Cheapo train sets....get creative!

[33C]

I recommend one of the "Rail King" or "Classic" sets, below, on the 'Bay retailing sub £10. Solid, dependable, free running and with a headlight but no annoying sound chip! Bogie rolling stock and they run well on code 100 track. The 0.8.0 loco can be easily converted to 0.6.0 or 0.4.0 by removing the middle wheels and cutting new axle slots and if you trim the rods it looks more realistic. Comes with an oval of plastic track, (for the garden!?). Look at my Vale of Rheidol loco and rolling stock further back in the thread, plasticard loco body and cardboard stock bodies. Often thought about doing a fireless type or something Irish. If you use a 6" toy figure as a driver, a world of small peat/sand/gravel/brick loco's is opened up...Good luck! 

Edited March 28, 2023 by 33C
added photo.

[33C]

On 27/03/2023 at 21:18, Cowley 47521 said:

No but I did have a look on eBay over the weekend. I was thinking about getting something around the £12 mark as a starter but I’ve not quite formulated in my mind what I want to do yet. Some kind of narrow gauge industrial affair though probably.

These are great for narrow gauge, pics,1+2, or, if you really want a bit of fun, pics, 3,4+5.(Rocket runs for about a yard on one winding!)

[Halvarras]

9 minutes ago, 33C said:

These are great for narrow gauge, pics,1+2, or, if you really want a bit of fun, pics, 3,4+5.(Rocket runs for about a yard on one winding!)

 

 

 

 

I think you've been rumbled 33C - the label inside the tin lid says "hours of fun", they can't be referring to the set as supplied cos even relaying the track in different shapes would cause my idea of 'fun' to evaporate after about 15 minutes, so they must be referring to expanded possibilities via a pile of plasticard, i.e. they've seen your thread!

 

And I still think the wind-up 'Rocket' is very neatly done and pure genius 😃!

[33C]

They might be referring to the "hours of fun" as over the course of a lifetime, i.e. more than one hour, or, put it another way, two! Which is not bad going......😄

[Cowley 47521]

@33C Just to quickly acknowledge this, those were what I was looking at the other day. They seem like a good starting point for converting, but I might have to come back with some silly questions at some point if that’s ok?

[33C]

6 minutes ago, Cowley 47521 said:

@33C Just to quickly acknowledge this, those were what I was looking at the other day. They seem like a good starting point for converting, but I might have to come back with some silly questions at some point if that’s ok?

Silly questions are my bread and butter, and I've done customer service.....

[Cowley 47521]

Just now, 33C said:

Silly questions are my bread and butter, and I've done customer service.....

Nice.

Just don’t put me on hold…

[33C]

Just now, Cowley 47521 said:

Nice.

Just don’t put me on hold…

Oh no, not from the luxury of a call centre,  hundreds of miles away, I mean up close and personal! 

[33C]

These are starting to appear in the charity shops round here. Picked this up the other day for a fiver and it may morph into something Javanese, or, something Emett....

[33C]

A very quick, cheapo, conversion for my friends battery driven, O gauge, garden layout. He bought an old LIONEL diesel body online and then asked me to find a chassis....   Can you work out what its from? They are readily available sets, under £20, and the headlight works too! Cheapo O!

Edited May 3, 2023 by 33C
added photo.

[Ben B]

That's one of those Caterpillar sets Tesco sell/sold, isn't it? I've one part-converted up in the loft. They seem to be quite popular for conversion by scifi wargamers.

[33C]

30 minutes ago, Ben B said:

That's one of those Caterpillar sets Tesco sell/sold, isn't it? I've one part-converted up in the loft. They seem to be quite popular for conversion by scifi wargamers.

Correct! An interesting power arrangement. Central battery box, power bogie and trailing bogie. The axles are slotted to go round the tightest curves. Would be great for EMU/DMU/Railbus applications as well as diesels.

[Ben B]

6 hours ago, 33C said:

Correct! An interesting power arrangement. Central battery box, power bogie and trailing bogie. The axles are slotted to go round the tightest curves. Would be great for EMU/DMU/Railbus applications as well as diesels.

 

Someone in a Garden Rail article a few years ago used the running gear for a Southern Region EMU, even regauged it to 45mm.

 

Mine was going under a vaguely dieselpunk monorail ;)

[33C]

7 minutes ago, Ben B said:

 

Someone in a Garden Rail article a few years ago used the running gear for a Southern Region EMU, even regauged it to 45mm.

 

Mine was going under a vaguely dieselpunk monorail ;)

I thought i had seen it somewhere. Do you still have the "Diesel-punk" monorail? Any pics? (The Lartigue is another idea i'm tossing around.) Just this afternoon, on my way back from the dentist, i found a set in the BHF shop for £10 with a lot of extra track and with 3 new batteries inside! (And a "miniature train set", unopened, £3 plus TEN, colour, world steam, coffee table books, by Colin Garrett, P. Whitehouse etc at a £1 each. Lots of inspiration in there!). I have a box of tatty BIG BIG coaches too, somewhere.....may be a project for later? If my tooth hadn't grumbled i probably would have missed the lot....😄

[Hacksworth_Sidings]

Not sure if it counts as “cheapo train sets”, but here’s an idea I’ve had for a while:

 

I’ve been seeing a lot of those YouTube videos with people making fancy things out of those 3D pens, one good example I found whilst checking YouTube was a car body made using a 3D pen, designed to fit an existing RC chassis, and this got me thinking… Could this be applied to railway modelling? I know decent places to get cheap chassis’, I have a book of OO drawings by F.J. Roche, all I’d need is the pen. Would it be to the same scratch as a professionally made model? Absolutely not, but as a bit of fun I think it could be a decent challenge! 
 

If I were to attempt it, I’d likely try something like a Jinty, not many complex shapes since most of the boiler is covered by the large tanks, hell, maybe even whip together some scale drawings of a Nellie body and attempt a replica of that, either way, I’ve been thinking of this for a while and want to hear other peoples thoughts on the matter.

[RedGemAlchemist]

18 hours ago, Hacksworth_Sidings said:

Not sure if it counts as “cheapo train sets”, but here’s an idea I’ve had for a while:

 

I’ve been seeing a lot of those YouTube videos with people making fancy things out of those 3D pens, one good example I found whilst checking YouTube was a car body made using a 3D pen, designed to fit an existing RC chassis, and this got me thinking… Could this be applied to railway modelling? I know decent places to get cheap chassis’, I have a book of OO drawings by F.J. Roche, all I’d need is the pen. Would it be to the same scratch as a professionally made model? Absolutely not, but as a bit of fun I think it could be a decent challenge! 
 

If I were to attempt it, I’d likely try something like a Jinty, not many complex shapes since most of the boiler is covered by the large tanks, hell, maybe even whip together some scale drawings of a Nellie body and attempt a replica of that, either way, I’ve been thinking of this for a while and want to hear other peoples thoughts on the matter.

I honestly can't see any reason why it wouldn't be feasible, even if not exactly an ideal method.

 

[papagolfjuliet]

Speaking of things which are widely and cheaply available at this time of year, I happened to pick up one of those Penguin Race sets and it struck me that it might make a basis for one of those mine tub rides one sees in theme parks or for a mine-based microlayout, so I found some cheap 3D printed static OO9 tub wagons on ebay and started to, ahem, mutilate the penguins...

 

The problem obviously is that the penguins' arms/wings engage with the escalator section, so the options are 1. mount the tub quite high on the body and hide the sides of the track with railings of some sort (possibly Scalextric crash barriers), or 2. mount the tub lower, drill through the body, and insert a length of rod. I'm leaning towards the latter option.

 

As to loads, it turns out that you can buy fool's gold granules quite cheaply online, so a gold mine scene beckons.

[papagolfjuliet]

Another one which I don't think has been mentioned here. About fifteen years ago a Chinese firm produced two sets featuring this, and it is exactly what it looks like: a direct pirate copy of the Hornby Holden tank (even down to the way the bunker is mounted), scaled up to American O Gauge and battery operated. You start and stop it by depressing the chimney cap, and the batteries sit under the tank top. Unfortunately while dimensionally it is 1:48 scale the track gauge is about 3mm under O. It has no reverse gear. I've just dug mine out and have started undercoating it, which is a long job as the plastic is very shiny and virtually translucent.

 

The two sets were named 'Farm' and 'Construction.' I have never been able to find them since.

[33C]

1 hour ago, papagolfjuliet said:

Speaking of things which are widely and cheaply available at this time of year, I happened to pick up one of those Penguin Race sets and it struck me that it might make a basis for one of those mine tub rides one sees in theme parks or for a mine-based microlayout, so I found some cheap 3D printed static OO9 tub wagons on ebay and started to, ahem, mutilate the penguins...

 

The problem obviously is that the penguins' arms/wings engage with the escalator section, so the options are 1. mount the tub quite high on the body and hide the sides of the track with railings of some sort (possibly Scalextric crash barriers), or 2. mount the tub lower, drill through the body, and insert a length of rod. I'm leaning towards the latter option.

 

As to loads, it turns out that you can buy fool's gold granules quite cheaply online, so a gold mine scene beckons.

Some papier-mache and chicken wire around the structure, to replicate a mountain/mine. Then place it in the middle of a tight radius circle of 00 gauge. Feeder to the standard gauge! Micro layout with a mass of moving interest. 

[papagolfjuliet]

The cheap mine tubs incidentally are here. I have no connection with the seller.

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/235272162721

[Ben B]

2 hours ago, papagolfjuliet said:

Another one which I don't think has been mentioned here. About fifteen years ago a Chinese firm produced two sets featuring this, and it is exactly what it looks like: a direct pirate copy of the Hornby Holden tank (even down to the way the bunker is mounted), scaled up to American O Gauge and battery operated. You start and stop it by depressing the chimney cap, and the batteries sit under the tank top. Unfortunately while dimensionally it is 1:48 scale the track gauge is about 3mm under O. It has no reverse gear. I've just dug mine out and have started undercoating it, which is a long job as the plastic is very shiny and virtually translucent.

 

The two sets were named 'Farm' and 'Construction.' I have never been able to find them since.

 

I still kick myself for not buying one of these when I saw one at the time... with a bit of re-gauging, it would have made a nice budget garden loco...

[Hacksworth_Sidings]

4 hours ago, papagolfjuliet said:

Another one which I don't think has been mentioned here. About fifteen years ago a Chinese firm produced two sets featuring this, and it is exactly what it looks like: a direct pirate copy of the Hornby Holden tank (even down to the way the bunker is mounted), scaled up to American O Gauge and battery operated. You start and stop it by depressing the chimney cap, and the batteries sit under the tank top. Unfortunately while dimensionally it is 1:48 scale the track gauge is about 3mm under O. It has no reverse gear. I've just dug mine out and have started undercoating it, which is a long job as the plastic is very shiny and virtually translucent.

 

The two sets were named 'Farm' and 'Construction.' I have never been able to find them since.

I’m sorry, a copy of WHAT!? Are the tacky Hornby 101s really that popular that an equally tacky O gauge replica was wanted?

 

Come to think of it, this doesn’t seem to be the first time manufacturers have copied each other, if I’m correct, the Rovex Princess (the basis for the Triang one) ripped its proportions straight from the Trix Twin Princess, and I swear Lone Star copied Triang’s for their line of N gauge trains…

 

TTR Princess

Rovex Princess, of which I actually own

Lone Star Princess

Edited November 12, 2023 by Hacksworth_Sidings
Added detail

[papagolfjuliet]

There are others. The Tri-ang BIg Big Hymek was copied by a firm in Hong Kong, as was the Lima clockwork 0-4-0T and HO ferry van and lwb open wagon. Speaking of Lima, the reason why its N gauge BR 16t mineral wagon and  brake van were so overscale was that the Lima toolmakers were given the (already too tall) Tri-ang OO models and told to copy them, assumed that they were HO, and scaled them down accordingly. Really true. 

[009 micro modeller]

2 hours ago, Hacksworth_Sidings said:

I swear Lone Star copied Triang’s for their line of N gauge trains

Yes they did. This extended on the original push along ones to the use of 8.25mm gauge (i.e. half 00).

[BernardTPM]

1 hour ago, papagolfjuliet said:

Speaking of Lima, the reason why its N gauge BR 16t mineral wagon and  brake van were so overscale was that the Lima toolmakers were given the (already too tall) Tri-ang OO models and told to copy them, assumed that they were HO, and scaled them down accordingly. Really true. 

Yes and no: their mineral wagon is a scale 17' 6" long (1:148 - 36mm) whereas the Triang one is a scale 16' long (1:76 - 64mm), so neither is right, but the buffers are set too high like the Tri-ang 1960s plastic chassis. Back in the early 1980s I removed the surplus 2mm from quite a few of the Lima mineral bodies, taking it out either side of the door. Here's the strange thing: the small strengthening fillets under the turned over top were then correctly aligned at 1/3rd & 2/3rd positions whereas with the extra length they were offset to the outside. That suggests they did their stretch by just adding in two 'slices' rather than stretching every dimension evenly.

They did do a BR van later on the same chassis which was, of course, the correct length, though just a little wide.