lionel train Archives

Why to never use steel wool to clean electric train track

Dave Farquhar Toy trains December 20, 2015September 2, 20173m, american flyer, hardware store, ives, lionel, lionel train, marx, marx trains, postwar lionel, tin

You may have heard to never use steel wool to clean electric train track, especially Lionel, but you may have never heard the reason why.

There is a good reason.

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.

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How to attach wires to the posts of a Lionel train transformer

Dave Farquhar Toy trains December 19, 2015November 24, 2016american flyer, lionel, lionel train, lockon, marx

It took me 20 years to find out I was connecting the wires to my train transformer wrong–and this applies to American Flyer and Marx just as much as to Lionel–and I don’t want the same thing to happen to you. I was making it far, far too difficult to attach wires to the posts of a Lionel train transformer.

Modern transformers have a groove in the post to accept a wire, but vintage transformers don’t. If you’re having problems with the wires coming off your transformer while you try to cinch them down, here’s how to connect to a vintage transformer in three simple steps.

Dave Farquhar

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Lionel crossovers and Marx trains

Dave Farquhar Toy trains November 21, 2015September 15, 2016lionel, Lionel O27, lionel train, marx, marx trains, o27

A common question is whether Marx trains will work with Lionel crossovers, or vice versa. The answer is not well, but with a caveat. A big caveat. Here’s what to look out for with Lionel crossovers and Marx trains.

Dave Farquhar

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Available diameters of tubular O and O27 track

Dave Farquhar Toy trains November 19, 2015October 22, 20221980s, lionel, lionel train, marx, Marx O34, marx trains, o gauge, o27, RADIUS, sakai, tubular track

A frequent question, especially for those who are just discovering or rediscovering vintage Lionel and Marx trains is what sizes of track are (or were) available, and how many pieces come to a circle.

Unlike other scales, Lionel marketed its track by diameter, not radius. As you undoubtedly remember from geometry class, radius is the distance from the center of the circle to the edge, while diameter is the distance from edge to edge. So a circle of O27 track is approximately 27 inches wide. O27 track stands about 7/16 of an inch tall, while higher end O gauge (also sometimes called O31) track stands about a quarter inch taller, at about 11/16 of an inch tall.

Dave Farquhar

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Nostalgia can make you younger

Dave Farquhar Health, Music, Retro Computing, security June 25, 2015November 27, 20161960s, commodore, John F. Kennedy, lionel, lionel train, New Wave, podcast

This month’s Social Engineer podcast featured psychology professor Dr. Ellen Langer, whose specialty is mindfulness. Dr. Langer brought up a lot of important things, including the idea of work-life integration rather than the more difficult work-life balance, but another thing she briefly touched on really resonated with me. She brought up a study, originally done in the late 1970s, where a group of 80-somethings were immersed in 1959 for a week. At the end of the week, they didn’t act like 80-somethings anymore. It seems nostalgia can make you younger.

That got me thinking about the power of nostalgia.

Dave Farquhar

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Lionel train light bulb chart

Dave Farquhar Toy trains June 19, 2015February 23, 2019american flyer, ba9s, billboard, electric trains, hardware store, KW, lionel, lionel train, LW, marx, NYC, o gauge, trainz

Lionel used 15 different types of light bulbs in its O gauge electric trains in the postwar era, but in most cases–87% of catalog numbers, and a lot more than that in actual number of items produced–you can get by with two. Since knowing when can be difficult, here’s a Lionel train light bulb chart.

Lionel almost always specified 14 or 18 volts. Using an 18-volt bulb in place of a 14-volt original, or a 22-volt bulb in place of an 18-volt original results in longer service life. And there were two base types that Lionel used more than any other. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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Don’t use lamp oil as smoke fluid in Lionel trains

Dave Farquhar Toy trains May 29, 2015November 18, 2021lionel, lionel train, marx, marx trains, toy train

Every so often, the topic of lamp oil as a cheap substitute for smoke fluid in Lionel and Marx trains comes up.

The topic has been beaten to death on many closed message groups, but finding the answer isn’t always that easy. But, in short, it’s not a safe thing to do.

Dave Farquhar

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Lessons from my son’s first Pinewood Derby

Dave Farquhar Parenting January 20, 2015January 17, 2015clearcoat, lionel, lionel train

One of my coworkers, a guy with an infectious laugh named Jamaal, organized a get-together on Friday. My boss asked me if I was going.

“Sorry, it’s my son’s first Pinewood Derby,” I said. I had to explain to my boss what that was–I don’t think he was ever a Cub Scout or Boy Scout–but he was intrigued.

For whatever reason, when I was a kid my dad didn’t take the opportunity to teach me as much as he could have when we built Pinewood Derby cars, but I told my boss the only good physics lesson I ever got in my life was when Dad explained to me how a Lionel train worked. Here’s something cool you can do with math and science, and I never had a teacher show me anything cool you can do with those two things. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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Why you can’t get a $50 replacement sound/control board for your modern Lionel train

Dave Farquhar Toy trains July 5, 2014November 29, 2015commodore, lionel, lionel train, o gauge, toy train

Every so often, some people start raging on the train forums, or even in the pages of the magazines, about modern electronics in modern O gauge trains. The modern electronics make the model trains sound just like real trains, but eventually heat and power surges take their toll, the board goes poof, and now that $2,000 toy train doesn’t work anymore and needs a $300 replacement circuit board.

And by the time that happens, that $300 replacement circuit board might be out of production, and no longer available at any price.

Which has led to countless calls for some enterprising hobbyist to become a multimillionaire by inventing a $50 replacement board that works on every train.

There are several reasons for the situation. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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Model railroading as fan fiction

Dave Farquhar model railroading, Toy trains March 15, 2014November 21, 20181940s, 1950s, lionel, lionel train

Dan Bowman sent me this a couple of weeks ago, and I found myself agreeing with it: Model railroading is a form of fan fiction.

It seems like a good way to look at it. Every model railroad is a compromise. By my rough estimations, it’s 4.1 miles from Dupo, Illinois to Cahokia, but even if you model in Z scale, you’ll need 97 linear feet to model that line. I would think it would be very difficult to build a Z scale layout of that size–it would take a huge basement–and only put two towns on it. So, at the very least, people put their towns closer together and use a fast clock to make up for the compression. Some people compromise a lot more than that. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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