Episode 75 - This Kusan Boxcar Was In My "Junk Box" For 20 years! Let's Fix & Run It!

Today we're going to try something really crazy. 23.9 close enough. These are very close to true o scale. You don't want to try this with a modern transformer. So this is based off of a real B&O caboose from 1916 up to 1938. That is not helpful. Now it is truth or consequences time. Part of the this wire arm here. Very simple but effective animation for the layout. Hello again this is Mike with Toy Train Tips and Tricks and today the story of a sad Cusan boxcar. Our yellow Cusan King series boxcar here in the front here. This car I picked this up at a show oh at least 20 years ago. Part of a deal where at the time I was looking for cars that were one different from your typical run-of-the-mill Lionel stock. So I was looking at Cusan. I was looking at Marks. I was looking at original 1970s era Atlas and AHMO scale cars that I could convert to three rail. So things just to add some variety to the layout. Secondly I was looking for things that were dirt cheap because money was really really tight at the time. And thirdly you know I was looking for things that I could customize. I could modify. I could repaint and re-letter. So this poor car fit into that category. I was looking at a dealer table at a show. I was also looking at he had a Cusan caboose and a as I recall a Lionel caboose. One of the dirt dirt cheap ones from the late 1960s that they didn't even bother to stamp any lettering or numbering on whatsoever. Which made it perfect as a as a repaint. So I was looking at these two cabooses and he saw my interest in the Cusan caboose. He's like oh so you like the Cusan stuff. Tell you what if you buy the caboose I'll throw the box car in for free. So this thing came to me similar to what you see now except I mean one truck was completely gone. The other one was cracked and was falling off. So I knew I was going to have to replace the trucks. But I had some spare post-war trucks in my scrap box. So that didn't bother me. It had a pretty bad hand-painted custom paint job. Which you can see a little bit of still here some of the black on the details just wouldn't come off when I tried to strip it. But it's pretty good. So it had been hand-painted. But you know for the price which was basically free you know it was worth it to get it off the guy's table. I was very proud of myself at that show that I walked in with $20. Imagine taking $20 to a train show. Yeah money was tight. And for $20 I walked out with two cabooses this box car a tender and a basket case Lionel 250 steamer that since I've worked up and runs quite well thank you very much. And I still had enough out of that $20 to pay for my admission and lunch. So it was a great day. So this poor car I took it home and I started stripping it. My preferred stripper at the time was automotive brake fluid from the dollar store. Now I'm a little more environmentally conscious and also for my skin. I use this stuff that I buy at Menards now. I usually soak it overnight and that takes care of most things. Either overnight or sometimes it takes two or three applications. Anyway so I stripped it and then I began working on the truck issue. And to my surprise the truck the remnants of the trucks were a lot more difficult to get off than I thought. So I've got this other Cusan here this one one of the cannonball types which apparently this one was as well. And what I was expecting was that this would be a little plastic pin that just popped out you could pop the truck off just replace it no problem. Well as it turns out I don't know if they use actually use a glue or whether they inserted the pin while it was still molten plastic but it essentially fuses to the bottom of the car. And all these pieces in the cannonball series these things do not come apart. And the same thing was with the trucks. Now even in the K-series of Cusan cars they also made you know some that were a little better quality the regular K-series and there were also some kits. Those are easier to get apart but the ones that were made for the cannonball were not. Incidentally what I found one difference between the cannonball series of cars besides being stuck together and the regular K-series is if you look at the wheels this one I know was an original cannonball car because I bought it that way as a set. And if you look there's very very little detail on the face of the wheel it is just flat and not a really good casting. Whereas the standard K-series wheels got some more detail in there and it's not a flat casing it's indented more like a typical realistic freight car would be. As far as the couplers some Cusans have this some don't. I've never noticed a pattern as far as whether it was time period or series or whatever. Some Cusans have this some don't. So anyway this is not the truck that came with this. When I got around to doing this this time I had a spare set of Cusan trucks handy. Now again continuing with the story of this poor box car. So I stripped it I started working on the trucks and as things would have it life got in the way and we had to move which meant tearing down the layout which meant boxing everything up throwing into the storage. And over and over and over again that has happened with this poor car and that every time I get to the point on a layout where it's like okay the track is done the wiring is done let's dig into my project box something would happen and this poor thing would go back in the project box and here we are 20 years later and I'm finally gonna put this on the layout. So what I ended up doing I used a razor saw to cut the tabs off and then I got what I thought was a brilliant idea was that I would just drill this out and I had some old spare drywall anchors from a project I think hanging mini blinds or something like that. So I drilled that out put the anchor in and screw and you can see that it just screws right in and after spending a lot of time doing this and working with the drill and getting everything centered and doing it multiple times then it occurred to me that I could have achieved the same results a whole lot easier just using a self-tapping screw. One of those you idiot moments. But anyway this does work so the trick in using the screws is you want to get it tight enough that it doesn't the truck doesn't wiggle but loose enough that one it turns into you have a little bit a vertical place you can handle different grades so you know kind of an art. So I will you see there's still quite a bit of play in there I'm going to get some washers that I can put in there one to help keep it more centered two to add some much needed weight to this all plastic car with all plastic trucks this thing doesn't weigh anything so this is definitely going to be relegated to the back of the train near the caboose. Also got it cleaned up as weather gets warm it's finally going to get a coat of new paint and some decals you can I was surprised by this I guess I shouldn't have been because this was heat stamped you can see some of the original lettering here the Kusan Railroad 70203 and the information there because that was heat stamped it's in there but a coat of primer should cover that up pretty well and some sanding and typical of the Cannonball series of cars the other side is blank so the regular K-series cars came in lots of different road names always came with the door molded open cheap way to get some play value sometimes there was a little man that came with the cars that you could put in there so anyway so I've got this together I've got it with trucks and so I'm still going to be you know making alterations to this by adding some washers some weight in here and also painting and decaling this let's give this thing a run around the layout finally after spending 20 years way too long in my project box let's give it a spin on the layout all right so we've got our Lionel number 8141 MPC era 242 with the mighty electronic sound of steam we've got a post-war 6462 gone we have a K-line boxcar made off of Mark's molds but with Lionel type trucks and couplers see that that puppy was off the track but using our new amazing coupler adapters we're attached to the knuckle coupler we've got a Lionel Scout again using the coupler adapter and here it is our K-line or K-line our Kusan K-series originally Kusan Cannonball boxcar making its first appearance on the layout in at least 20 years since this sucker's been on the track and an MPC era southern SP style caboose and let's give it a run and you see here the relative size of the K-series car compared to the Lionel Scout it's a little bit bigger not ridiculously so looks kind of like you know what a 50 foot or 60 foot car would compared to the Scout car and it's slightly smaller but not ridiculously smaller than the standard traditional Lionel 6464 or MPC 9700 series for example so it makes a nice transition between the two it's kind of a happy medium between the Scout type car and the Lionel size car it would look significantly smaller than the AMT Menards type Williams type of the crown line because those are true scale cars are significantly taller than the K-line K-series car but you see here mixed in with a group of Lionel cars and the Marks car it looks just fine proportionally so now that it's had its spin on the layout I do have some more work to do to it when the weather warms up we're going to give it a paint job can't do it now I don't have an indoor paint booth I will be playing with the trucks a little more to add some weight to them and actually I may end up replacing it with my own truck design that I am testing right now when I get that worked out that'll be a future video but I'm in the testing stage on the 3D printed truck here not quite ready for prime time I've got a few tweaks to go to get it functioning well on my Lionel track but I'm almost there so this car would be a good candidate for that because I'd be replacing plastic trucks with plastic trucks so anyway so this is saving an old K-series car again this type of car unless it's in one of the hard to find or very desirable road names you can find Coosan box cars for generally less than five dollars at a show like I said unless it's one of those just particularly rare or particularly appealing road names and in that case because of demand from a small but dedicated group of Coosan collectors you know these cars could fetch as much as a comparable Lionel Pro Sport car if it's the right road name and the right condition so between five most often and up to maybe fifty sixty dollars for something that's really really desirable in excellent condition but if you're looking for some fleet fillers some things that add some variety to your layout inexpensively don't overlook these at the next show or on eBay although on eBay by the time you pay for shipping you know they're better to buy these in a lot of something else so check out your local shows your local dealers and if you run across these K-cars you know give them a chance do keep in mind that they're very lightweight so you want to keep them at the back of the train you don't want to put this up front in front of a milk car you're going to have all kinds of problems but you know they're worth their while they're worth a look and the price is definitely right so thanks again for watching like it share it subscribe tell your friends tell your neighbors and keep the trains running and we'll see you next time on Toy Train Tips and Tricks so you