I found this little railcar in a collection being sold on FB. The seller had no idea where it came from, and he sold the collection in one lot, but as I had asked he kept this back and sold it to me. I don’t have a powered track, so it has to go. $75 includes flat rate box shipping in the lower 48, o.b.o.
I had no idea what it was, and he then emailed me to say his kids had been playing with it and had dropped it, breaking off various pieces! Well, always up for a challenge, I had him ship it to me anyway. The broken pieces were mostly plastic trim, so I re-glued what I could. The canvas roof supports were too fragile, so I made up an approximation using brass rod. The roof lifts off, so I added a couple of people.
It turns out to be 1:20 scale, and a metal kit made in Iowa. (Found this on eBay at the moment, if you want to reproduce this railcar. It would certainly be worth having a Model T on your layout?)
Someone who knew what he was doing made up a new brass frame with nicely milled crosspieces for the axles and added a geared motor and whisker wheel pickups. The pickups are nicely insulated from the frame inside a tube from the rear. The gears and universal seem to be Grandt Line O scale products.
When I gave it power, the motor spun but nothing else as the bevels wouldn’t stay in mesh. I added another collar to keep them together, and found the axle gear was split (where have we heard that one before.) I looked for a replacement, but Grandt Line doesn’t answer email or phones, so I ended up dabbing the split with my soldering iron and adding a small pin to the collar that fits in a small hole in the gear to make sure it turns the axle rather than spinning.
And it works!
The guy who sold it to me sent this pic of the railcar before his kids got their hands on it. As you can see, he wasn’t good at focusing.
Here’s another couple of photos:
Email me if you have questions.
