Erie alco`s becoming 2400 series green...

Classic Toy Trains Forum
1

Hey guys…

Just a little sneak peak at what I grabbed off of Fleabay a couple weeks back. Got a set of somewhat decent Erie alcos, wouldnt run for crap, paint was awful, dirty and filled with years of gunk:

So myself and my close friend who`s a huge Lionel guy, decided it was time to give his green postwar 2400 series passenger cars something new to pull them around the layout. And yes, we know its been done before and featured in CTT. But now we figured we would give it a whirl. Progress pics to follow…

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Looking forward to it! Those shells are actually in pretty good shape - only a tiny noticeable warping on the one on the right - & no reinforcement “button” on the roof.

Rob

3

I have this same set only in silver santa fe? colors. They are in good shape considering my brother and I used to run them as fast as we could when we were kids… I brought them home from my parents to clean up with the rest of my moms cars. I thought about repaint and decal but hesitated for value. Should I just break down and redo them. They run great and hopefully now with the battery plate found it should have a strong horn as well.

I am looking forward to your thread.

Mike

4

After a week of curing, the paint is dry and ready to begin work on the ornaments and new decals:

Starting to look familiar?

5

nice job on the paint. Can you post a bigger picture. It looks like yours sits better on the frame than mine does but I may be able to fix that. Can’t wait to see more.

6

Another quick update. The horns, front nose lens and decals are on, plus the numberboards are back in:

and

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Looks great! kinda looks John Deereish[:-^] lol Oh chief

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I had the same idea of having a matching Alco to power my green passenger cars. In the 1980’s when Lionel moved to Michigan they reissued the 2400 series passenger cars with Michigan names Chesterfield, Mt. Clemens, Lansing and Detroit. I found an old 027 postwar UP 202 Alco and repainted it. At the local hobby shop I found Tamiya aircraft spray cans that closely matched , AS-23 Light Green and AS-27 Gunship Gray. The colors match better in person than what shows in these photos. The yellow stripes were brushed on with Testor’s yellow enamel, the white letters are rub on and the Lionel logos were copied off the internet and printed on glossy sticky labels. I also added numbers in the numberboards with sticky labels. In the future I would like to add a dummy Alco if I can come up with one someday.