What's your favourite mod?

This is just a thread to find out everyone's favourite modification. It can be for Plarail, TOMY, Trackmaster, TMR, or Plarail Advance. My personal favourite is probably ripley's SSG (Shooting Star Gordon)with a headlamp, and ucwepn's motor swaps. I look forward to reading your responses!

Both of those items rank up there for me too! In particular, seeing the history of Ripley's light mods makes it noteworthy to me.

While I know this controversial amongst some members here, I like defaced engine mods. Ucwepn and Super have both done some great examples that can be seen on their YouTube channels. I've definitely been inspired to add "real world" versions of the P3 Pacific and Black Five Ten-wheeler to my collection.

[ripley802]

Thanks guys.

For me Super and UCwepn's mods are awesome.

[Super]

Several of our members here at BPT have created some fantastic modified trains and were inspirational to me, including Ucwepn, Tramp, Ripley to name just a few and there are many YouTube videos of interesting Mods. But the customs that have always amazed me is from this YouTuber, especially the Flying Yankee build. He eventually sold each one of these in the Japan Auctions for...

Looks like he did very well and sold them all.

Mallard - 6500yen
Black Steam Engine - 6500yen
Flying Yankee - 35000yen
Manchuria Railway - 45000yen

Holy cow Super, those are awesome!

[Super]

I was in the bidding for the Flying Yankee for quite a while but had to drop out when I reached my limit. I wonder if the same buyer got them all.

Super has done some fantastic mods too...
There is also someone who did a Spider-Man (Spencer) mod and some others who is pretty darn good too, but I can't remember where I saw it.

The A4 Pacific looks very do-able. I have a Tomy Spencer in my parts box that I hope to modify like that one day. Instead of painting though, I want to keep it silver.

I would love to know more on the construction of the Pashina class 971 Asia Express engine (light blue steam locomotive with green coaches). Any guesses as to what he based that one on? That and the Flying Yankee streamliner are my favorites from that video.

EDIT: My son's theory is that the Pashina class is based on a tender battery Gordon.

[Super]

By the looks of the chassis and wheels I would say your son is right but the steam shell looks like it could be pieced together from a number of non-Thomas Steam bodies.

I agree. The boiler shell and crew cab look quite a bit different from Gordon's. I'm still digging through the builder's blog to see if I can find more information.

EDIT: So, running his blog through MS Translator, it appears that he salvaged these trains from his then-teenaged son's childhood toy stash. He does say that 971 is a modified Gordon but there weren't a lot of details. Based on some of his other blog entries, I presume he modified it with balsa, filler putty and polystyrene sheet.