Old Varney Locomotive from Ebay Almost Catches Fire - Ebay Unboxing

I bought this old Varney locomotive I found on Ebay because I thought it had an excellent paint scheme and wanted have a look at another vintage locomotive ever since I opened up a Varney steam loco with a 7 pole motor. I was hoping it would run well as it was listed to but unfortunately it started smoking like crazy after only a few seconds of running. I hope I can get it working again.

[@steezytrtl2701]

Everybody gangsta until the loco catches fire

[@davidztog9011]

More smoke than a steam locomotive - - good one, Harrison. Hopefully it's just something minor. You'll figure it out - - you always do. Fra-gee-lay, it must be Eye-talyan... classic! 🤣 Still a good looking locomotive, it has character. Thanks for sharing. 👍 👍 👍

[@kidreviewsmodels460]

*fra-gee-lay.... Must be Italian!* I love the Christmas story reference

[@StrictlySteam]

The road name should be: *“Chesapeake and On-fire”*

[@JusstDexx]

Fire or flames, what’s better?

[@yalepelchat6613]

A wild seaboard system has appeared

[@lukep4339]

Lol

[@russellstrainzone2384]

Right! Lol

[@colbeausabre8842]

@@russellstrainzone2384 It needs painted flames down the side

[@ajkleipass]

I've a growing fleet of Varney yard diesels. Every one of them has needed some amount of motor maintenance to get them up and running. Look especially carefully for any slivers of metal in the motor, or fibers wrapped around the shafts. Remember, as often as not, these engines might have been run on sectional track placed on the floor.

[@jorgel.fernandeziii8278]

Hello again Harrison and yes you are correct ! I believe you may have over oiled it, that’s what caused the smoke unless the rubber band is so old that it caught fire 🔥! And from what you’ve described and from what I’ve seen so far to me that when you said that the body was made out of metal as well as the chassis and there was a what look like where you can change actually it’s the speed you can go into a granddaddy low,/,or high-speed Granny ! And the only company to my knowledge that made Trains like that one was Lionel, and Mantua in HO Scale ! If I’m right they were only made for a very small amount of time a few years 3 to 5 years I’d say maximum ! But what you have in your hands is vintage so whatever you do do not let go of it there’s always a way to figure out how to fix something from that era ! 🌊🐺

[@TheSwitchList]

Love the Christmas story reference (one of the greatest movies of all time!). Looking forward to seeing the restoration video on this loco! Good luck with the seller. -Rick

[@sd70acefanns8]

Smt it's the conrail steam locomotive challenge Conrail : you challenging me again

[@alcopower5710]

What I hate the most is when non train people sell trains on eBay and list them as new or mint without ever being tested. Just basing it on what it looks like. I often ask if it has been test run and most never even bother replying. Hope it’s an easy fix Harrison......it’s a great looking locomotive

[@therailroadempire7993]

you have more locomotives than anyone could ever imagine and yet here you are buying more lamo!

[@mercuryoak2]

If you seen johns amazing trains or chambs123 or sams trains they have more I would think but they mostly British locomotives smt has more diesels then steamers he has variety

[@haroldalexis4200]

The Railroad Empire I could have sworn he's a model railroader & I don't care if he has a million fleets of trains!. Thats not Lamo ! I have a majority of collections of trains! I've been doing this hobby for 46 years proudly, don't you dare call me lamo! I'm a Veteran of this hobby in mostly all scales. The fleets keep growing better and I stand proud of all my collections pricesless! Thats a damned shame that happened the money he spent and having to experience that? I'm glad that he shut down his powerpack! That happened to me a few times but with 3 cheap cheap engines from Life Like and they were F7 units! I was concerned about his engine & his layout safety first & always!

[@pezer247]

harold alexis i think they meant “lmao” and not “lamo”

[@mistermadmachine6311]

I want more and I’m almost out of places to put them

[@unotheangel1134]

The loco is like "I finally get to live as a steam engine, AND NO ONE WILL STOP ME!"

[@SPNGMalibu18]

So this maybe one reason why My Dad won’t buy me used stuff online.....

[@KingTrump2024]

Used Atlas, Kato, Rapido is fine. Buying decades old Tyco or Life-like junk like SMT does, you should expect this type of result.

[@SPNGMalibu18]

Cornell Custom Trains I have a Tyco 4-6-2, every time It runs, I can smell it burning.

[@jimkammerer8028]

I LIKE YOUR VIEWS AND VIDEOS . A GOOD REPRESENTATION OF YOUR EBAY FINDS.

[@danielgallagher9533]

That paint scheme is orginally the Pere Marquette Railway's for their passenger EMD E7s. C&O adopted it when they fully merged with PM.

[@aaronsadowski1691]

I didn't realize they made steam locomotives that looked like that!

[@watchandreact1601]

Great video. I remember when I first ran a steam locomotive I had received as a Christmas present puffs of smoke came gushing out of the motor. When I took off the metal frame/shell of the locomotive, I found that the previous owner had over oiled the locomotive. The commutator, field, and all the rest of the electric parts were drenched in oil, to the point that I had to use a toothbrush to scrub away any of the oil, to get any response out of the motor.

[@sort187]

This is why you need ***NEED*** a testing stand.... I can't stress that enough. It'll save you some headaches down the road .

[@heyjay25]

Very cool! It’s very good that you found the maker, everyone that’s on insta knows about this one

[@65Pontiac389]

Hi

[@heyjay25]

Charles Vermeulin Howdy

[@tjprptchable]

Your name lol I love that helmet

[@heyjay25]

@@tjprptchable Thanks?

[@TrainsofChicagoland]

She’s a beauty! I hope this will last a long time!

[@Tyc11114]

Fragile must be Italian "A Christmas story"

[@adrianmoreno3064]

Hi Harrison! Wow! That old Varney looks really neat. Hopefully the info I sent you on the loco on Instagram was helpful in a way. I suspect that the loco was custom painted as well, because there was no such scheme for the C&O or on other models when I did my research. Whoever did it did a really good job. Nice find, and great video as always!

[@highspeedboom]

That much current draw usually means that the windings are shorting out. If true you can rewire the armature to make it like brand new. Also remagnetize the motor magnets. You can take your restoration videos to the next level up

[@aerodisfunction9896]

By the title I can tell this video is gonna be a roller coaster

[@SPTunnelMotor]

..comes with ultra realistic engine breakdown effect! :D

[@1990sRailfan]

"Fragile, must be Italian", what was that Christmas Story?...LOL!

[@windsordronefly5839]

Once the magic smoke gene come out, electronics tend to never be the same...

[@patrickwamsley3284]

Yep it's as I suspected. That is certainly an oily comutator. A thorough cleaning with alcohol will cure it. A friend of mine had recently got the same Nickel Plate Products brass Nickel Plate Road L1-b Hudson and the seller had really screwed him over. It had an oiled comutator and it actually shot flames. Some alcohol an a q tip later and it's a fine runner. Something else you might see about doing is if it uses an open frame Pittman motor, a similarly designed motor as the Tyco/Mantua motors, with very fine sandpaper, resurface the brushes and that may help improve performance. It's certainly helped all of my Pittman equipped and Mantua engines.

[@SMTMainline]

I'm really hoping that's the case, I'm still not sure my self.

[@atjoe1972]

That sucks you got a bad runner right out of the box. If there’s anyone who can revive this old custom Varney. It’s SMT Mainline👍

[@stupidsmart-phone6911]

●Thinks he's buying a locomotive. ○Receives a toaster on wheels in classic C&O livery. ☆BONUS: opens it up, finds Indiana Jones's foot on the brake.

[@catsdogsandtrackmastertrai8463]

Never new the c&o had aem-7

[@joezuccardo3245]

Hello SMT Varney made these all die cast engines in the late 40s to about 19554 in 1955 they changed the cab to plastic making them for American Flyers HO as well as Varney, Varney made them until 1963 its called an F3. And I would contact the seller about some refund as it should have ran a lot batter than it did. I have several of these engine from Varney & American Flyer & I run them hours at time

[@mollycaz1]

Hope you get it running it is beautiful looking

[@caseycharlieandadam]

Man that really sucks I’m sorry about that

[@mistermadmachine6311]

This makes my trains that stop and start with a push look doable

[@shaygetz52]

You ain't a model Railroader til you can cook up a batch of magic blue smoke...

[@Alerrecks]

Lol I've seen that loco time and time again on eBay. Good to know it found a proper home. Looks like you dyed your hair, it looks great! It is a custom scheme Btw, these locos came undecorated. That thumbnail looks like it could get all the girls XD

[@SMTMainline]

Sorta funny you had seen this loco before, must have been odd seeing it turn up here. I'm glad it turned out to be a custom paint scheme, I wouldn't have been happy to discover that they are super common or something. Not so sure if the thumbnail is going to have girls breaking down the door xD

[@Alerrecks]

@@SMTMainline Lol, maybe. What did the seller say about the loco smoking up? Did you get the partial refund?

[@callmebigpapa]

Weren't these Varneys sold as bare metal kits? I have a couple of these and they run great!

[@Brian_rock_railfan]

great video liked 👍😮🚄

[@cop1252]

Hey smt for my high school train engineering class we got to get to work on up 1989 today by myself

[@SMTMainline]

Good for you, sounds like fun.

[@cop1252]

SMT Mainline it took a few hours but I did it

[@ashevilletrainman6989]

Probably a short circuit somewhere drawing all that power. Or something like that . Heat is generated when power is stopped up and it builds up ..

[@TG-cf6qb]

Hey man! I think you should probably check the motor. If it’s bad then you’ll want to get a replacement one

[@garysprandel1817]

One hot locomotive you got there SMT. IIRC most of the NOS die cast Varney's I've come across were naked metal plus there does seem to be some discoloration of the Chesapeake And Ohio letting indicating a decal.

[@verykrabbycoyote8280]

Hopefully you hit 9k this week

[@GoViaorgohome]

Smells like burning!

[@Adamingraham885]

thank god nothing burned down lol

[@mercuryoak2]

Hey Harrison sorry for second comment remember. I sent you a picture of that chassis i bought seller said it ran good. Yeah if you used test leads and cleaned and oiled the stickin thing. Oh yeah and made sure all wheels that picked up current were on right and insulated on left they were wrong im like what the heck so i know how you feel bout this believe me im sure we all had it happen. 4 more packages to come from eBay for me. Kadee couplers,talgo adapters, decals which coming from Alberta 🇨🇦 and then my kadee height gauge fedex ground is messing with it yet they say its the shipper. Anyways i got my pilot for my other steamer finally now to paint it and get it re numbered

[@lawrencephelps3181]

Holy Smokes! Nice looking engine though.

[@HTTVChannel]

Bonus smoke feature!

[@Tyc11114]

Holy crap this was a year ago, felt like a few weeks

[@jameschapman3104]

Dude nice hair it looks good on you

[@soontobesopwith_production4705]

Whoa whoa whoa wait... Fire... Smoke... ITS A STEAM LOCO IN DISGUISE

[@vwestlife]

That motor is smokin' hot... just like you! :-)

[@Honeydwarf85]

This be a certified bruh moment

[@davebennett8434]

My Kato N scale gg1 did the same, but there were small flames INSIDE the motor. Do you know anyways to make it run again??

[@SMTMainline]

If it was actually burning I suspect you'll need a new motor. Maybe check Kato's parts department?

[@MoosesWorkshop]

Got to resist those used impulse buys. lol

[@markdm5415]

I have bought 2 used locomotives in 2 months and BOTH were supposedly working well. One arived in pieces and probably had not worked in a long while the other one had damaged brush spring and there was no way it was running well. It ran but very slowly and intermittently. I think some people just unload em that way

[@jackdurbin4324]

I got a locomotive like that but mine's a Santa Fe Jack Durbin Spaceman

[@samfax2919]

I had the same issue with one of my locomotives, afterwards it still worked but would stop after 30 seconds of running. Does that mean the motor is burnt out, or can I fix it in anyway without replacing the motor?

[@SMTMainline]

It all depends on where the damage is. There are two things that can cause smoke 1: something is burning on the commutator. 2: One of the coils got too hot burning of a layer of insulation, causing a short. If it's 1 it can usually be fixed my cleaning up the motor, if it's 2 the motor is pretty much toast.

[@jaiyanachowdhury5674]

It might smoke but it's still a good runner

[@AlleghenyMTNRails]

I see you got it.

[@pezer247]

It looks very similar to an EMD FP7, its definitely an EMD tho and those were produced around the 50’s and 60’s maybe very early 70’s

[@pezer247]

And the reason i bring up the FP7 specifically is because its the first and the only locomotive ive been on and for me its like the relationship that SMT has with his Swedish dream loco

[@colbeausabre8842]

It's are early F3, Phase 2 circa 1947. C&O never owned a F3

[@trainstorm1225]

What’s with these diesels wanting to be steam locomotives?

[@wasatchrangerailway6921]

I would love to tear into that F unit!!! I would put an Athearn drive in it if the motor is shot!

[@oakrail8100]

Congratulations! You Reach The 'I Just Got Scam' Award.Your Award Is Loseing $15 Dolllers!

[@WesleyABrown]

Been looking at eBay listings for trains lately, and now a bit leery of them.

[@JoelHomieShow]

I know this unrelated to the restoration but I like your hair cut... sorry if that seems odd

[@SMTMainline]

Haha, that was the work of my mum. I'm glad she knows how or else I'm gonna be looking like Garth from Wayne's world

[@JoelHomieShow]

LOL thank you for responding, hope you and your family are doing well... Good day then!

[@cyberrednec]

Hey SMT, I have some older Santa Fe passenger cars that I got years ago. They have a hitch design, however, that I've never seen before. Is there any way to send you any pictures of said rolling stock to get your opinion? Thanks in advance 🙂👌

[@SMTMainline]

If you want to email me pictures of the cars [e-mail] I'm also on facebook which you can find on my homepage.

[@cyberrednec]

@@SMTMainline awesome, thanks man👍

[@riondoesthings1988]

Nice custom steam locomotive you have there if you know what I mean

[@Jonathanrailfanning123]

Are you running it yet

[@paulhaase4371]

How do you wire each individual track even though there are switches?

[@Uptownloki47]

I’m expecting an Athearn Blue Box locomotive in the mail today. Hope it doesn’t catch fire! :)

[@haroldalexis4200]

Im sorry that happened to your F 7 C&O. So that doesn't happen on your layout I would get a test track. I would hate to see your system blow out your hobby transformer! I like your videos. Remember Operation Lifesaver... ☺😃 This CN. modeler thanks you once again..

[@KingTrump2024]

Ebay: Sir do you prefer smoking or non-smoking SMT: smoking Please!!!

[@toddmore7586]

Gomez Adams would love this locomotive

[@toddmore7586]

Addams

[@RCRF401]

Well that sucks you get it eBay in right away and almost catches on fire

[@pieseasmyseas]

If you like the C&O that much you should just join team CSX lol but I have a proto 2000 gp9 Louisville and Nashville i can find f units in the paint job just not any other gp7/9s

[@gkjsooley]

You need to watch Sam's Trains "How to burn down your model RR" video.

[@mercuryoak2]

I remember you asked on Instagram about this one. . heck im still waiting for my package. FedEx keeps messing around yet I drive for a contractor for these idiots. I seen my package was at my terminal and they said i couldn't have it. But terminal did now it was too late shipped to Massachusetts for who knows why and they claim it be here today Saturday. Pfft. Go fedex ha ha ha no way.

[@kevincase6202]

I buy quite a lot of HO trains on e-bay and have found that their are a lot of people selling junk, saying good runner, tested runs good. then find out that the motor is cooked, cracked nylon gears, and just units that do not run and were never tested, all you can do with these is give them a bad review and check their rating before you buy

[@Trainboy2005]

Is this just me or does the light make it look like he has frosted tips?

[@stet_and_query_central_1]

The engine is an ex-perè Marquette streamliner

[@FuzionHyperX]

SMT finally bought his first ho smoking locomotive finally 😂

[@angryrailfan5711]

SMT buys a locomotive and runs it for 20 seconds and almost catches it on fire Me :(

[@colbeausabre8842]

Hate to be a downer, but this is a model of an early EMD F3 (Phase 2, produced in 1947), but neither C&O or PM had an F unit until the F7's of 1950.

[@MMRails]

Good luck with eBay. “It worked fine when I last used it” Still not sure why you stopped running it, makes for a more entertaining video. ;)

[@XBOXShawn12thman]

I just had the same thing happen to me last month off of Ebay .... Yours lasted 5 seconds longer then mine did ..... Ugh 🤒

[@SMTMainline]

That's unfortunate

[@ks_56]

5:04 fire moment

[@SBCBears]

Runs great, smokes better. Ebay seller ratings here I come.

[@jansenhobbs2214]

Great dinner.... 25 years ago

[@JusstDexx]

Oh wait this is the locomotive I figured out the name of when you made that Instagram post

[@braydenwhite9283]

Those frosted tips tho

[@ryanross3640]

Low key ebay the place to get your good priced trains if no train store nearby like me

[@williamsquires3070]

And here I thought smoke-equipped models didn’t come out until much later... 😏

[@jeefcake9269]

Does anyone know how reliable a smoke producing unit in a model steam locomotive usually is? I have one and it works great but I'm afraid for it being 30 - 40 years old it might not last that long.

[@shanestrains7179]

Well at least it was a loco on fire and not a car. Lol

[@Lambo.Hobbies]

SMT: I overpaid for it, paid 50 USD Me: Has 3 locomotives that are worth over 200 USD, I think I've been overpaying a bit too lol

[@SMTMainline]

Yeah but it depends on what they’re worth. I own some worth $600 but that doesn’t mean I over paid.

[@Lambo.Hobbies]

@@SMTMainline I have a few Athearn Genesis and intermountain locomotives, they have DCC and sound and run perfectly fine with no issues

[@kimberleykultala1396]

Yeah sorry I couldn’t get any info on that.

[@joramado4804]

SMT looks pretty mad in the thumbnail

[@Annuld]

You knew something is wrong when it steams more than a Steam Loco

[@brycehill6678]

Not the video you want to see just after buying a Hornby Coronation off ebay lol. Fingers crossed that the same doesn't happy. Sorry bout your bad luck. The varney locomotives from my experience have been good locos.

[@tjprptchable]

Me: sees the box from ebay then read the title of the video that's why you dont buy stuff from ebay. By the way I ordered a coal loader wich was $120 and wen I went to run it a second time it made a giant gust of thicc white smoke I was very mad it was new from ebay!

[@rusticrailproductions4804]

ironfox7 I’m so sorry to hear that ☹️, I feel very fortunate now that I haven’t had any experiences like that with any of the O scale pieces I bought from ebay

[@tjprptchable]

@@rusticrailproductions4804 ya I hope that dont happen agen