the main headlight comes on as well, when the red trailing lights come on only the red lights are lit...

 

The earliest K-Line catalog I have is 2002. They have a couple of 15" Interurbans (Typical number is K-27801) selling for $400. In the 2004 catalog they show very similar cars for $200. (Typical K-27802) I have seen videos of these cars showing how the lights turn on/off with the direction. A nice feature. But every time I contact a vendor about the 27802 he has, he comes back with the information that they don't have the lights on top. I am just wondering if the items as shown in the 2004 catalog ever did exist?

[phillyreading]

The K-2703 TT Grn.(like philo426 has posted a photo of)(from the early 90's, K-2700 made in China on the motor unit underneath) Reading Interurban two car set has working headlights on one end of each car with color reversing lights(green/red), when the green light is on the main headlight comes on as well, when the red trailing lights come on only the red lights are lit. The colors are closer to an olive green or olive drab than blue or gray. At the other end of each unit there is a rubber piece attached to the car and no lights. Also has one pantograph on it, looks like the pantograph that K-Line used for the GG-1 # 4892. The length of the cars is 18 inches and runs on 042 track or larger curves.

Bob K. described a Reading Interurban set with a later production date then what I have. I looked at the box that my set came in when I bought it, still have the box.

Lee F.

[philo426]

[Bob Keller]

The old k-Line K-2701A (South Shore, K-2702 (PRR), K-2703 (Reading), and K-2703JCP Reading cars had a single rooftop headlight, and a single pantograph. Only the Pennsy version had the porthole crew windows.

The K-2707 Reading (Blue and Gray) cars had headlights on both cab end rooftops and single pantographs. The unpowered trailer car for this model has no pantographs.

Hope that helps.

[Bob.M]

Ogaugeoverlord

The headlight on the roof suggests they are using an older version - dating back to 1992 or 1993. I recently bought the North Shore set which has a roof similar to the lower Pennsy cars, but it has two trolley poles on each car and not pantographs. These are reviewed in the July issue.

 

Thanks for your reply. What I am trying to do is get any Line that matches the shape of the car below. It does not matter what line, PRR, Reading or whatever, as I will repaint it to look like the LIRR car.

 

 

[Bob Keller]

The headlight on the roof suggests they are using an older version - dating back to 1992 or 1993. I recently bought the North Shore set which has a roof similar to the lower Pennsy cars, but it has two trolley poles on each car and not pantographs. These are reviewed in the July issue.

[Bob.M]

 In the 2004 catalog, the PRR version, K-27802 is depicted like this:

 

But in the 2007 (K-Line by Lionel) 6-21326 looks like:

I have been trying to locate the older model, without success. Even though the cars have different part numbers, the models listed under the K-Line number invariably look like the lower picture. I am starting to wonder if maybe K-Line used a prototype in the 2004 catalog that they never built in quantity. The difference, for me, is the protruding (and I assume, operating) lights at the ends. Does anyone actually have one that looks like the top picture?