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(Ok, so I can start a topic, but I cannot edit my post to remove the comment. Apologies to the webmaster.)
Cab end leading.
Side view, with a few other O-gauge trains from my teenage years, and some incomplete printed models in the background.
Hood end showing lowered cab.
In my younger days I happily accepted broken clockwork trains and tin-plate track from fellow students who thought that they had outgrown their toy trains. The Big Big Trains ran well on the tube rails and could outrun the clockwork engines, of course. However getting trains between the two systems needed rails fixed to a thin baseboard. It was not tidy! For the 50 year revival I printed adapters that allow the tracks to connect accurately and easily.
The gondola car was one of my favorites for reliable running on the outdoor line than ran through three properties (the neighbors had kids of the same age). I painted it matt black to match the NSWGR stock at the time.
These days such alterations would be heresy and vandalism to collectors’ pieces. However in those days they were just toys.
Not really a conversion …
Here is a rough model of a smaller model Ruston that I threw together so that the toddler would have something other than historic trains to break.
I did not manage to make it low enough to match the carriages but it will be a few years before she gets to play with them so she won’t notice.
The engine has a Big Big Train coupler on one end. The other has a rotating magnet so it can pull Brio-style wooden trains.
It uses two cheap “yellow” motors actually it is the gearbox that is yellow. They cost about $3.00 each. I think that they are sold for people making small robots. I run them at 3V which gives a reasonable speed or an O-gauge train. However it is faster than I would like when it is hauling trains on wooden track. The electric “Thomas” engines are painfully slow but that gives plenty of time for a baby to reach out to start or stop the train. My engine is too high and too fast for her at the moment.
The duplo block cars variously have duplo train hooks, fixed magnets or slots for Big Big couplers, rotating magnets or plarail drawbars.
The photo is staged for release of my Lima to OS track adapter I finished today. The carriage and my Lima points and track section will soon be packed away for another few years. Well maybe the carriages will come out if ever nostalgic adult friends come to visit.
Meanwhile she can play with the new shunter and the block wagons and run them on the floor or on her wood or plastic track.
At Christmas the children played with our home made 0-gauge duplo trains. One they were out of the way we tried the old Big Big Trains. As you can see, they worked. Now to extend the third rail from the current 12 metres and see how long a train we can make.
Third rail in the garden. Shunter runs fine on coarse track.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtupWFQiO3g
And a Happy New year to everyone!
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