For awhile my wife and I have been wanting a tinplate Christmas train. I only run conventional and couldn’t really justify, to myself or my wife, the recent pricing for either a MTH or LTI tinplate set. That only left me with one option, which was to make my own.
The search began for a donor consist at the last York, October 2019. I found two 332 baggage cars and one 341 observation car. I bought these from the TCA museum table for a bargain price of $45. These were in the pretty peacock and orange color combination and complete with all the accessories. The only planned reproduction parts were the couplers.
Next was the search for an engine frame and shell. I picked this up off of the bay for $25. I have several No 8’s so a motor swap into this engine would be the approach.
Everything was taken down to parade rest. I used TSP to strip all the paint. Which worked very well and required very little scrubbing.
A small parts order was made. I decided to use rattle cans for this project. Finding the deep colors my wife wanted was a challenge. As with many consumer products these days the store shelves were bare. So we settled on our selection of Krylon Colormaxx gloss enamel.
The search began for a donor consist at the last York, October 2019. I found two 332 baggage cars and one 341 observation car. I bought these from the TCA museum table for a bargain price of $45. These were in the pretty peacock and orange color combination and complete with all the accessories. The only planned reproduction parts were the couplers.
Next was the search for an engine frame and shell. I picked this up off of the bay for $25. I have several No 8’s so a motor swap into this engine would be the approach.
Everything was taken down to parade rest. I used TSP to strip all the paint. Which worked very well and required very little scrubbing.
A small parts order was made. I decided to use rattle cans for this project. Finding the deep colors my wife wanted was a challenge. As with many consumer products these days the store shelves were bare. So we settled on our selection of Krylon Colormaxx gloss enamel.
Here is the end result and we are both very happy with it. We can’t wait for it to be running when I convert the layout over to its Christmas theme.
