Ooo! Sounds spiffing!
Mitch
You're giving me traction envy! I need to get my Christmas projects finished so I can repair a loco I built years ago and get pics for you. It's a "boxcar boxcab"! A CUT P1-a to be specific.
Becky
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
Penny Trains Another beauty! I love traction! Becky
Another beauty! I love traction!
Just wait until I get 'er painted!
It all started when I picked up a waif EP-5 at a train show a few years back:
I wanted to do a Razorback Traction Co. EP-5, but didn't want to strip a perfectly good shell down to the bare plastic. Fortunately, I came across a bare shell at a train show earlier this year, and now I'm in the process of turning it into a trolley locomotive:
1. Here's the bare shell. I'm in the process of making footers for the footwalks out of Evergreen styrene.
2. A completed footwalk, again using scribed Evergreen siding.
3. Trolley pole bases, made of 1/8" brass tubing. The wires are in case I decide to rig for operational overhead in the future.
4. Drilling out the footwalk using the existing holes in the Lionel shell as guides.
5. Pole bases installed with superglue gel. One is cut down a bit more in order to clear the motor.
6. At this point, I took a break and laid down an antistatic mat on my workbench (been meaning to do this for awhile) and riveted the inside chassis brackets to the inside ends of the shell. Since the horn holes were covered by the roofwalks, I decided to mount the horn castings on the hood of the loco. A small square file was heated with a soldering iron until it broke through the plastic, and the square hole filed out until the horn casting fit. The trolley hook was run through the plastic shell in a similar manner.
7. The horn, trolley hook and trolley pole (a modified Pittman) are installed.
8. The shell next to the chassis. The trolley rope retriever was fabricated from a punched-out circle of leather from an old leather punch of mine. Note that the horn has been updated to a Williams electronic horn (I do still have the original mechanism knocking about).
9. The Crimson Comet body test fit on the shop track. Next up, paint and stickers!
Hope this was helpful!
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