Hello, I’m looking for some advice on HO trolley layouts. I’d like to set up a layout for my father to mess with, and I was planning on using o-gauge lionel trains on an outer ring, and a HO scale brill trolley (bachmann) on the interior. I want to start by saying that my dad is not a detail man, so this doesn’t have to be super accurate, just something he can add to and play with in his spare time. The trolley will be operated like a regular train, not a reversing or pausing setup. Can I buy reasonably priced track that looks like roadway? Can the bachmann brill handle a tighter turning radius, and can I buy track to match? I’m just looking to ‘rough out’ a track design for him, inexpensively, so that he can add houses and other details as time goes by. Ideas?
I believe Bachmann has some On30 trolley units available. These would fit in better with your Dad’s O gauge than the HO scale Bachmann trolleys would. The On30 models are O scale models of narrow gauge prototypes that run on HO gauge track (which represents 30" gauge track in O scale). O scale houses and shops and scenic details will work well.
Use standard HO gauge sectional track - 15" radius should be fine. As for commercial track with the rails buried in simulated roadway, I don’t know of any (it still could exist). Most HO modelers of track in streets make their own by putting plaster or sheets of styrene over the ties of regular commercial track.
Hope this helps.
Fred W
Walthers makes (or made) inserts for street trackage. Hard to come by, but looks very nice. It is for cd 83 rail.
David B
There are several suppliers of in street trackage. Google Customtraxx. There is a wealth of info there. He has info on all aspects of trolleys. This stuff can get as detailed as you want it to be.
Guy
Atlas makes a three-rail / O scale trolley you might want to look into, using it with 027 curves will come pretty close to the sharp curves of a real trolley car. I think Lionel still makes one too, not sure if Bowser still makes their streetcars or not?? Anyway, I’d stay away from mixing two scales (O and HO) together, it won’t look right.
For HO, on my Bachmann PCC I had to file the truck spacings wider to get around sharper curves.
Bowser has their streetcar line and can handle the sharp streetcar curves.
Tyco had some sectional street track, but you know, out of business, but it shows up on ebay from time to time.
Its been the rule however for traction lovers and Vane Jones in his Traction and Models mag in the classified and vendor lists, he put the word in vacant ad areas…
SCROUNGE!!!
I’m really surprised that there is not a better supply of stuff for this segment of the hobby. I’m also surprised there are no trolley slot cars, either. So, can I buy regular train track in tight curves, or do I have to hand-make it? I saw a website (I don’t recall the name) that sold track that you can custom bend, but I’d rather just buy it. This would make it easier to fill in the track to look like pavement, as all the curves would be identical. I think I’m going to make this strictly a trolley layout, with a single HO trolley and closed loop. But geez, you think they’d make it easier.
This is a discussion from late last year about doing this sort of thing in brick:
http://cs.trains.com/forums/1267279/ShowPost.aspx
There were a couple of interesting alternatives there. Some brick street material (see posts by gear-jammer) looked very promising to me. There’s a shot of some cobblestones I made for a station, too. I like the look, but it was a lot of work, and now I find I have to re-do part of it because I got a new trolley.
I’ve got 2 of them, a Bowser PCC car and one of the new Bachmann Peter Witt trolleys. The Bowsers come undecorated, really just bare metal. The Peter Witt’s come with nice paint jobs in a variety of liveries. (You can get them undecorated, too, if you prefer.) The Peter Witt comes with both interior and exterior lights, and DCC. (I bought the undecorated one, which is unassembled. The DCC decoder was not installed in mine, so it would be a DC unit if I hadn’t put the decoder in.) This trolley also has a “speaker well” in the base which takes a 5/8 inch round speaker, in case you feel like installing sound.
Flex track, by the way, is very easy to use. Most of us prefer it over sectional track, so don’t be afraid of it.
Look at this stuff. It fits over standard HO flex track and is available in straight and curved sections. This should work for the Brill Trolley…
http://www.paheritagemodels.com/HO_Street_Track/index.htm
BTW, there used to be ‘lots’ of HO ‘tractions’ stuff available. I remember in the late 60’s there was quite a bit of stuff. I think as the ‘real’ trolleys vanished, folks lost interest in that segment of the hobby.
Jim Bernier
How would you care for the track as time goes by if you use plaster or another material to create the roadway?
I just glanced at the post above and I came up with an idea right off the bat - what about peel and stick floor tiles? Many come in stone-like patterns, I’m sure I could find something to replicate pavement, and it should be easy to trim.
Ideas plus everything we all forgot to ask about traction and then some.
East Penn Traction Club…
Trolleyville School House…
http://www.trolleyville.com/school.shtml
The Trolley Line Forum…
http://2guyzandsumtrains.com/Forums/viewforum/f=8.html
The Trolley Line website is a traction resource gem.
You will find that HO Scale probably has more ready-to-run resources than any other scale. Now, that being said, there is a lot of scratchbuilding in traction, regardless of the scale that is being modeled, and; that is part of the challenge and the fun. Model railroading has as much, or as little scratchbuilding as you desire in your layout, and; traction scratchbuilding is just a little different to model than say, a layout with freight operations.
This delightful You Tube video is Japanese N Scale Traction, but illustrates how you can always run your trolley motive power with standard 2-rail operations whether DC or DCC, or not even model any overhead wire, or have a minimum of street trackage if it is interurban traction.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVZFakJEG_4
You can also model the overhead wire without it being live overhead wire.
This is a highly recommended out-of-print traction primer, “Traction Guidebook for Model Railroaders” easily found on eBay…
I suppose an answer to your question about “Can I do this simply with no muss and fuss?” Maybe, but you have to decide what exactly it is that you want to do. Traction is one of many niches of the hobby. Other posters have pointed out that there is still scratchbuilding to be done here. There are plenty of resources out there, but not a huge amount of ready to run beyond the Trolleys themselves.
Once you get past the rolling stock, perhaps the two most basic questions are track and wire:
Track: You could use standard flex track and bury it in plaster, plastic, simulated brick etc to make street track. There are lots of articles out there on this an at least one link shows some ready to run track. I like the look of the street track with the inside girder welded to it. I’ve seen it in use all over the West Coast. This track is more difficult to use but looks correct for my location. I haven’t found any ready to use sections of this track, just rail. I have some sections ready to install when I get to the street trackage part of my current layout. Which type of track do you prefer?
Then there is the wire: On my last layout I scratchbuilt operating trolley wire for a section of the mainline. Looked great, but not easy. George Huckaby (SP?) of Customtraxx did a demo at a train show and personally showed me how it could be done. Mine used pantographs (not prototypical) for power pick-up. Those using poles have to build to even tighter tolerances.
Huckaby has a tutorial on how to build this type of wire. To simplify You could build non-operating wire, or you could choose to skip the wire entirley and save a few headaches. More Choices…
BTW: Once the wire is up, it does limit the amount of work than can comfortably be done in the areas where it is hung. It is usually one of the last steps in the scenery process. This would make
I’m thinking this will have to be a fall/winter project, as it seems I will have to fabricate at least some of the track to get a tighter turn to match a normal-looking city street. I like the latex brick sheets, as they include the sidewalks and are flexible, which will make the project much less painless and much more realistic. I think I may not do any overhead at all, as I have the option; local trolleys used a third rail system first. I think I may try to copy a small section of the ‘Laurel Line’ and take a few liberties in the process. Since any street sections are going to be complicated and costly, there will be more than one trip ‘trew da woods.’ Haha, might not get that if you’re not from NEPA. Another idea that I will probably use is to run a section of track into a tunnel and have the other end be the trolley barn, so that even though it is a continuious loop it can appear to be ‘parked’ if operated correctly. If anybody has pictures of a simple layout, I’d love to see them, and I’m going to continue to dig through the links provided here. Everyone seems to like to plug that East Penn site, but either I’m having a hard time navigating it, or you really have to know your stuff to get anything out of it.
The East Penn Traction webpage that is probably the most helpful with a number of downloadable PDFs, Trolley Modeling Tips & Techniques, is located here…
Not all trolley lines had overhead, a few had middle slots and power was picked up underground. You could fake this having a brass U-channel, or after laying your brick, microslice it or just paint a silver/brass line, whatever, or find some silver tape and tape it down. I saw some tape like this in a fabric "Big Box"like store like Hobby Lobby is but wasnt hobby lobby, I think it was Michaels crafts. Just ideas to try.
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I had to re-reply, not to think its spamming… for you Diesel lovers
Most of your common diesels out there today are ELECTRIC locomotives with their electric power
coming from onboard generators rather than overhead wire. So youdiesel guys are traction buffs.
[8D]