Messages

901

Collector Corner / Re: 2227, 2228, 2233 tender mess

« on: May 09, 2020, 10:22:41 PM »

I don't know about the couplers, but don't think the 227 or 228 tenders should have hooks on the spears. Or the tenders shouldn't have spears at all.

I do know about the wiring. . .

I opened up a 2227B tender and shot a picture of the insides.



That tender works, but I think it should have just a spear on the coupler, no point.

What you see from front or left is the relay used differently for different locos and not found on 2230 and 2231 tender, the center part is the bell, and the rear part has the light. On tenders with bells the light has a bimetalic strip that energizes the bell.  I think all the tender numbers can be found with or without bell, but never did a survey.

The relay body is insulated from the tender chasis and connected directly to the roller pickup on the truck.

Ignoring the bells and backup lights which are always wired the same and don't effect the plugs, here's the tender wiring:

2227 and 2228 relay runs couplers. Picture above. Two wires to loco, one on left goes to loco coupler, right goes to center rail pickup from relay body. Right and left looking at loco from on top of tender coalpile.

2230 and 2231 NO relay. Two wires to loco. Wire on left goes directly from coupler shoe on tender truck to plug; wire on right goes to center rail.

2232 and 2233 Wire on left goes directly from coupler shoe on tender truck to plug in socket in loco for coupler. Relay body is connected through right plug to center pickup of loco. 3rd wire  comes off relay terminal and is connected to positive side of e-unit coil in loco.

Does that make sense?

Before I go on, I moved a bag with a bunch of those relays from one place to another in the last month or so. It's not currently in either of the places I think it should be in, but it's certainly around here somewhere.

Here's a related question. . .

I have a newer transformer with bell and whistle buttons. On the 2227B tender shown above ONLY the bell button works the coupler. I was thinking I could use a whistle relay working on the whistle button and power the rails of the RCS tracks.

I'm going to try just adding a diode to the coil of the relay. Because the diode is directional, it should line up with the bell or whistle button. Does that make sense?

902

Collector Corner / Early Lionel O locos with GOLD handrails 150 and 700 series

« on: May 08, 2020, 05:14:44 PM »

 My first early locos were a maroon 150 and a dark green 152 that belonged to the neighbor's grandfather. (It was also the first train deal I did at about 8 or 9 nine years old.)

The green 152 had gold painted handrails. ( I added the second when I was about 13.) I never paid any attention to the handrails.

Paul Wasserman showed me a 152 with gold handrails and said Jim Lyons had suggested that 150 series locos with Gold Painted handrails were specials.

Then I started looking at handrails. That was about 15 years ago.

Since then I've found a bunch and come up with three reasons for them based on looking at them, and considering all of my early O Lionel trains.

I think Jim may be correct about some of them. Short of finding boxed sets we can't prove or disprove that. I've never seen a box for just a 150 or 700 series loco. Does anyone have one?

The second reason - again I can't prove this, but it makes sense, is the ladies who painted the standard gauge locos that always had gold handrails, painted the O locos because they were used to doing it.

The third posible reason is after Lionel introduced the 250 series locos with their brass trim, and stopped making the 150 series locos, they assembled all the parts into locos and dressed them up to match the current line and sold them off.

This third reason explains the 156X with pedestal headlight and 250 seriesmotor. It explains the bright colored locos like the 154s in both body styles painted light olive.

I can't prove any of this, but it makes sense. This is the type of discussion I started this board for. What do you think?

So here are bunch of the locos I have with gold handrails:

Pictures are a bit wide for the forum. I don't want to change the sizes of them because these are inventory pictures I have on my phone. You can right click and select view image to open the whole picture. Then use the back button to come back here.



701b1 NYC oval on left, 701 on right, dark green, green vents, GOLD PAINTED HANDRAILS, type 2 motor with slots for trucks, red fiber pickup with manufacturing plate, diecast wheels, riveted couplers.

This is the only 700 series loco I have with gold handrails. I got a photo by email of a 732 Quaker loco with gold handrails when I sent pictures of this out last summer. The other Quaker locos I've seen don't have gold handrails.

   

 

152b1 Dark green Gold Painted handrails, type 4 motor with riveted brushes, red fiber with corp plate. No hole for 153 reverse. This is the loco I got when I was a kid.

   

152j1 Mohave Gold Painted handrails, type 4 motor with riveted brushes, black fiber with corp plate. No hole for 153 reverse. This might be one of the clean out locos, but there is no hole for reverse?

I don't have a 153 with gold handrails.

Here's some 154s. . .

   

154a1 Dark green with GOLD painted handrails, type 2 motor with slots for trucks, black fiber plate with manufacturing plate, cast iron wheels, stamped couplers, pedestal light, NO reverse, square roof with clipped corners, early body/frame.

 

 

154a4 Dark green with gold painted handrails, type 4 motor with riveted brushes, black fiber with nickel background corp plate , diecast wheels, stamped couplers, strap headlight no holes for pedestal, hand reverse mounted to motor, rounded roof without clipped corners, early body/frame.

 

 

These are what I think of as clean outs. The motors in them are late motors. Others I've seen match these so the motors probably were switched out later.  I'm using the newest Greenberg 0 gauge book terminiology and mostly the lettering scheme which tries to have the letters in order of manufacture. 

 

154c1 Olive green with gold painted handrails, type 4 motor with riveted brushes, black fiber corp plate, diecast wheels, stamped couplers, strap headlight no holes for pedestal, hand reverse mounted to frame, square roof without clipped corners, late body/frame.

 

154d1 Olive green with gold painted handrails, type 5 motor with brush tubes, black fiber corp plate, diecast wheels, stamped couplers, strap headlight no holes for pedestal, hand reverse mounted to frame, square roof with clipped corners, early body/frame.

Finally some 156 locos. . .

   

156d1 Olive green with gold painted handrails, type 5 motor with brush tubes, red fiber with corp plate, diecast wheels with simulated spokes, stamped couplers, strap headlight, holes in diecast wheels, weighted trucks. This loco looks mohave unless it is set beside a mohave loco when it looks greener.

I know there is a 12 wheel maroon 156 with goldpainted handrails, but I don't have one. It'd look like the 156Xc1 4 wheeler below but with pony trucks.

156x

 

   

156xb1 Dark green with gold painted handrails, type 4 motor w/riveted brushes, red fiber plate with corp plate, diecast wheels with simulated spokes, stamped couplers, strap headlight.
 
 

156Xc1 Maroon with gold painted handrails, type 2 motor with brush tubes, pickup collector replaced, diecast wheels with simulated spokes, stamped couplers, strap headlight.

That's it.

Thoughts?

903

Layouts / Terry's Layout

« on: May 08, 2020, 04:30:57 PM »

I have a few things I want to do on the layout this weekend.

I don't have a track plan, I just fit what I could into the area I have to work with. In trhe southwest corner I have a station area with lots of Lionel 156 platforms. The idea is I can back the train in, and then pull out another train.

I want to have parking lots with my Tootsietoys along the sides. Originally I had the first siding straight along the layout edge, but I removed one of the sidings and recentered all the track so I could get more tootsietoys in by parking them diagonally.

I cut a section of 054 curve in half to get into the siding. This is a mess. I can't get the trains the trains to go through the reverse curve without derailing.



So I'm going to move the curve and the switch east so it's a straight shot into the yard. Basically where the switch is sitting in this picture:



I think there is enough room that I won't have to move the inner loops of track. Also while I have the switch out I want to figure out why it triggers the couplers on the cars.

Next I have these Schoenhut houses. I can't get under the layout in that area. It was designed to be mountain, but I like them there. I'm thinking I can cut groooves into the layout with the circular saw and run the wires in the grooves.



The houses don't have lights in them. I was thinking I'd put the old style ceramic bulb holders on the layout and cut holes in the bottoms of the houses. But, I found a bunch of prewired for AC LED fixtures in a box last night. I want to try one and see what it looks like compared to a regular bulb.

Lastly, I have the burning house on the hill. I put a German light controller in it that has one red bulb and 5 blinking yellow bulbs. It looks good.



I decided I'd make it smoke by putting a flyer smoking tender unit in the powerhouse with a hose running up to the house. I also found two firemen with a hose that sprays water that I want to put up by the house. (It's a german animation with the spray being a pulsating LED and a strip of fiber optic cable. )

That should keep me busy.

904

Layouts / Re: T2 Example of Layout post

« on: May 07, 2020, 10:41:45 AM »

I'm trying to put a video in this post.

Here's a minute of my layout under construction running three trains. (The dog's name is Pudgy)



HOW to POST Youtube videos:

1) Go To YouTube page for the video you want to share.
2) Copy the URL of the video.
3) Paste the  url into the post text box here in the forum where you want it to be.

It will look like this:

Code: [Select]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3RjjdmEwRs
The board will take care of everything else.

If that doesn't work, or you are an engineer,  you can use the youtube button on the right under the "change color" menu and paste your URL between the tags.

That will look like this:

Code: [Select]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3RjjdmEwRs[/youtube]

Terry

905

General Discussion / Interesting Auction Items

« on: May 06, 2020, 02:43:19 AM »

Use this thread to share links to interesting auction items. You can easily add links by typing in a simple description  and pasting the url of the auction page. Then highlight the url and click on the insert hyperlink button - second from left on row above the faces.

Here's a pair of Lionel 2 7/8" wooden gondolas in the box!

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/83516850_lionel-2-78-powered-gondola-and-trailer

Here's powered and dummy Lionel 2 7/8" trolleys:

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/83516849_lionel-2-78-city-hall-park-trolley-and-trailer

You can post links to interesting items you've seen here.

906

Classifieds / Rules for Posting Classifieds

« on: May 06, 2020, 01:25:23 AM »

This area is for listing items you have for sale or your wanted items. It will only be visible to members. That means you can "kinda safely" put your phone numbers or email address in your posts. If you don't want to put your contact information in the post itself, tell members to send you a private message. See below for private message information.

If you have a bunch of cheaper or common items list them in one post of related items. For better quality items do one post.  When your item sells modify or delete the posts.

All exchanges are done at the risk of the members involved. Terry Gibbs Train99.com, and IWantCollectibles LLC have no resposibilty for any actions taken here.

There is no charge for posting classified ads.

Help this site grow

By the end of 2020, eBay will be charging 12.4% of all transactions.  If you sell trains here, you don't have to pay. To make this work we need members. I'm going to have sheets printed to put into my eBay packages that explains the forum. If you sell on eBay and are willing to include these in your packages send me a note with a PM below.


PRIVATE MESSAGES

Users can send you private messages by clicking on your user name in the upper left of your post and then selecting "Send PM" under the name on the user page.

When a private message is sent to you, the board will send you an email notice with a link to the message. You can turn this off in your profile settings.

907

General Discussion / Introductions

« on: May 06, 2020, 12:55:13 AM »

New members introduce yourself here.

I'll start.

My name is Terry Gibbs. I currently collect Lionel trains made before 1925. My dad, Cole Gibbs, got his trains out when my older brother was born in 1961 and never put them away. He started buying trains and adding to the layout. I grew up with walls of train shelves.

My dad sold the postwar trains when I was 12 to concentrate on prewar Lionel. He joined TCA in 1977 when I was 14, and we went to the TCA convention in Texas.

Over the next 30 years my dad and I attended many train meets all over the country. We built a large collection of prewar tinplate. We collected variations, and had much of the Lionel production from 1925-42.

After my dad died in 2008, I sold much of the collection to concentrate on the earlier trains. I kept some standard gauge brass trim trains made between 1924 and 35 and O gauge nickel trim trains from 1935-42 to play with.

Today I collect only Lionel trains made before 1925. I'm still putting the trains out in my new house, but here's pictures of some O gauge trains, and a few of my standard gauge 33 locos.

908

General Discussion / Recent Additions

« on: May 05, 2020, 10:35:57 PM »

This thread is a place to share recent additions to your collection. Tell us why you bought the train or how it fit into your collection.

You can upload pictures easily with the Attachments and other options tool right under the post box.

I'll go first. . .

Here's a Lionel 33 loco in with the LETTERING REVERSED on both sides. This loco also has a strap headlight.  Most black 33 locos have pedestal headlights like the one in the background of the second photo.

I have three of these  6th versions with reverse lettering.  Dark green with both sides, Dark grey with one side and this black with both reversed.  This version  dates from 1918 to 1922/23. (6th Version is Straight frame with 4 die cast wheels, With or Without Reverse, With binding post, With corp plate on end door, stamped stanchions, Strap headlight, Tab couplers.)

 Terry