Lionel Beau (Thomas & Friends Custom)

Right before Bachmann released their HO model! I don't care what anyone says, I liked Beau when he appeared in the Thomas show, even if his inclusion was only a mere few minutes. I thought he had a quirky, kooky personality. And as a fan of American locomotives, Beau ticked all the boxes for what I believed would be a great character. This model was very easy to make as it was simply a repaint of a larger scale "RTP" Lionel 4-4-0. Ignore the tender sticker peeling, I had taken this photo just a few moments after applying it to the tender!

The face was the hardest part to make for this model. There were never any toys made of Beau so i had to get creative. It was 3D printed! I finished this model just in time for the summer so I am looking forward to running this loco all summer long. This is a model not many people asked for, but if you make models for others and not yourself are you even enjoying the hobby? Beau is cool.

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Narrow Gauge - not Narrow Minded!

Let me tell you about one of the most confusing scales in the world. Every time I explain it to someone they just cannot wrap their heads around it! Let me introduce you to a scale called "O-16.5" scale." This scale was designed specifically for narrow gauge track and locos/rolling stock to fit in scale with O gauge locos/track/rolling stock. Take a look at this picture here. If you work in O Gauge and have a Lionel Thomas but wanted to make a custom narrow gauge engine that was in scale with Thomas, you would have to use O-16.5. What you see here is a custom Skarloey model in O-16.5. Notice how he sits and runs on HO/OO track... yet his is significantly taller and wider than literally any HO/OO model train on the market. O GAUGE NARROW GAUGE MODELING IS NOT HO SCALE. It just so happens the rail width between O-16.5 and HO/OO scale is exactly the same. But if I wanted this picture to look more accurate and realistic, I would have to swap out Bachmann's black EZ Tr

O Gauge Duck the Great Western Engine Custom

Here he is! An O scale model of Duck! Making an O gauge Duck was always something I have wanted to do from the minute I began modeling in O scale. But, what I wanted to avoid was getting a super detailed O gauge pannier tank model and just painting it green. I wanted to make a Duck that still looked fanciful. And so comes my inspiration: Hornby's OO scale model of Duck, released all the way back in the 80's. I have always liked this model over Bachmann's HO version. Bachmann's is absolutely fine, but I liked Hornby's nice mix of "realistic" but still looking like an engine from Thomas. A happy medium. I found an old O gauge shell of a pannier on eBay and it looked just great! I had to find a green paint that matched Hornby's version of Duck which proved very difficult. But once found, I got to spraying the body (after letting it soak in a liquid that dissolved any glue or rust from the shell). The chassis is a lima 0-6-0. And here are the two model

Diesel Review

And here he is: The Sodor Troublemaker. Diesel is a model that was released in 2007/2008 and was discontinued sometime around the 2010's. Diesel was then reintroduced in 2014 with Lionchief controls and stayed in Lionel's catalogue for a few years before being silently discontinued again in 2016-2017. Luckily, in 2019, Diesel along with Thomas, Percy, and James were re-released (again) with Bluetooth Lionchief controls! What a wild ride! So why don't we get started? Diesel is perhaps one of the best models in Lionel’s “Thomas & Friends” range. This may not be saying much, but there is more to Diesel then meets the eye. Much like the other models, do not go on Google and look up a picture of this model, photo-shops and poor quality photos do not do these models any justice. When you physically see the Diesel model you notice a lot of unique details. For one, unlike many of the models in this range, Diesel cosmetically is near perfect. Proportionally, he looks great

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