Continental European modern tinplate coaches in coarse scale on O gauge 3-rail layout...
Original Post
Replies sorted oldest to newest
more modern European tinplate coaches on 3-rail tracks...
Cool, Who makes these?
I got that. I will rephrase the question. Who built them and were did he find the body for the diesel.(Since the donor for the Diesel was a PS1 engine)?
Originally Posted by suzukovich:
I got that. I will rephrase the question. Who built them and were did he find the body for the diesel.(Since the donor for the Diesel was a PS1 engine)?
The diesel was made by Lima back in the 70s, I see them once in a while on ebay. The original mechanism is 2 rail and it was pretty cheaply made & underpowered. I traded a German diesel by Rivarossi to Chris Loreno, and I believe he repowered it with a K-line chassis. Hopefully the OP will give more info about the coaches.
Originally Posted by John23:
Originally Posted by suzukovich:
I got that. I will rephrase the question. Who built them and were did he find the body for the diesel.(Since the donor for the Diesel was a PS1 engine)?
The diesel was made by Lima back in the 70s, I see them once in a while on ebay. The original mechanism is 2 rail and it was pretty cheaply made & underpowered. I traded a German diesel by Rivarossi to Chris Loreno, and I believe he repowered it with a K-line chassis. Hopefully the OP will give more info about the coaches.
About the diesel loco...
The heavy and robust underframe mechanism of the MTH GP-30 (even with wrong shape of the truck frame) has the right size and length to motorize a short European endcab diesel. The pilot had to be decorated and the trucks/bogies detailed. The bodyshell of the French SNCF BB67001 fits nicely on the MTH underframe, but few plastic materials on the bottom side had to be cut off just to give space to the moving truck/pilot. Very easy transformation process while accepting few compromises. Somewhere on that video to be seen also the original 2-rail Lima diesel with poor motorization from the previous millenium.
About the passenger coaches...
All the coaches have been designed in reduced length and handcrafted/assembled by myself (100% workbench handcraft job). The overall length of 42cm (16½") is very practical for modern toy trains, but not for rivet counters. The painting livery is a pre-coated surface on the bodyshell, which is sensitive when exposed to sunlight or humidity, therefore only for indoor use. Below the underframe have been mounted additional metal plates firstly to increase the total weight and secondly to lower the gravity point. The trucks are either MTH for 3-rail with short hi-rail coupler or alternatively Atlas for 2-rail with a tinplate hook coupling. They are running nicely on O-72 curves as you can see on the video. Tighter O-54/O-43 curves not recommended. Anyway for comparison the Lima/Rivarossi coaches need O-80 curves or much wider diameter to be able to run them smoothly and reliably without derailment. I'm making more customized Eurofima-type coaches out of thin sheetmetal in limited edition and in various painting liveries based on special demand (inquiries/requests).
my collection is growing and growing...
Wow, you have been busy! Nice work, the painting and lettering on the coaches is top notch.
And the scenery looks very life-like too! 
Originally Posted by John23:
Wow, you have been busy! Nice work, the painting and lettering on the coaches is top notch.
And the scenery looks very life-like too!
Thanks a lot for your encouraging comments.
Here is my newest catalog containing also coaches from the recent video clip...enjoy!
http://issuu.com/johannis_likos/docs/catalog2015v1
Here is a suitable scratch-built Taurus type electric locomotive in Czech painting scheme for modern era passenger train sets. As an experimental project this O gauge tinplate dummy model was made of laminated sheetmetal, assembled by using superglue (gorilla glue / gel and liquid) and micromechanic mounting screws. Few decorative details have been made of other scrap materials, such as plastic and cardboard. Only the replacable Bing-style couplers and the trucks are ready-made, but the underframe and the bodyshell with all attached details are handcrafted. The most challenging experience in this process was the shaping of the end-cabs.
The above tinplate loco in action...
Very nice! I looked at your catalog link, are you offering the passenger coaches for sale? If so, what is the price?
Thank you, John, for your kind comment. I have to upload a new catalog. For the moment you can browse old catalogs, where you can find also other O gauge models not necessarily tinplate...
https://issuu.com/johannis_likos/docs/catalog2011v1
https://issuu.com/johannis_likos/docs/catalog2011v2
https://issuu.com/johannis_likos/docs/catalog2012v1
https://issuu.com/johannis_likos/docs/catalog2015v1
https://issuu.com/johannis_likos/docs/catalog2015v2
I can offer for sale any of the depicted tinplate coaches in reduced length (16½") for narrow curves. On the other hand I can manufacture custom tinplate coaches in any painting scheme of any European or North-American railroad company you would like to have in your collection. It can be a single coach or a set of coaches with different numbers and different types (baggage/mail, 1st class, 2nd class, dinner). I need to know only what kind of couplers and wheels you want. With hi-wheel O-72 or even narrower curves is no problem, but with scale wheels are needed O-80 or even wider curves. For example, as you can see the "Trans Europ Express" train set on the above video, on one side the leading coach is equipped with 3-rail coupler while the trailing coach has at the end a European plastic coupler of the 1980ies, but all other intermediate coaches are coupled through Bing type couplers (as used by Darstaed/ACE/Merkur). This coupling arrangement allows to pull (and push) the passenger train set either by a Lionel/MTH engine or alternatively by a Rivarossi/Lima engine. The technique is extremely simplified, therefore no cut-out windows, no opening doors, no interior decoration and no collision light bulbs, just imitations for illusion. Please, do not expect professional quality, because I am just an average "coarse scale" modeler, not a finescale rivet counter. The shipping costs through freight companies (Fedex, UPS, etc.) and the customs formalities for the shipment from E.U. to U.S. must be investigated since I don't have experience with export trade. Maybe, I forgot to mention few other things, but you can always ask.
Johannis
