Or obsessed with interurbans. Here's what I've been working on. I have an elevated structure being built for these, I decided I would try to make them run. Only a couple issues: I need a GOOD LOOKING mechanical drive for them (I'm really picky) I am looking for some scale sized dummy couplers that are suitable for small radius curves. Lets see your electrics ! Randy
Unfortunately my Interurbans are still in the drawing stages and yes drives can be an issue. I don't know what the wheel base and wheel size is for yours, but for the larger WCF&N cars, I'm using the Bachmann Doodle bug chassis. The wheel size and centers are correct and it's only a single truck drive so one truck just gets moved back. Those cars look great. Jason
Thanks for the compliments! As far as a powered chassis , I still don't have the answer. The tomix TM-4 or TM-2 drive will fit however I don't like the wheels. Perhaps I can adapt some NWSL wheels. The shells are from 3rd boxcar shapeways store. The entire line of North Shore shells is shown above. I wouldn't mind a few Waterloo Cedar Falls and Northern cars myself , I always liked the Fort Dodge cars too. I really wonder what these painted bodies would sell for on E Bay ? Randy
There is a rich history in the interurbans and there were far more and covered more territory than folks realize. Plus they carried a lot of freight pulled behind some unique electrics. Some of their passenger trains rivaled the best in this country. About the only modeling that I have seen though has been the folks around here who model the Washington and Old Dominion when it was totally electric.
I was able to snag copies of the original 1913 plans for the West Penn Railways #700 sowbelly center entrance cars that were a mainstay of the West Penn until its demise. Also pictures of #739 as it awaits restoration at the West Penn Trolley Museum near Washington, PA. The plans show a compartment with a toilet jiust inside the entrance doors. There is no container under the toilet so what ever was deposited ended up on the right of way. Some things do change in 100 years. Here is a website that lists all the power chassis available along with their pertinent dimensions: http://www.trainweb.org/tomix/ChassisDim.htm Most if not all of these can be obtained from Japan. I got two of the TM10 chassis for my 700 cars and they do run smoothly. Electrical pickup is described as being 2-1-1-2 meaning that one of the inner axles on each truck has a traction tire. Prices will fluctuate according to the monetary exchange rate.
Bowser offered an HO Indiana car in the late 50's and early 60's. Mine had a Pittman DC-60 motor, pot metal body, and insulated trolley poles for running under wire. I found this website, but don't know anything about it....http://www.bowser-trains.com/hoother/trolleys/irr/irr.htm
Managed in my very young years to have ridden the DC trolleys and also the ones that used to be in Atlantic City that I believe took you to the boardwalk and the old Steel Pier. And in much later years took my youngsters to ride the trolleys at the Trolley Museum in Maryland. I never saw a toilet on a trolley but then none of the stuff I ever rode was long haul. I do remember the facilities on the regular class one roads being locked whenever you came into a town or certain watershed areas since the hoppers did direct discharge to the trackbed. One more hazard of walking along the tracks in the 50s and 60s especially if a passenger train had just passed. Used to have quite a few interurban lines in suburban DC areas especially VA and not counting the W&OD. About 20 years ago I was inspecting a construction site in Clarendon Circle in Arlington, VA and came across the old light rails that had gone through there that had been buried for years. Now they are talking about putting a trolley line back in on Columbia Pike where there was one many decades ago. Of course it will end up costing lots of $$ over the original. Amazing how some things come full circle again because our fearless leaders don't have enough vision and foresight to realize the benefits of the original.
I'd second an Indiana car . I think its funny that there are so many transition era modelers yet so few traces of trolley lines. Few today remember the electric cars but they were everywhere. I think they are very much under-represented on todays model railroads. For now I'm am doing an add on for my little representation of Chicago in the late 1940s. I have some elevated structures from imagine that laser art and some 4000 EL cars from Shapeways. The North Shore interurbans will really complete the scene. Many of the Midwestern railroads interchanged with the steam roads , I intend to do some of these interchanges to add car destinations and operational variety. Randy
My question is when they claim progress, by getting rid of something long ago proven, is it really progress? Too often it turns out it is not. Which just validates, over and over, the old saying about how 'haste makes waste...'
I've never seen toilets on a trolley but I do know that interurban cars had them. Chicago even had a special car with litters to transfer people to the state psychiatric hospitals in Elgin and Kankakee. As for the track found in Clarendon, I'm guessing it was from the Washington, Arlington & Falls Church Railroad based on what I could find out. Putting a trolley back on Columbia Pike is about the most stupid thing Arlington County could do. It takes an already crowded street and tries to shove tracks on it. What they need is service to areas that don't have efficient steel wheels on steel rails mass transit. To be generous to the folks who got rid of the trolley in the first place, a trolley has to have riders to support it and I don't think people in general then had the vision and foresight to realize the benefits of the original. Then too, who foresaw the boom in grown of the Northern VA and Chicago suburban areas in the 1940s - 1950s? John is right that things go full circle and it might just be progress in people's thinking and desires. After they built the Edens expressway, everyone in the northern suburbs could drive into Chicago quickly and the North Shore was done. Now, billions of dollars later and the Edens is a parking lot every day, I'm sure they wish they had the capacity back. Same with the Chicago, Aurora, and Elgin in the Western Chicago suburbs and the Washington and Old Dominion in Northern VA. I think that it is human nature to want convenience and at first cars were a convenience. Now with all the traffic, they are a bother and mass transit (in urban and suburban areas) is a convenience. Nothing at all and nice work on those North Shore cars. Do you know if anyone has CA&E cars on Shapeways? Andy Tetsu Uma
The West Penn cars with toilets were interurbans not trolleys or streetcars although they did do some street running in towns. What I didn't know and therefore was news to me, was they, like many interurbans, did not have air brakes. Here are some photos: "http://pittsburghtransit.info/wpenn.html
