Weird Scenes from inside the Carbody

[De Bruin]

Because I have chronic weakness for cheap troublesome stuff I periodically succumb to the odd Show Table, Trainz or Ebay white elephant. Pulling the car body off to see what’s under is reliably entertaining, if you’re into that sort of thing. Here’s what was "under-the-hood" of a GP(w/Lionel shell) I scored off Trainz about a year ago. Pretty brutal looking and the shell was no prize either.

I normally pass on these as they’re usually just modified with junky Roco drives. But this was listed with a cast chassis and appeared to have CLW-like tank drive and was fairly cheap. It’s been weighted to 7 pounds, but only runs in one direction currently.

I’m tanking off the car body in brake fluid, in the hope that once/if I can get the guts working correctly I’ll repaint it and detail it to a facsimile of an #9200 series IC GP w/SG, at least that’s the plan for now.

Between the white elephants and the estate donations to the club we're awash with wierd stuff like this, I'll post more examples for your snarking pleasure as I get to them.

[bob turner]

You didn't say what you paid, but I a m guessing the sprung trucks were worth it?

[herronpeter]

De Bruin, you might have to rewire your house with 220 to get enough oomph to move that beast in both directions! Seriously, any plans to change the motor?

Peter

[Rufus T. Firefly]

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[Chris Webster]

How to make a plastic Lionel geep weigh as much as a doorstop?

[R.K. Maroon]

You didn't say what you paid, but I a m guessing the sprung trucks were worth it?

Good eye, Bob. That comment made me look closer. I believe the trucks and drive components are either Max Gray or early U.S. Hobbies. Here is a similar drive in a known KTM GP7:



I have two of these, and I am very pleased with how they operate. Good score, Pete.

[De Bruin]

You didn't say what you paid, but ...guessing the sprung trucks were worth it?

I recall paying $85 including shipping for this extravaganza mostly for that cast chassis and drive though the Lionel shell is serviceable for use on the club layout, as in sturdy enough to be grabbed out of a tunnel or derailed down an embankment without denting or breaking apart. Thanks to Jim’s photos I agree it’s likely a KTM and was indeed surprised by the quality of those sprung trucks and the truck casting quality when it showed up.

.....you might have to rewire your house with 220 to get enough oomph to move that beast in both directions! Seriously, any plans to change the motor?

Testing here (one direction only) it pulled just under 2 amps with no car load (GML's breaker kicks at 7) but again I bought it to run on the RMCA layout which nominally has an absurd amount of excess track amperage anyway. That said, I'll pull those weights off and start over. I’ll replace the motor if it’s got a real problem but if I can get it to run correctly no, I’ll clean it up and keep it. Large open face motors are pretty bullet proof in that environment.

Nice motor mount!

Ahhh I’d be disappointed if anyone hadn’t commented on that amongst all the other evident issues, yes it is Weird. Note opposite end of the motor does not touch that weight. Creative no? I plan on realigning (more efficient right?) that after removing the chassis weights which truly seem excessive and given the maxo-heavy already chassis itself, superfluous.

How to make a plastic Lionel geep weigh as much as a doorstop?

Outside of the shell, not much Lionel here. I suppose I could retrofit a Red Caboose geep car body (got at least one) but my experience with them is they’re brittle, require kid-cloves etc. Ok for Track World but not the "kill zone" down at the club.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

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[De Bruin]

I need a break from Ebay, rebuilds and painting, reviewed some of my past posts for unfinished business to update and found this one from last year.

Per the earlier posts in the string this one had a problematic drive set-up that Sarge prescribed a fix to via some surgery, so disassembled the motor and ground out a matching notch in the end plate in order to allow the motor to straddle the bolster king pin.

This provided the needed space to “un-bend” the motor bracket mount and lower the motor over the bolster to straighten out the flexible coupling. Not perfect but a huge improvement over the as-delivered issue. The chassis and drive, while still slow, now ran freely with an amp pull below 1.5 with beaucoup tractive effort sufficient for 20 “old school” freight cars or 4-5 Walthers style composite kit passenger cars.

The Lionel 2338 shell (Milw. Rd.) required a major clean-up and re-work, between the steam generator and air-tank “torpedo tube’s” not to mention cleaning as much of the Irvington factory colors off as possible, which took for-friggin-ever.

Working off of a J. Parker Lamb photo of an 8800 series GP-7 pulling the Shreveport LA to Meridian MS Northeastern Ltd., I applied parts from P&D for the roof SG detail and scratched the air tanks from wood rods and KS strip brass from the local Ace hardware.

SC Dave pointed out I could shim down the plastic Lionel end steps, which were attached with screws to the aftermarket chassis plate, and that was huge improvement in the final appearance, albeit still a tad “high-water” looking.

A welcome diversion from Ebay. Decals by MicroScale, paint by Ace HW, pictured above on Track World hauling the Big-Four’s Indianapolis Special which was itself a sad remnant of the Chi-Cinncy Sycamore.

[bob turner]

Looks great!

[R.K. Maroon]

Very nice work, Pete. I always enjoy seeing diesels that are usually associated with freight pulling passenger trains instead. That last "action shot" is great. The slightly tilted and blurred image with not much color reminds me of my first railroad shots, black and whites taken with a Polaroid "Swinger", or color shots taken a year or two later with the cheapest Kodak 126-cartridge instamatic sold (all of $10 in 1971).

Jim

[De Bruin]

Thanks guys, it was a learning experience. It is in service downtown, reliable if a tad slow power, good for dual service 8^)

......The slightly tilted and blurred image with not much color reminds me of my first railroad shots..... color shots...with the cheapest Kodak 126-cartridge instamatic sold (all of $10 in 1971).
Jim

You're thinking of this?

Got another one of the southbound City of New Orleans where the cab is just a smear but the trailing E8B is in focus.
It is reminiscent of those old blurry b&w shots where the leading edge of the loco blurs at speed as it appears to be leaning into the wind due to the focal plane of the early camera shutter.

[R.K. Maroon]

Boy, does that IC shot bring back memories. That was on the south side of Chicago, just north of 51st street? I wonder if you can still get that close to the tracks -- my guess would be "not without climbing a fence", which we did not have to do. The IC was still running the old rataan-seat heavyweight MUs back then, yes? No? Ah...I can hear the gears grinding even now.