What did you do to your trains today?

Due to being likely to foul platforms and other tight spots, I've already trimmed the new sideplates for Toby by removing the actual card layers behind them (in case of failure, I originally intended to wrap one long piece of tape around the chassis to replace everything). Because it naturally made them more vulnerable, I cut thin strips from a skewer to restrengthen them along the bottom (the only pieces of actual wood on him). The cowcatchers were left unchanged.

I thought this was a funny and interesting idea for a thread pinched from another forum I am a member of With or without pics is fine.

So... What did you do to your trains today??

Today I filmed Plarail Stephen, I also did a couple of minor repairs (Percy's snapped coupling) (Bulgy's misaligned front axle) and a small amount of dusting.

Could you show me how you replaced the original motor with the sprint dash motor?  I am planning to do the same but I have no clue how to do it.

[Super]

Could you be a bit more specific Wong...What Motor Swap are you referring to?

Ucwepn replaced Bulgy's motor with a Tamiya Sprint Dash. I only recall a motor swap tutorial for engines, but the road vehicles shouldn't be too different inside.

same, but I wasn't sure if any extra modifications were needed as the tamiya motors usually run at 2.5 to 3V if i rmb correctly while normal engines usually use 1 AA battery (that's 1.5 V).

I'm not familiar with these mods but i guess you would have to run them on higher voltage batteries?

[Super]

All the Tamiya motors I have used and seen run with 1.5 volts for these trains. If Bulgy uses the same size motor (measurement wise) then it should be swapped even up. One thing to note...Bulgy might me quite faster depending on which Tamiya motor is used. Since its for Bulgy maybe a motor out of an old Thomas may be a better speed for him.

Here is a comparison of speeds of a couple of Tamiya motors from a former member here

Yesterday, I restored the Talking James' original face (albeit with the white in his eyes removed like on early TOMY/HiT faces). Much better than cutting up the Flip Face or Mega Bloks one like I initially intended. Because I did Gordon at the same time as him, it should be easy to revert him as well. I also removed the paper face from the 2012 Edward, to be replaced with a hot melt glue one. As I suspected, he turned out to have an expired motor like the (ex) Thomas from the same batch of engines. In spite of this, I still fitted a spring on the switch shaft so he could disengage when turned (back) off. Thanks to Custom TrackMasters for showing how it's done.

I designed and printed this little narrow gauge style brake van drop-in replacement top for the small carriage/brake vans that came with James. Need to find some sandpaper and a good paint to use

That's really cool! I can't wait to see what they look like painted!