brianel_k-lineguy posted:Choo Choo Charlie, that Vanderbilt tender is just a super idea. I wish I had thought of that one, but that's okay... You did.
And I love Gandydancer's reefers made from the short 027 box cars. I asked him about it at one time, and if I recall correctly, they're printed paper sides on modified sides to the car. In his photos, they look so good. The car ladders and door hinges look so 3-dimensional. There's a project I really want to get to myself.
I've repainted the normal Lionel traditional reefers, and have lowered the truck mount so that the cars ride lower, with their overall height now closer to the shorter Lionel, MARX and K-Line box cars. But I still like the shorter length of Gandydancer's versions.
And here's a couple more little projects of mine. I wanted some modern looking tank cars, so using the Lionel 027 body, I built a new frame to mimic the appearance of the newer unibody tank cars. And of course, Procor is a common name seen on tank cars. The bright green ones caused a sensation in the HO world when they first appeared on the real rails. Although black tank cars are certainly more common on the rails, the bright green appealed to the toy train guy inside me.
Below that is a MOW crane flat that I made using a crane from a kid's toy truck. The flat car was an old beat up MARX one. The crane boom goes up and down, and also rotates around, but the crane hook is stationary. For me, it's mostly the appearance of having a MOW crane car on a train.
The red painted fuel tank came from some dollar store kid's farm tractor toy. I added a figure to inside the cab of the crane also. The smoke coming out of the tractor smoke stack is from the fiber used inside pillows, which I think looks way better than the cotton so many have used in the past.
Brianel, I hate Conrail. But that's the first Conrail vehicle ever that I didn't hate. It looks pretty sharp.
