To get this out of the way; I am NOT abandoning the WRS. This would only be a side project to work on when it’s too cold to be downstairs. Just a simple display layout. Now that that’s over with…
I’ve been researching the Worcester & Clinton St. Ry. Company, a trolley line running through the center of my town, and I though that a small scene of just the center of town and the trolley barn a quarter-mile away would make an interesting small layout.
My question is about the feasability of it; mostly about the trolley car. I would kitbash it from a photo, but it only has a small 4-wheel truck. Would the electrical pickup be too poor? There wouldn’t be many turnouts except for a few at the trolley barn, and the layout would be in a finished room. The layout would be pure display, a DC layout with an auto-reversing setup on either end. Maybe dummy turnouts would be a good idea? From photos of the street it is a dirt road affair so the lack of points and frogs wouldn’t be too noticable.
For research I can easily get in touch with our local historical society, and the building still standing (notably the library) are but a 10 minute bike ride away.
I’m really excited about this project, but I’d need to know if a simple trolley car would work. I can probably get a cheaper Model Power car to gut and kitbash, tuning the mechanism to work better. This would probably be built on a budget where possible, as I still have my other layout to work on…
Sounds interesting. If you would like more information on HO traction modeling, I highly recommend Fred Miller’s site. He has done some great work and brings it to many NMRA conventions and meets.
Somewhere in my pile of junk gently-used parts is a four wheel underframe that is destined to become a Tomikawa Electric Tramway streetcar, based (loosely) on one that was running in Hiroshima in the 1960s. I’m sure its predecessors were operating in 1910 and before.
If relying on four wheels for pickup is unappealing, go for the gusto - and live overhead wire! (not being sufficient of a masochist, and presently operating a four-wheel diesel rail bus without problems, I’ll pass, thanks.)
The really nice thing about a trolley layout is that streetcorner curves are prototypically correct.
If you can find one, The Roundhouse “Model 40” might be a good base for a trolley. I’d recomend dummy turnouts, with removed frogs. Frogs can be killer for small wheelbase locomotives. It sounds like a fun idea. Traction is where its at(although for me interurbans are more appealing)!
put it on PDT and your done. Weight it down some, if you really need better pickup put some shoes on it.
I have a regeared 4 wheel Athearn Hustler with a metal boxcab, thing runs great, crawls, for its size its heavy. Still a good idea for all rail frogs, look for Robert Orr track girder rail track, but must run from overhead.
There are plenty of commercial 0-4-0 engines around, along with the already-mentioned Atlas Hustler or Porter type engines. There’s even a small 4-wheel handcar. (Check this month’s MR for the Trainworld ad.) Any of these would make a suitable base for your trolley.
If you’re careful with your trackwork, and add the occasional jumper, these should work reasonably well for power pickup.
Four wheel trollies were among the first electric vehicles - I suspect that some of them were electrified horse-drawn tramcars. Since they had limited seating capacity, they were quickly superseded on heavy-traffic lines by eight wheelers and either relegated to the boondocks or scrapped.
There were still four wheel cars with bow-poles (kind of like a pantograph shoe on top of a trolley pole) operating in Hiroshima (and probably in a lot of other places around the world) in the mid-1960s. Of course, by that time trolley systems had largely vanished from the American landscape - thanks, largely, to the efforts of General Motors.
The prototype I’m using had only four wheels, and the only photo I have of it (luckily it’s a good side photo and I’ve ridden on a nearly identical car in Dallas) was taken in 1910. I’m therefore using that as my modeling era, as defined by several features including the most prominent building on the layout (the Boylston Public Library, built in 1904) and of course the trolleys. Also, I think I’ll stick with track pickup for now…
I had thought about O scale, but decided to stick with HO because I already have a lot of detail parts, figures, wheelsets (I would like to build a few other cars with dummy trucks), and all that good stuff. Plus the layout would have to be much wider to accommodate the whole Boylston Common all the way up the hill past the bandstand to the church. Also I’d like to include the burial ground, and the row of houses on Main St (Route 70) would have to be compressed too much for my tastes to be able to include the carbarn.
Alex; if I knew for a fact (and had photos) that traction ever ran on this line, that would be great. This was a pretty light line though, absorbed by the Worcester Consolidated (although the names on the cars survived) in 1901, which ran some trains all the way to Boston, cooperating with other companies, so this line probably was the “boondocks” that Chuck mentioned!
Street corners and reverse loops would be really realistic - if I was modeling any! The section I’m modeling is all single track buried in the dirt road. No reverse loops or curves except for by the car barn. I thought about adding hidden loops at either end so the trolley pole won’t be backwards on one trip, but it would take up a comparatively large area and be hard to disguise. We’ll see once I actually get to the track laying stage.
For reference, here is a screen shot from Google Maps of the area I will be modeling. The blue line is the modeled track.
Ty I think that Bachman makes a 4 wheel Birney. Check Walthers catalogue. Proberly weighted it should have good pick up. your idea really sounds good. Keep us posted.
Alex; I really only have enough room for a half-building car barn. It’ll be able to fit one trolley on each track inside, but not even close to enough room for a reverse loop. And I’ll look into styrofoam carving, but there’s not just field stone. There’s a unique round room in the middle as well as some granite or marble slabs built into the walls. I’ll try to get a photo of two next time I go past.
Paul, Walthers has an 8-wheel Brill car, which is not the car I need. Walthers does have a great car…but it’s G scale! I need one like this: http://i2.ebayimg.com/05/i/001/2d/ea/1ecd_1.JPG
If I rember correctly, AHM made a 4 wheel trolley way back when. You might find one on E-Bay or if IHC still makes them, but I could not find it on Walthers.
Yes, I saw that. That is perfect, and even has the correct trolley pole too. The car I’m modeling has a single pole and is identical to the McKinney Street Trolley car in Dallas, TX. I’ve ridden that car and helped the motorman turn the pole to change direction. I just wish I had had my camera; it would help in detailing the car.
Let’s see if I can find one now… There was one on Ebay for $10, but I don’t think I’ll be able to bid on it in time to win it…
