Tony's Trains

Great Day to run Trains

2010-04-13T20:50:00.000-04:00

Had the chance to pick up some cedar mulch and cleanup the railroad. I let the train run for about 10 hours until i shut down fo rthe night. Great running engine and no problems with the track after a brutal winter.

First Run! Lionel 4-4-2 and H-L-W Passenger Cars

2010-04-10T20:59:00.000-04:00

I repainted my Lionel 4-4-2 and 3 H-L-W cars I've had for about 10 years. I used Rustoleom's Plastic paint for Black, Red and Green. Their Silver Metalic was used on the Handrails, Side Rods and Front Boiler.

The Tender utilizes some powered trucks from H-L-W. I removed the power pickup carbon brushes from the Engine. All power is sent from the Tender, connected by Stereo Banana Jacks. The Jacks are extremely easy to pull apart and push together.

Going to order Vinyl Decals and work on sound and additional Lighting for the Passenger cars.

Reading Terminal Holiday Railroad - Philadelphia Pennsylvania

2010-01-01T12:10:00.000-05:00

Rain!

2009-12-27T15:46:00.000-05:00

Christmas Tree

2009-12-27T15:44:00.000-05:00

Snow!

2009-12-27T15:43:00.000-05:00

US Mint Strong Car

2009-11-22T22:50:00.000-05:00

Hartland Minis - Sunoco Tanker

2009-11-22T22:40:00.000-05:00

Using old decals modeled after some o-Scale Lionel decals for the famous Sunoco car, I painted this hartland Mini an aluminum color and put a few on for my consist. Used the Rustoleum textured black for the base and the rustoleum clear matte spray to hide the edges of the decals.

Railfanning in Nicholson PA

2009-11-14T23:18:00.000-05:00

Handrail Painting helper

2009-11-11T22:23:00.001-05:00

I am using a piece of wood about 1/4" wide by 1/8" thick. Drilled a few holes so that I can insert a small bit of the handrail into the wood. This allows me to paint all sides of the handrails and then hang the wood while the paint dries. Very useful and keeps the fingers clean!

Hartland Mighty Mack Switch - Upgrade

2009-10-31T08:34:00.000-04:00

I found the plastic on the Mighty mack too shiny, and did not like the looks of the yellow detail parts on the bottom frame. Using the Rustoleum Plastic Textured black paint, I painted the underframe and was fleased with the results. I didnt want to weather at this time, just knock off the toyish look. The frame of the mighty mack is not Kadee friendly, but a piece of wood glued with Walthers Goo established a good base to screw a 831 coupler. I just had to open up the hole to make room for the box.

The lighting inside the Mack consisted of a burned out grain of rice bulb. This fed the two headlights via a long piece of plastic. I cut the tubes and glued the headlight lenses to the housing. I was able to fit a new bulb into the back of the housing and tabe it to the frame. Knowing that I would be upgrading to led in the future i used a terminal block on the power leads from the motor. This allows or easy dissaembly at a later time.

Septa R1 at the Philadelphia Airport - PHL - Silverliner IV

2009-08-17T23:20:00.002-04:00

Greenery on the layout

2009-08-09T12:44:00.000-04:00

Deer by the layout

2009-08-02T12:34:00.000-04:00

View from the Roof

2009-06-07T23:44:00.000-04:00

Stone Tunnel

2009-05-31T12:11:00.000-04:00

I had some extra flgstones around the yard and put them to good use. Everything is dry fitted tightly with no mortar. So far so good.

Watching a Train

2009-05-20T14:38:00.000-04:00

Lionel 4-4-2

2009-05-19T22:35:00.001-04:00

Cleaned up the stone wall

2009-05-18T00:37:00.000-04:00

Spring Clean up, new bushes, Lot's more to do

2009-05-10T12:24:00.000-04:00

USA Trains Wheel and Gear replacement with NWSL kit - Part 1

2008-11-01T10:56:00.000-04:00

USA Trains Wheel and Gear replacement with NWSL kit

2008-11-01T10:54:00.000-04:00

Added some dirt and fill to the railroad

2008-10-11T21:44:00.000-04:00

Ladder Roadbed - Garden Railroad Design V 1.0

2008-07-09T17:08:00.000-04:00

First Run!

2008-07-06T22:37:00.000-04:00

It took about 8 hours of cutting, forming, assembling and painting before I could fasten the track. For paint I used rustoleoum's flt black for plastic to adhere to the PVC.

I should have noticed that most people who use the ladder roadbed utilize flex track. I had an inventory of sectional aristocraft stainless steel which worked out just fine. The jig to form the curve sections was very close to the final profile of the 8 foot diameter curves. In the end, I screwed the track every few feet with small pan head screws. The roadbed is extremely level with almost a 0% grade. The train was running for about 6 hours with no derailments or problems.

Now on to landscaping!