Recently, I've come across this bizarre and quirky new range of wooden trains called "Zany Trains", and became fascinated by a pair of engines from this line. Those being the steam engines Peeve and Plod, some of the last working steam engines on Staten Island who try to cause trouble and stop all of the electric trains from taking over, with Peeve as the brains and Plod as the brawn. I found it pretty interesting that we have these steam engines who are causing trouble for the more modern engines instead of the other way around like with Thomas. What I didn't like about them were their models, which look almost nothing like steam engines, so I thought I'd try my hand at making them look the part.

I took to the designs and combined elements from their real toys and some of my own. With Peeve, I made him a 2-2-0, the reason I made him that instead of an 0-4-0 was because of this piston and big drive wheel design on the side of his toy, which I decided to keep in my design while also making them more realistic. another example of this was me adding cracks and a rust hole to his piston, as well as a rust hole on his cab. Though I decided to add some steel plating to his side tanks (Which I made to keep him somewhat close to the blocky look of his real toy) to make him look like he just has patch jobs instead of repairs.

With Plod, I gave him a complete overhaul, no longer is he that blocky looking steamer. The only thing I kept from his real toy was his wheel configuration (0-2-2-0), with everything else I just did my own thing. He isn't as rusty as his lil' companion, nor does he have rust holes (because there was nowhere I could put them without him logically being able to operate), but I did give him a few plating patch jobs like I did with peeve.

I'm very pleased with how Peeve turned out, I was able to keep a lot from his real toy which I put together with my own, more steamer-like design and he turned out great. Plod on the other hand, is just ok. I wish I could have done more with him, but there wasn't much to his design besides him being the only really long engine in the range, and the only side details he really had were a couple gears and boilers on his sides (sort of like the engines of the Listowel & Ballybunnion Railway), which I couldn't find a way to incorporate on him without it seeming ridiculous. I know that sounds silly since Zany Trains are supposed to be ridiculous, but you can only go so far with how crazy your designs are before it starts to become a problem. Still, I'm satisfied enough with Plod to be able to post him besides Peeve (One more thing I should note is that despite this being a more realistic take on these two, they're both still freelance designs).

This was a fun little project and I hope that I can see if we'll see more Zany Trains, and see what the other steam engines of Staten Island look like. Perhaps like Thomas with it's diesels, not all the Steam engines in Zany Trains are out to cause trouble. Only time will tell.