Fellas.
I recently got a Walthers Sperry railcar. While putting a decoder in it I realized that it has a band drive like the old Athearn engines have. Whats the deal with the band drive instead of gearing the motor to the wheels? I put a can motor in an Athearn Hustler with a worm gear setup from an Athearn powered 4 wheeled truck. Could another setup like this be used for the Sperry railcar? I would like to get rid of the band for some gears. Has anyone done any gearing to their Speey Rail car?? Thanks Kevin
I haven’t done the gearing, but for the time, the rubber band drives seemed like an inexpensive, efficent, space etc. (on paper) method to drive a loco. Also an old Athearn trick. I suspect the Sperry model dates back a number of years and has yet to be remedied by the big guys.
Google around for Athearn RDC gearing, (another notorius band drive) it should fit the Sperry too I think. You might look at www.NWSL.com Hope I’ve helped.
Kevin,
Interesting. I’ve not opened mine up. A band drive, provided the band itself is an easily replaced O-ring or something similar, makes sense in a model that will typically only see limited use and will not pull any rolling stock. Unless there is a cheap and neat solution, I’ll be leaving mine alone.
I am interested in how the decoder install went and what decoder you used.
I just saw the real deal today at 30th street station in Philadelphia.
I’d use a powered truck. they might be expensive compared to a rubber band drive, but everything is self contained and laid out simply. At the very worse, you’d need to make room in the floor of your car for the top of the truck, and even that isn’t to hard. I’ve seen a rubberband drive Athearn RDC, and it looks like it could work, but it looks annoying to set up, and it looks like you need special wheelsets with rubber or plastic drums on the axles.
I’ve got a “Black Beetle” powered truck for my NJ transit Arrow III EMUs, i haven’t tested it, but it will do the job and do it quietly. NWSL makes a similar product, and there are some older truck motors out there that are loud but cheap and could work.
Mike and crew.
The decoder that I used was a TCS N guage decoder. It was the most basic decoder. Forward, Backward, Lights on and Lights off. Man that thing was small and that is why I got it. I thought that there wasnt going to be any room in there for the decoder, But I was wrong. I think that you could go and stuff an H.O. decoder in there without a problem. I think for the time being that I will let the band go and just run it as is. If it shows a jerky motion when running like the Athearn Hustler did, I will replace it with a powered truck. Thanks for the Info about the powered trucks from NWSL. I will get one of those to use in the future. Hey mike how does your Sperry Act? Kevin
My Sierra No. 38 2-6-6-2 has an O ring drive as part of its re-motoring and it works really well. How does the Sperry actually run? Slow and smooth? Or like the Hustler, fast and jerky? If it runs OK, I would not worry about it too much.
Kevin,
My Sperry ran fine the last time I had it out. Thus, I don’t feel the need to rebuild it.I know what you mean about the Hustler, so that’s why I was surprised that my Sperry had the same type of drive. The implementation in the Sperry must be better.
But those bands can go bad, ozone from air pollution being the most immediate threat to the band.
BTW, no personal experience with the Black Beetle or NWSL drives, but I’ve heard good reports on both. That would be the way I’d probably go if I need a rebuild.