Oh, boy. I have a whole lot of #1 gauge. We tried Lionel G early on.
The last "powered" chassis were dug out and given away this past summer.
Turd? Oh, yes.

The second car powers it? Strange.

Drivers are bad, gunk up quickly. Yours have brushes that rub on the back of the tires?
Q-tips and lighter fluid.

Is there a plug between second car and locomotive?

Pre-war, latch couplers, trucks. Missing the dump body. Probably a 659. Without body, not much value.

No choice for both!
In three rail, I use steam and first generation diesels.
Nothing newer than early Geeps of F units.
Plants me right in late 40's early 50's.
Sam

On the 0 stuff, analog. The 3-rail has a memory-type walkaround (tethered), start running, unplug, keeps doing what it was doing while you walk to the next box and plug back in.
In another scale/gauge, I have been using exclusively radio control, battery power for 20 years. The earliest radios still function in the locomotives they were installed in just fine. I have moved almost 100% to NiMH batteries from NiCads.
I get 3-9 hours on a charge, depending on MAH rating of the batteries and the load on same.
I have sound now in, oh, over half of them. Had to do it for business reasons (to show how it works), but I prefer to run the volume all the way down when I run. You can hear if the locomotive has any issues that way, tighten what needs to be tightened, oil what's dry, before it fails.
Sam

I had to do a double take. 70 years old, but I see trains from about 1949....doesn't make any sense, thinks I......oh, wait, I'm about that old...yeah, makes sense now!
Dave
(nice trains)

Going a long way back in the memory banks, here. On the Scout units, the recommendation was to bend the coupler down enough to swing the truck 180 degrees, and using a conversion coupler (standard replacement coupler for a PT-1 style truck), lay it up and bend the tabs over the axles.
I think I remember the Scout couplers were cost saving to allow lower retail pricing of the sets.


I just went and checked my Greenberg's from 1978, page 665 shows how to do it.
480-25 is the part number for the coupler, probably changed, any of the usual suspects should have it. Ask for the "tab coupler", has a tab sticking out the side. You can do them all at once, or one now, two next time, two next time....does an adaptor car first, then a full car, full car, until you're done. There is even a way to do it with Box couplers, which I bhave done, and still have on my railroad.
Sam