"Parade Train" Built From Riding Mower

"Parade Train" Built From Riding Mower AG WORLD 24-6-22 My grand kids enjoy this æparade train' that I made out of old riding lawn mowers," says Art Thompson, Dolliver, Iowa. The 35-ft., five-unit train hitches behind Thompson's Deere 112 garden tractor and includes a steam locomotive, coal tender, passenger car, cattle car, and caboose. The train holds up to 16 children who sit on plywood seats. All the cars have holders for small flags. Thompson stripped the mower frames down to their running gears and then built 38-in. wide plywood car bodies on them. Most of the cars have the original riding mower wheels. To make the hitches he welded lengths of angle iron together. The locomotive body was made from a steel barrel with a length of 4-in. galvanized steel pipe for the stack and a plastic funnel serving as the "bell" at the top of the stack. The locomotive has a dummy whistle and a bell that kids can pull. There's a small three-function red light on back of the caboose that can either flash on and off, rotate in a circle, or stay solid red. "All the front axles pivot so when the locomotive turns, all the other cars loop around behind it," says Thompson. "Sometimes I take it down to a local park and pull my grand kids around for an hour or so. They love it. The Deere tractor's original Kohler engine was shot so I replaced it with a Briggs & Stratton 12 1/2 hp gas engine. I plan to mount an engine in the locomotive to make it self-propelled." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Art Thompson, 4944 110th St., Dolliver, Iowa 50531 (ph 712 865-2275).

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