Buy/Make Anything Cool Lately (Tinplate Version)

George S posted:

I haven't had many problems. I bought something at the same time from England and it came through Philly. It hardly even stopped at the port. This one hit the NYC ISC on April 24 and sat there until Monday this week. It said "processed through ISC NYC" and then nothing. I actually went on the US Postal Service website and filled out a lost / missing item report. I read someone else did that and it worked. It could be just coincidence, but it moved almost immediately to "Arrived at QUEENS NY DISTRIBUTION CENTER". I read online that sometimes customs has questions about an item and just sits on it. Providing the info in the missing item report to the USPS gets it going. No guarantees though.

Thanks for the info.  Glad to hear it wasn't anything serious.

I stayed at a B&B in Wales and learned that the owner was a train nut (mint Triang from his youth).  He said that another guest from America once sent him a box of toy train stuff after his visit.  The sender labeled the box "train parts".  Customs thought they were parts for a real (not toy) train and charged a duty of over 100 GBP. 

Mallard4468 posted:

George S posted:

I haven't had many problems. I bought something at the same time from England and it came through Philly. It hardly even stopped at the port. This one hit the NYC ISC on April 24 and sat there until Monday this week. It said "processed through ISC NYC" and then nothing. I actually went on the US Postal Service website and filled out a lost / missing item report. I read someone else did that and it worked. It could be just coincidence, but it moved almost immediately to "Arrived at QUEENS NY DISTRIBUTION CENTER". I read online that sometimes customs has questions about an item and just sits on it. Providing the info in the missing item report to the USPS gets it going. No guarantees though.

Thanks for the info.  Glad to hear it wasn't anything serious.

I stayed at a B&B in Wales and learned that the owner was a train nut (mint Triang from his youth).  He said that another guest from America once sent him a box of toy train stuff after his visit.  The sender labeled the box "train parts".  Customs thought they were parts for a real (not toy) train and charged a duty of over 100 GBP. 

The UK government charges  " Value Added Tax" on all "luxury goods", so food and clothes, for instance don't attract VAT, but toy trains do.

Cheers, Mark

Japanese MO streamliner. This colorful new arrival is about 8.5" long overall. It's actually a wind-up floor toy but it seems to fit well with the tinplate theme. Can't find much information on this piece, it's definitely neat looking! In the rear corner is a maker's mark "MO" inside a diamond, along with "Made in Japan". The front has a reddish marble for a headlight. 

The MO is posed alongside my Wells "Golden Streak" and a few other miscellaneous smaller streamliners (there's also a Lionel scale Hudson in the background).

255E for $35.  Straight frame is worth the cost alone!

Think I have enough parts to put this one back together..

navy.seal posted:

Jim Waterman just told me that he has finished the 10-car Standard Gauge Olympian Hiawatha set I ordered from him.  Each car in the consist is unique and is based on the original Milwaukee Road drawings.   The paint scheme Jim applied is the simplified 1948 tri-color (orange, maroon, black) livery with the colors of the paint matched to the colors used on the MTH/Lionel tri-color Milwaukee Road Super 381 Bipolar engine, which will be the primary locomotive I plan to use to pull the set.  Attached below is a photo of the set's Standard Gauge Skytop Sleeper observation car.

I will post more photos of the other cars as soon as I have them.

Bob Nelson

Here are some pictures of some of the other cars. Set ships today. Seem to have missed the RPO car, but similar in look to the dorm car.  Overload?

Jim

Dennis Holler posted:

255E for $35.  Straight frame is worth the cost alone!

Think I have enough parts to put this one back together..

Now that's a challenge = but doable and will be a very nice loco. I suspect the motor might even run after doused in a vat of oil.

Jim

navy.seal posted:

navy.seal posted:

Jim Waterman just told me that he has finished the 10-car Standard Gauge Olympian Hiawatha set I ordered from him.  Each car in the consist is unique and is based on the original Milwaukee Road drawings.   The paint scheme Jim applied is the simplified 1948 tri-color (orange, maroon, black) livery with the colors of the paint matched to the colors used on the MTH/Lionel tri-color Milwaukee Road Super 381 Bipolar engine, which will be the primary locomotive I plan to use to pull the set.  Attached below is a photo of the set's Standard Gauge Skytop Sleeper observation car.

I will post more photos of the other cars as soon as I have them.

Bob Nelson

One of the Olympian Hiawatha cars in the 10-car consist that Jim has built for me is a crew dormitory car.  This has gotten me thinking about what life must have been like for the crews assigned to the Olympian Hiawatha and other transcontinental trains.  Did they make back to back to back runs on the train or did they have time off between trains?  It must have been a hard life. 

Does anyone know the title of a good book which discusses the life of crew members working aboard a transcontinental train?

Bob Nelson

Bob - did you check the MILW group on groups.io? Still a bunch of former MILW employees and lots of stories out there. I'm sure that info could be had with a well placed question.

Jim

Jim Waterman posted:

Dennis Holler posted:

255E for $35.  Straight frame is worth the cost alone!

Think I have enough parts to put this one back together..

Now that's a challenge = but doable and will be a very nice loco. I suspect the motor might even run after doused in a vat of oil.

Jim

It's definitely not the worst I ever found!!

You may remember this old 260E I bought years ago, paid $50 for it along with an AF STD piper tender.  Someday..... lol

Maybe I should just ratrod the 255E lol

Jim Waterman posted:

navy.seal posted:

navy.seal posted:

Jim Waterman just told me that he has finished the 10-car Standard Gauge Olympian Hiawatha set I ordered from him.  Each car in the consist is unique and is based on the original Milwaukee Road drawings.   The paint scheme Jim applied is the simplified 1948 tri-color (orange, maroon, black) livery with the colors of the paint matched to the colors used on the MTH/Lionel tri-color Milwaukee Road Super 381 Bipolar engine, which will be the primary locomotive I plan to use to pull the set.  Attached below is a photo of the set's Standard Gauge Skytop Sleeper observation car.

I will post more photos of the other cars as soon as I have them.

Bob Nelson

One of the Olympian Hiawatha cars in the 10-car consist that Jim has built for me is a crew dormitory car.  This has gotten me thinking about what life must have been like for the crews assigned to the Olympian Hiawatha and other transcontinental trains.  Did they make back to back to back runs on the train or did they have time off between trains?  It must have been a hard life. 

Does anyone know the title of a good book which discusses the life of crew members working aboard a transcontinental train?

Bob Nelson

Bob - did you check the MILW group on groups.io? Still a bunch of former MILW employees and lots of stories out there. I'm sure that info could be had with a well placed question.

Jim

Jim,

groups.io?  I am not familiar with that site.

Bob

started tinkering with the Marx 898 shell that was in the box of goodies Greg sent me. I had gotten a  Saki motor in another deal, and it fits like a glove. Even had a Wedge tender sitting on a storage track. Does anyone know if there is a source for Sakai motor parts? One of the brushes is missing...they are rectangular shaped, and one of the brush springs is MIA as well. I filed a regular brush down enough to fit the brush holder, and the motor runs pretty good.

I found a few lead animals as add to my collection. Here all include the new.

Arne

Arne,

  A nice collection of animals...the only things missing are a barn, milk cans and some scale eggs.

Tom 

Come to think of it...you are probably assembling a lithographed barn as I type away! 

Tom

George S posted:

John H. Shetler posted:

George S posted:

Bought this to restore. After inspection, it looks like it is going to be a bigger job than anticipated. I thought it was just removing the wood glued to the roof an repainting it.

Now I see that the frame was hand painted and some paint got on the litho.

George

You can do it George!

I’m more hopeful today. I got the paint off the litho. I used Goof Off. Not for the faint of heart as it is an aggressive solvent. Mineral Spirits was taking too much rubbing and the friction was damaging the litho. 

The trucks were sloppily painted black from the outside. They were originally tan.

The ladders must have been painted black too. They were originally brass. The brass is gone now except for a few spots.

There is even paint on the journals!

George

Ahhh, that’s better!

I had to remove paint from all four sides of each journal too.

George

yeah but imagine the fun some kid had slopping all that paint on there. At least he didn't blow them up like Little Gomez would have.

Steamer posted:

yeah but imagine the fun some kid had slopping all that paint on there. At least he didn't blow them up like Little Gomez would have.

I hope he had fun, but he clearly lost interest... Glad he didn't use an M80 or Kerosene like we did on Matchbox cars!

George

Repaired this broken lionel dealer display semaphore that had broken at the point that rested in the fulcrum, basically in two pieces. Carefully delaminates the fiber board and preserved the printed parts and glued in a core of 1/4” plywood to replace frayed fiberboard I removed. Now making stand for it

Just bought a nice little 060 steam engine made by ETS in Czechoslovakia. Those ETS trains are very neat models and quite running engines.

Daniel

That is very cool Daniel, i’ve always likes the ETS trains, much like an o gauge Marklin Maxi. Here are my two newest Bing cars, the little pullman is very nice and clean. I’m bidding on a lot that has an AF 1117 caboose roof and cupola, I would use the cupola and make a new roof for this Bing caboose.

Dennis Holler posted:

That is very cool Daniel, i’ve always likes the ETS trains, much like an o gauge Marklin Maxi. Here are my two newest Bing cars, the little pullman is very nice and clean. I’m bidding on a lot that has an AF 1117 caboose roof and cupola, I would use the cupola and make a new roof for this Bing caboose.

 

@Dennis Holler very nice Bing pick ups! The little Pullman certainly is very nice and clean. Really like the Pennsy 8 wheel caboose. Haven't picked up any Bing cars with 8 wheel trucks yet, but on my to do list. Again- awesome finds!