Here’s a couple of cheap trainset care that I’ve rpainted and made into halfway-respectabel models.
Lima Conrail Caboose Before:
After:
Here’s another Lima Caboose:
Before:
After:
Bachmann Caboose:
Before:
After:
Anybody else have some trainset fixer-uppers to share?
Those cabooses looks pretty cotton picking good for “rescued” train set junk…
Good job on the refinishing/rebuilding.
Great work!
I posted this in the Diesel thread that was started a while ago, but I might as well post it here to.
This is an Athearn, out of the BB GP9. It’s one of my main switchers, and it’s time for a rebuild. Athearn has lots of details wrong on this, going by prototype pics, and I won’t fix every one, I will turn this into a respectable switcher.
Some before pics:
And some after pics:
Now it’s time for this loco to get back to work!
[URL=http://s1297.photobucket.com/user/wirails/media/IMG_1226_zpsb1d6b978.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1297.photobucket.com/albums/ag22/wirails/I
This is an old Tyco reefer that I brought up to my current standards, replacing the truck mounted horn-hook couplers with body mounted Kadees, replacing the trucks with better ones with impproved mountings and adding weight. Not a big change visually, but big improvement operationally
I published a how-to on this project on the forum in 2011
Pt 1 - Truck replacement
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/194011.aspx
Pt 2 - Coupler replacement
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/194274.aspx
EDIT: Liiks like you will have to copy & paste the links due to some glitch in the new Forum software program
Nice work, The BB GP9 was actually my first “real” decent runner when got back into the hobby 24 years ago. Tweaked and detailed it to quite a decent looking
Nice resurection on those cabese. GP9 man. Amazing what some TLC and weathering can do.
Very nice cabeese. With just some paint and weathering? I like it.
Here is a train set hopper car (Bachmann, HO) that I put in my coal drags. It’s had body mount Kadee couplers, a home made coal load, trucks painted rust red, undercarriage painted dark gray, and an overall shot of Dullcote to kill the toy like gloss.
I have others, but I will confess I usually don’t go all the way to the bottom of the food chain. Athearn blue boxes from train shows form the starting point for most of my kitbash projects. They can be had for $4 $5 a car. Tyco and Bachmann are a step down, a little cheaper, but the Athearns look so much better for only a dollar or two more.
U-betcha! This model is an upgraded Walthers Trainline wide-vision caboose, got it for ~$10. I didn’t bother taking any “before” photos, so you’ll need to click on the link above if you want to see what it originally looked like.
Ken,Great job! She looks good.
Train set junk? I have an Athearn GP38-2 from a train set, and the quality is great! The paint job is perfect, even the little warnings that I can’t read are crisp. It runs like a charm to. I also have a caboose from the same trainset that has great detail.
Gidday, Great Stuff so far. [tup]
This started off life as an OO model of the French prototype, made by Joeuf, that was saved from the rubbish bin. The first photo is of my first resurrection, and the second is of my “I think I can do better?” redo.
The Mehano boxcar has only had body mounted couplers, Atlas wheels and trucks, and extra weight fitted, now a better runner. The Lifelike covered hopper has had scratchbuilt grab irons and hatch handles fitted, a brake system made from Tichy spares, sprue and styrene off cuts, body mounted couplers, Proto wheels and trucks, and extra weight. If nothing else I had fun.
Here ya go
Tyco C430, in CB&Q red,Tyco made millions of them circa 1970
Same engine, years later, rescued from the Junk box, new chassis, new paint, new life!
In fact, I was running it tonight!
I got out of photography some years ago…so there are no pictures of my old ‘set’ grade equipment. I have a good amount of Tyco/Mantua from the 1960-70’s from my earliest days in the hobby, and later some Life Like and Bachmann. Some has been rebuilt and some in line to be rebuilt. I like alot of the old stuff. Add new trucks or wheels, Kadee couplers. And some careful weathering can make even those funky looking original paint jobs look good.
I have several Mantua steam locos from the 60’s I overhauled. They look and run better than many of the new RTR locos.
Mark H
I don’t know how this will turn out as I have had trouble posting pictures to this forum. If you can bear with me, this is a “home made” caboose that I acquired the carbody parts for at a train show years ago. the underframe is from an old Tyco train set caboose and has had major modifications. All the improvements and details, except the couplers and trucks, are hand-fashioned
Sorry, the picture came out distorted, but I think you can get a general idea
Here is a group of modified Tyco cars. The flat cars had unrealistic decks removed and replaced with everygreen scribed plastic sheets. The tank car was a junk Tyco car in bad condition which was rebuilt and painted to be a CB&Q company service car.
The hoppers are common Tyco Burlington cars. For two of them I overprayed on top of the bright red cars with mineral red. The layer of paint was thin enough so original lettering shows through looking faded. One hopper was just weathered. All cars had Kadee couplers installed. Some cars had trucks replaced and others just had wheelsets replaced.
In the last photo you can see one of my silver cabooses. It and 2 others were made from the common Bachmann train set cabooses lettered for Santa Fe. One of my projects was to make this conservsion with 3 cabooses. At the same time I converted and upgraded two Athearn cabooses lettered for CB&Q and repainted them for Santa Fe consistant with the design of those cabooses.
Lots of good-looking upgrades here. [Y]
Here’s another Tyco reefer. These are actually pretty decent-looking cars, and with new trucks and couplers, plus wire grabs, sill steps and new lettering, can fit in well on many layouts. Here’s one of four which I upgraded some time ago:
However, I felt that the steel ends were too modern for my late '30s-era layout, so I removed them. As you can see, I misplaced the cuts [:-^] and ended up with shortened cars. Here’s an in-progress view:
…and one of the re-worked cars. In addition to new “wood” ends (Evergreen car siding), all four cars got scratchbuilt floors with composite steel and truss rod underframes (queenposts from MDC, with Tichy turnbuckles), and scratchbuilt radial roofs:
This is a LifeLike (Proto-No-Thousand) reefer. I gave three of them new trucks and couplers, plus a few details, and put them into service hauling ice to several on-line ice houses:
However, with the moulded-on ice hatches still in place, it was too easy to mistake them for regular service reefers, so I gave them new scratchbuilt roofs without hatches. With some upgraded details and new paint and lettering, they’re now back in service:
Here’s a tank fro
Wayne, always enjoy seeing your work, but it was great to see some of the work in progress to get that final result.
1976 Life Like Thrall All door boxcar.metal stirrups ,metal wheels and body mounted KaDee couplers.I also colour matched the ends which for some reason LifeLike thought should be black.I have about 10 of these cars for different companies some of them definately showing many many years of hard service.
