Barrel loader restoration

By | December 29, 2022

This blog will highlight my Lionel 362 barrel loader. My father bought this post-war accessory before I was born. Later when the family moved to a new house it was packed away in a moving box.

When I was a kid I found and it was in like new condition. I didn’t know what it was so I asked my mom about it and she didn’t remember it.

I started playing with it. I did not treat it well. I put metal nuts in the barrel ramp and ran it. We didn’t have a barrel car or any barrels. The yellow ramp got really chipped up. Also the pins from the fencing that insert into the grey base got broken.

I also nailed the barrel loader to the layout and that broke the plastic around one of the holes.

About 20 years ago I restored this accessory. First I carefully took it apart. I then applied bondo on the base to repair the broken plastic. Then I sanded and painted the ramp yellow and the base grey.

I reassembled it and glued the fencing back into the base.

There were still some parts missing so when I was at the TCA York show I got clips to space the barrel loader to the track, a metal ramp to feed barrels into the loader, an tilting gate to guide the barrels into the car and an OTC contactor to activate the barrel car.

Now its one of my favorite accessories.