Retiring soon decided to retire my addition of acquiring Lionel trains. lol. This is a long shot not much interest locally in Standard gauge trains but I am going to give it a shot. What doesn’t move here I will eventually have to put on EBay. I just really don’t like shipping.

Up for sale Lionel Standard Gauge #42 locomotive circa 1920-1923. For those who don’t know about standard gauge it is a size of track that looks just like “O” gauge track with the iconic 3 rails but it is much wider than the “O” gauge track that most would have used when we were kids, unless you are well over a hundred years old now and can remember playing with electric trains. Therefore the trains that run on this wider track are also usually much larger in proportion. It’s not really about scale as with early model trains rarely was anything to scale.

This Lionel #42 is a double motor version of this iconic Lionel locomotive. The early pre 1920 versions only had a single motor. In the early advertising and on the boxes this was the locomotive always pictured. It is a rather large and heavy locomotive, and requires quite a bit of power to move it. Today’s transformer you get with your Lionel starter or Polar Express sets won’t budge this loco. A ZW or a KW would be more acceptable to power these large motors.

I purchased my Standard gauge locos as a part of a large group and not necessarily as runners, as I was never interested in making a standard layout. However they look great on display. I bought a large group of trains that was part of an estate years ago and there was several standard gauge pieces included some untouched, some restored, some partially fixed and some disassembled. In the grouping I ended up with one small loop of very poor track and a lot of very old switch tracks, a turntable, 45 degree, 90 degree, and various in need of restored passenger cars. All are available if interested please ask.

This locomotive runs intermittently really well then one of the motors slows and speeds up again, it has been obviously rewired, it looks like it has new commutators and rewound armatures. I suspect the brushes don’t make good contact since they are sparking a lot while it ran when I bench tested it. When the motors were running well they had a lot of power and seemed quite strong. Stronger than any other of these early motors I have seen before. That being said it still needs work to run consistently well.

Take a good look at the photos. This loco sports its original paint and lettering, where the paint has peeled it is shiny tin underneath. Whomever rewired it took out the AC/DC switch and it can only be used with AC. Another weird bit of information on this. Back in the early days in the U.S. there were still some municipalities that used DC current for household lighting. Lionel made an inverter that would drop the voltage to safer levels for use on these systems. Lionel motors could run on both AC or DC but if they were run at the same time, in order to get both motors to run in the same direction they either had to be wired in series or in parallel depending on AC or DC current being used. So Lionel made a switch that was installed on the early locos with two motors in case they were to encounter a home with DC power. Crazy, to think about but this little switch causes all kinds of confusion over the years.

I know if I put this loco on-line I could sell it in a heart beat for a bit more, but then I would have to pack it and ship it. I have had so many trains damaged in shipping I just don’t like shipping. I am going to see if there is any interest in this piece and I will list some others if this one gets some looks.

Asking $250 or best offer. Located in Farmington, Utah. Questions welcome,

Thank for looking Trevor