Tips to rejuvenate postwar freight cars

In the September 2010 issue, I showed how I rejuvenated a postwar Lionel No. 2458 boxcar. It’s one of several cars I bought from my local hobby shop’s bargain shelf. Here are photos of a few more cars I worked on, along with comments on what I did to improve their appearance.

Sunoco tank cars, like this No. 6415, are classic pieces and come in 1-, 2-, and 3-dome versions. The good news is that they’re appealing and not difficult to find. The bad news is that it’s nearly impossible to match postwar Lionel silver paint, and the rubber-stamped lettering is very fragile. It’s more practical to look for a car with a decent tank, but a scuffed or chipped frame.

After disassembling this car and rinsing the tank under warm water, I repainted the plastic frame on this car with semi-gloss back (be sure to use plastic-compatible paint). Then I sanded rut from the silver railing, touched up the ladders with a gun bluing pen, and reassembled. It will never be a collector piece, but it’s pretty good for a $12 car.

Lionel boxcars

Lionel plastic boxcars can be easy projects or impossible ones. If the car was painted at the factory, has heat-stamped lettering, and has only minor scuffs and paint chips, the odds are good that you can improve its appearance with a scrubbing and a little touch-up work. Cars with unpainted bodies, rubber-stamped lettering, or body damage (a missing corner or a cracked shell, for example) are usually not worth attempting.

Lionel’s 9 1/4-inch boxcars were transitional pieces between the metal cars of the prewar era and the later 6464-style cars, and that fact shows in their construction. In most cases, you’ll find that they have metal doors which are easy to repaint. If the doors have paint chips that will show through any new paint, either strip them with a chemical stripper meant for models, remove the paint with a small sandblaster, or replace them. Touching up the body is the same as for other painted cars. However, be careful disassembling these cars; the plastic can be very brittle.

This No. 3464 was a simple project. I scrubbed the body throughly using a soft toothbrush and Soft Scrub, and gave it a coat of clear flat paint. I also repainted the doors and put some gun blue on the door guides.

Milk cars, like this no. 3472, are one of the few exceptions to my “no unpainted cars” rule.

I’m not sure whether Lionel used a different plastic on them than it did on other cars, but they seem less prone to cracking and chipping. They’re almost alway dirty, but you’d be surprised how good they can look after a really thorough scrubbing. You’ll probably find that you need to replace some or all of the doors, but that’s a simple fix.