Author: Dave Farquhar

6 options for removing paint from model trains

Dave Farquhar Toy trains , , , , , , , , ,

It’s not uncommon to find model trains with unwanted paint on them, or original paint that’s damaged beyond the point of being able to rehabilitate it. Fortunately, the price is usually low on these trains, and there are numerous household chemicals that can strip the paint off these trains and give them a fresh start.

These tricks also work with other toys and plastic models, but while some of these methods seem to be unknown in the train community, some of them are very well known among collectors who restore vintage plastic model kits. This is an example where knowledge across disciplines can be very valuable, so I hope the car and airplane modelers won’t mind me sharing their secrets.

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Lionel 675 history

Dave Farquhar Toy trains , , , , , ,

The Lionel 675, 2025 and 2035 locomotives are three of the most iconic and sought-after engines Lionel produced in the postwar era. They depicted the Pennsylvania K-5, an ill-fated 4-6-2 Pacific locomotive that was intended to replace the iconic K-4, a popular locomotive that had roamed the rails for one of the largest railroads in the United States since 1911, and was later recognized as the official state locomotive of Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, the K-5 proved less successful and only two were ever made, although the PRR did run both of them into the 1950s.

Some documents identify the 675/2025/2035 as a K-4, but Lionel’s own service literature from the period says it was a K-5.

Lionel’s version proved far, far more successful than the real thing, almost becoming an icon itself. The first edition of Krause’s Standard Catalog of Lionel Trains, 1945-1969 featured a Lionel 675 from 1946 on its cover.

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Touch up American Flyer paint

Dave Farquhar Toy trains ,
Touch up American Flyer paint

If you have an A.C. Gilbert-manufactured American Flyer steam locomotive made between 1939 and 1967 that still runs but has seen its better days appearance-wise, there’s an easy way to touch it up to make it look better. Here’s how to touch up American Flyer paint.

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Fast food vs. retail

Dave Farquhar Careers

If you’re looking for a job that doesn’t require a lot of specialized skills, training, or experience, you are probably weighing fast food vs. retail. These two options have some trade offs.

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All about the Lionel LW transformer

Dave Farquhar Toy trains , , , , , , , , ,
All about the Lionel LW transformer

The Lionel LW Trainmaster is a 125 watt transformer that Lionel produced from 1955 to 1966. They are reasonably durable and Lionel made them for a long time. That means you can find them easily on the secondary market. They can be expensive if they have their original box and paperwork. But if you just want to run a train and don’t care about the paper, you can get a serviced LW for $50-$60, and an as-is one for under $40. At 125 watts, it’s the most powerful single-handle transformer of the postwar era.

The LW is a quirky transformer so there are some things about if you need to be aware of if you have other Lionel transformers, but as long as you keep those in mind, it’s a fine transformer that will serve you well. The quirks have nothing at all to do with reliability. Lionel just designed its layout a bit differently than many of their other models. In some ways it’s the ideal accessory transformer. We’ll cover that later.

One thing to keep in mind: Unplug the LW when you’re not using it. It doesn’t have its own power switch. I plug my transformers into a power strip and turn all of them on and off with the strip’s on/off switch.

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Spot phishing e-mails with Outlook

Dave Farquhar Office, scams, security , , , , ,
Spot phishing e-mails with Outlook

I got e-mail the other day from Turbotax saying someone had filed my taxes for me. Obviously a cause for concern, right? Here’s how I determined the message was fake in about three minutes. You can spot phishing e-mails with Outlook the same way.

Some people will tell you not to even open a message like this, but if you’re a computer professional, at some point someone is going to want you to prove the message was fake. I think this is something every e-mail administrator, desktop support professional, security professional, and frankly, every helpdesk professional ought to be able to do.

So here’s how you can get the proof. And generally speaking, Outlook’s default configuration plays it safe enough that this procedure won’t get you into any trouble, at least on modern versions of Windows.

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How to determine scale of an unknown toy or model

Dave Farquhar Toy trains , , , , , ,

A frequent question on train forums involves a particular diecast toy car, usually available for a limited time but at a good price, and asking if it’s suitable to use in a particular scale. It seems not everyone knows how to determine scale themselves.

I understand why. I’ve never seen anyone explain how to do the math to figure it out, but it’s really not hard. All you need is a search engine, a ruler, and a calculator.

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How to remove a plastic Lionel truck rivet

Dave Farquhar Toy trains ,

In the 1970s and early 1980s when Lionel was part of General Mills, one cost-cutting measure they took was to attach trucks to car bodies with a plastic doohickey. It’s not really a rivet, but more like a clip, and it doesn’t exactly hold the trucks steady.

Removing them isn’t difficult but the method may not be immediately obvious. And sometimes these Lionel cars really did use rivets. I can explain how to remove those as well.

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Get rid of trailing zeroes in Excel charts

Dave Farquhar Office, Software ,

I was making a chart in an Excel spreadsheet the other week and it insisted on adding trailing zeroes in the charts after the decimal point, even though all of my stats were whole numbers. Here’s the solution I finally found to get rid of trailing zeroes in Excel charts.

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Lionel CW-80 vs vintage transformers

Dave Farquhar Toy trains , , , , ,
Lionel CW-80 vs vintage transformers

Someone asked me recently about the Lionel CW-80 and how it compares vs older transformers. That’s a fair question, and one that tends to stir up a lot of emotions on train forums. So I’ll try to present the pros and cons in a fair manner.

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