Has this wagon been customised?

P

playmofire

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I came across this LGB Short Island Railroad item on eBay UK:

www.ebay.co.uk

LGB G Gauge Wagon “Short Island R. R.” | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for LGB G Gauge Wagon “Short Island R. R.” at the best online prices at eBay! Free delivery for many products.
www.ebay.co.uk

Looking closely at it I noticed that there is a swing-up frame piece to support a tarpaulin cover and no brakeman's platform and I vaguely remember seeing one of these somewhere before. However, an internet search turns nothing up, so does anyone know if LGB ever made a wagon to take a tarpaulin?
 
playmofire said:
so does anyone know if LGB ever made a wagon to take a tarpaulin?
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This is a Lehmann Toy train wagon, as modified by Garden Railway Specialists in one of their erstwhile Combo-Kits. It consists of the body of a ToyTrain gondola on the "short halves" of two Toytrain chassis that creates symetrical axleboxes (and no brake platform),. The two "long halves" of the chassis are then put below a GRS box van kit, again with symmetrical axleboxes. The chassis have to be cut in a particular way to achieve this. I might have a photo somewhere.

This version was supplied with a Tarpaulin rail and fixings, as seen in your photo. A second version of the Combo Kit used the other ToyTrain gondola (with lower sides and no raised ends) and a GRS cattle wagon kit.

EDIT; Found a photo, not of the way to cut the chassis, but of the result. Top one is the two "long halves", middle one is "as supplied" (with assymetic axleboxes) and the bottom one is the two "short halves" . . .

1696160302773.png
Cheers

David
 
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I have done this to create a couple of different vans, often posted in here. The tarpaulin pivot location looks well dodgy being (I think) a pointy nail or sharp screw end. If you buy it would suggest changing that.
 
I modified mine by cutting off the end platform and extending the body. As above, tarpaulin rails from GRS.

dig 130217005.JPG

dig 200922003.JPG

David
 
SevenOfDiamonds said:
This is a Lehmann Toy train wagon, as modified by Garden Railway Specialists in one of their erstwhile Combo-Kits. It consists of the body of a ToyTrain gondola on the "short halves" of two Toytrain chassis that creates symetrical axleboxes (and no brake platform),. The two "long halves" of the chassis are then put below a GRS box van kit, again with symmetrical axleboxes. The chassis have to be cut in a particular way to achieve this. I might have a photo somewhere.

This version was supplied with a Tarpaulin rail and fixings, as seen in your photo. A second version of the Combo Kit used the other ToyTrain gondola (with lower sides and no raised ends) and a GRS cattle wagon kit.

EDIT; Found a photo, not of the way to cut the chassis, but of the result. Top one is the two "long halves", middle one is "as supplied" (with assymetic axleboxes) and the bottom one is the two "short halves" . . .

View attachment 319220
Cheers

David
Click to expand...
Many thanks, David. I have one of these wagons where I want to get rid of the platform, so the photo will be useful.
 
dunnyrail said:
I have done this to create a couple of different vans, often posted in here. The tarpaulin pivot location looks well dodgy being (I think) a pointy nail or sharp screw end. If you buy it would suggest changing that.
Click to expand...
Yes, I thought the same, a nut and bolt would have been neater. I'm thinking of a conversion as I have one of these by removing the platform and then either the tarpaulin approach or a salt wagon style.
 
SevenOfDiamonds said:
modified by Garden Railway Specialists in one of their erstwhile Combo-Kits
Click to expand...

'twould seem that I got my pairings mixed up, and that they were somewhat more "erstwhile" than I had imagined.

This is from the 1996/7 Winter G Scale Journal . . .

1696176918581.png
. . . and this from the Spring 1998 edition . . .

1696176988406.png1696177066094.png

Not sure how long they were available for, though.

Cheers

David
 
There 2 ways to remove the balcony/platform

You either lengthen the body or shorten the chassis,

The shortened chassis method means you have to work out a way for the couplings.

I run them as fixed pairs to sort out the couplings issue,

The lengthen body method as David1226 did and did a very good write up on, avoids this issue

Dan
IMG_1722.jpeg
 
a98087 said:
The shortened chassis method means you have to work out a way for the couplings.
Click to expand...

The Combo-kit method avoids any coupling issues, because the two "short halves" use the turning carts with the short arms, and the two "long halves" use the turning carts with the long arms. Everything coupling-wise is as intended by the manufacturer, with the added benefit of the originally-assymetric spacing of the axleboxes is changes so that they are symetrical.

I have encountered the "coupling issue" referred to, but only when hacking off a bit from each end of the chassis and reattaching the buffer beams . . . which is why I have adopted the approach I have.

Cheers

David
 
David has done a nice job of modifying his shorty open, but as ever the length each end is still different which always irritated me with the shorty wagons till I took this photo in Ribes Spain. While it is a Van you can just about make out the difference of length between the center of axle box and vehicle end. I never saw any equivalent opens but can see no reason why there may not have been some on the line.ToyTrain prototype.jpeg
 
dunnyrail said:
David has done a nice job of modifying his shorty open, but as ever the length each end is still different which always irritated me with the shorty wagons till I took this photo in Ribes Spain. While it is a Van you can just about make out the difference of length between the center of axle box and vehicle end. I never saw any equivalent opens but can see no reason why there may not have been some on the line.View attachment 319234
Click to expand...
There's always a prototype, or did the designer for the Spanish railways base them on the LGB shorty wagons he had as a child?
 
playmofire said:
There's always a prototype, or did the designer for the Spanish railways base them on the LGB shorty wagons he had as a child?
Click to expand...
Catalan Railways are so delightfully idiosyncratic, which provides me with a blanket excuse to produce strange looking models, thank goodness. Hurra per la regla vuit :D
 
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