Prewar Lionel Archives - The Silicon Underground

Where to buy Lionel trains in St. Louis

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 22 Sep 2017 11:00:47 +0000

If you want to know where to buy Lionel trains in St. Louis, you have a lot of choices. It’s more than possible to make a day of train shopping in St. Louis. I’ve never seen a comprehensive list of

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Replace missing Lionel brakewheels with sew-on snaps

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:00:28 +0000

I saw an old tip recently regarding using sew-on snaps to replace missing Lionel brakewheels. Reproduction brakewheels generally are available, but sew-on snaps work well, are readily available at any store that sells sewing supplies, and they’re cheap. As an

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Re-attaching prewar Lionel trucks

Dave Farquhar — Sat, 02 Aug 2014 11:00:30 +0000

This past weekend I scored a poorly repainted Lionel #602 baggage car (made from 1915-1923) and an Ives #71 passenger car (made 1923-25) at an estate sale. The Ives was in good shape and original, but one of the Lionel’s

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Measuring the voltage and amperage of your train transformer’s output

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 23:27:35 +0000

Sometimes you want to know how many volts your train transformer is feeding your trains, in order to avoid damaging the motors. And it’s also helpful to know how many amps you’re pulling from your electric train transformer, so you

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Installing trucks on junker train cars

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 13:27:14 +0000

Sometimes a train car breaks, and sometimes you get a good deal on a train car that’s missing its running gear. Whatever the reason, sooner or later most hobbyists find themselves needing to attach trucks to the underside of their

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An easy coupler height fix for prewar American Flyer

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 20 Aug 2004 23:05:41 +0000

So I picked up this oddball car at Marty's Model Railroads a couple of weeks ago. It's a Lionel/American Flyer hybrid: A Lionel 807 cattle car on a prewar American Flyer 8-wheel frame. It has the awful prewar Lionel latch coupler on one side and the oddball AF hook coupler (with the funny-shaped tab) on the other. It's compatible with everyone else's hook coupler, fortunately. The Lionel coupler is compatible with nothing.

It was intended as a conversion car, but it rides too high, so the Lionel coupler won't connect with a Lionel car. Bummer.

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