as long as I am alive I live in a small vilage in the south of the Netherlands, and all this time I have had hints and signs that a tramline used to pass here. My grandad would point out where the tram stopped or where the toll station and bordercrossing used to be, there are streetnames that also hint where the line was situated. For a long time I had the idea to further investigate, but never got around to it. Now that my modelrailroad interest was restarted, I thought it was about time to have a closer look. My previous lay-out is long gone(maybe over 35 years) although I still have the old Piko rolling stock somewhere in the basement. The new lay-out will not use the old H0 equipment, as I did my restart in Z scale it will use Z-scale rails. investigating the old tram line, I found it was a meter rail system, which does help me as this makes the locs and other rolling stock N scale on Z scale track: Nm(i think) designing and building in 1/160 is just a bit easier than in 1/220. because I re-started with a starter kit from Marklin, I thought I use those rails. However when starting my design, one of the, self imposed, contrains was to build on a 120x30cm(sorry for no inches ) board. The Marklin track pieces only have quite large radiusses, so this was not going to happen. Rokuhan track pieces seemed to be more suited for what I needed. Downside of using these short radius track is ofcourse that only very short wheel bases or trucks that turn can be used. Because the tram I am trying to make has a short wheelbase it might actually work. When asking some local experienced modelrailroad people about my plan and the scale I am working in, I got a straight forward answer: not gonna work, at least not with your experience level.. try a ghost loc, because the tram is to small to fit any drive train. nice way to start a project... I am quite stubborn, but sometimes do listen, so I started looking into buidling a a ghost loc based on the rokuhan shorty chassis, which is ofcourse a perfect match to the track. but before I continue with the stuff that is going to ride the track, let me tell you about my plan for the lay-out. As I already mentioned it is going to be based on the tram line in my village,that was there untill about 1935. It had small steamtrams going back and forth between 3 cities Antwerp, Bergen op Zoom and Tholen. Several makes of trams were riding, I am going to build one that was build also close to where I live, in Breda, from about 1905. It is a Backer & Rueb trams, where 3 of the same type were introduced to the ABT line after being ordered by a different line but never actually handed over for what ever reason, stood for 10 years before the ABT line bought them and started using them to pull short passenger set-ups for quick travel, or heavy goods(sugar biets) which the older models had trouble pulling. this give an idea of what I am talking about: this is the one tram station in my village, some of the building are still there, including the one that housed the station. this is tram number 17, one of the 3 trams I mentioned. And which i am trying to recreate at scale 1/160. The lay-out I have currently planned should give an impression of the line in and arround my village as it used to be with one of the stations included. I also had the idea that any shadow stations should also fit on the limited space planned, and I want to have the tram ride in one direction at a time. So it is either going left, and every time it is visable it is going left, or the other way around when going right. I thought about having a double loop, but that did not give me the one direction only option as I had envisioned due to lack of space. 2 Reverse loops helped me to get to what I wanted. I used Anyrail to design the lay-out, and ordered the track accordingly: And a drawing because that was easier and quicker for planning where stuff needs to go: after having a mock-up on a scrap board, I started mounting the track to a frame, where I could also introduce some elevations: As it is just a single line with 1 tram going back and forth, there is no need for going digital, although automation is part of the plan. To control the set-up I am using an Arduino, which controls the tram and switches. The tram is detected in the reverse loops and at where the station is going to be by hall sensors. The switches are now moved by servos, as the Rokuhan switches need a very short pulse to move, which I did get working, but after 1 wrong programming thingie (still learning coding) in the arduino, I melted one of the switches. Servos are also easy to contol with the arduino and are far more easy and cheap to replace. Comming back to the ghost loc I was testing: the Rokuhan shorty is very much suited to ride the short radius track, but also is not really reliable. I did design a wagon to fit on top of it, and had it running a bit. I also designed a non driven tram, to get pushed along. The shorty: I am learning to use Fusion 360 for my 3d designing. Here is an impression of the chassis I thought of: after searching online, I did not find a suitable chassis to start building my tram on after the shorty plan did not meet expectations, so I needed to build something myself. The one powered chassis I found seemed to be to large or high to be able to be covered by the tram body in scale 1/160. So after plenty iterations for a pushed, non driven tram, I got my own chassis started with a 716 micromotor. The motor looks like the steamdrum already and I think this could work. and it does here you see, the Marklin BR89 in scale Z, followed by the unpainted new powered chassis with tram body, and a non powered prototype.(and some failed test prints in the back ground) the chassis I came up with, assembled: and fitted with an unpainted proto-type body, for testing if they fit together: and ofcourse a short running video: now I have a running tram, and a track system that works I can continue building the lay-out, as I had no intention to start there without making sure the technical part would work.
painted the prototype, eventhough I though I would not. But decided I wanted to see how it looks when the micromotor was painted to look like the steam drum.
Hi Tirman, here you can get Motor Bogies Z Scale, I use them for my Nn3 Locomotives. www.narrow-garage.com/NarrowGarageE.html
If you want to do something with your Marklin BR 89 Peco did a couple of White metal conversions . The weight of the body makes the Marklin chassis run a whole lot better. I picked up the Glyn Valley tramway 0-4-2T tram engine kit a while ago but still need to add seperate handrails and the lining out of the paintwork There is a preservation group attempting to re-open part of the original GVT. I wish them all the best there was also a Wesh narrow gauge tank engine and a four wheel open wagon and a van and I have a vague recollection of some four wheel coaches regards Kev
Got it done tonight after a bit of a struggle. I Intended to give it a clean and a dose of Servisol Super 10 on the brushes and Com'. Cleaned the test track, which has not been touched since we had the builders in recently, so like everything else covered in dust Tried it on the PWM controller, Nothing. Checked the controller output, nothing. Switched to the Gaugemaster controller and got it running. Better in forward than backwards and found a kink in the test track at a railjoiner that was bad. Shot some video on the Gaugemaster and then decided to find out why the PWM was not playing. Sussed that so. This is the running on the PWM. there is a finite limit on how slow this one will run As with all Marklin chassis, in my experience, if you get a good one 'Its the Beauty' and if you get a bad on 'Its the Beast' At least the weight of the body helps. Rails of Sheffield have one in stock. They are now, probably, the biggest model rail store in the U.K https://railsofsheffield.com/produc...WxkKRHp6-Fzx7QKU_SFpKTECNZHHd0r1Ex5rF5AnUTkVK I remember when they first started in a little terraced shop on the Chesterfield Road coming out of Sheffield, My, How they've grown Really must get around to painting mine properly and putting a better cab roof on hope this helps Kev
