Hi there.
I was an auction at the local train club last year and I bought a box of junk. Best buys are always junk boxes. I bought this one in particular because it had an old broken 0-4-0 engine in it. It looked real old, but for a long time, until I took these photos, I had no idea how old it was. Only thing I could find printed on it was that it was made in Italy.
So a month after I got my deal on the junk box, I bought myself a starter type train set to get me up and running as I had no track or transformer and no proven rolling stock, so I bought that Iron Horse train set from Life Like. Was a good buy and I am pleased with the set. The 0-4-0 runs smooth enough.
But then...............wait!
The shells of the 2 engines, the Life Like and the Italian Job, look almost identical! Most of the casting details are the same. Only some of the pipes and stuff have been re-tooled, but to all intense and purposes, these 2 engines are brothers. But the shells are not interchangeable, the Life Like has a can motor and the Italian Job has a pancake motor.
So I decided to remodel the Italian Job to make it look different. It was missing the front of the boiler and hummed real bad on a test. Took it apart for cleaning and lubrication and now it is the fastest engine in my fleet. Runs good and smooth now.
The startling thing I discovered while taking photographs of the Italian Job, was that it is an Alco engine made in 1930. Or so said the ID plate. Never heard of Alco before.
I was an auction at the local train club last year and I bought a box of junk. Best buys are always junk boxes. I bought this one in particular because it had an old broken 0-4-0 engine in it. It looked real old, but for a long time, until I took these photos, I had no idea how old it was. Only thing I could find printed on it was that it was made in Italy.
So a month after I got my deal on the junk box, I bought myself a starter type train set to get me up and running as I had no track or transformer and no proven rolling stock, so I bought that Iron Horse train set from Life Like. Was a good buy and I am pleased with the set. The 0-4-0 runs smooth enough.
But then...............wait!
The shells of the 2 engines, the Life Like and the Italian Job, look almost identical! Most of the casting details are the same. Only some of the pipes and stuff have been re-tooled, but to all intense and purposes, these 2 engines are brothers. But the shells are not interchangeable, the Life Like has a can motor and the Italian Job has a pancake motor.
So I decided to remodel the Italian Job to make it look different. It was missing the front of the boiler and hummed real bad on a test. Took it apart for cleaning and lubrication and now it is the fastest engine in my fleet. Runs good and smooth now.
The startling thing I discovered while taking photographs of the Italian Job, was that it is an Alco engine made in 1930. Or so said the ID plate. Never heard of Alco before.