Hey folks! I had a great idea. Obviously mini air brakes aren’t going to work but I thought what if I were able to install a flywheel into the freight cars and attach the flywheel to one of the axles with a rubber band? This would actually give the cars momentum instead of just simulating it. How would I jimmy rig something like this up?
The February 1955 Model Railroader has an article by John Armstrong on the very subject, it is for O scale but I believe could be adapted for HO.
Cheers, the Bear.
That John Armstrong hi-cube was an interesting one-off. The fact that no more have been reported on since might indicate how many people noticed that having it in a consist made operating, even in 1:48 scale, a bear!
I could imagine running a whole train equipped with flywheels - but I’d rather not…
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I believe somewhere in those older How To’s, was also a hot box detector, steel ball on rails in a boxcar…each end had a slight incline to the rails, when you stopped too fast or had erratic switching, the ball would roll up on the rails and create a circuit that would light up one or the other trucks. I DO NOT, recall the Author, but remember reading and seeing it in a 50’s/60’s MRR, I believe.
Take Care! [:D]
Frank
John Allan had a car with a ball bearing that would sound a buzzer if handled roughly.
Yes…I believe He was the one…with light and buzzer.
His layout and the Altura’s & Lone Pine, are my all time, ( Whit, Towers) favorites…day’s gone by.
Take Care! [:D]
Frank
Hmmmm, why is it that I think Walthers used to sell a model that did this?
Maxman,
You got me to thinking…[:P] Was it a Ulrich boxcar?
Take Care! [:D]
Frank
I too loved Whit Tower’s ALP! Was the first layout i remember coming across that used scheduled operations. I was hooked! Indeed, days gone by!
And more to the topic, I dont know how well rubber bands on the axles would work for braking. I did discover by accident during testing of working couplers that if you dont dial in your mag. core just right… when activated - it does pull on metal wheels and axles effectively ‘braking’ them.
Maybe this method would work.
PM Railfan
Not sure. I have this visual of a car with clear sides that allowed one to see the ball on the rails. Maybe I’m imagining this.
A rubber band transmission worked pretty well on Athearn’s Hi-F drive. There’s no rule that says the power HAS to go “down” and can’t go “up”.
Ed
Momentum is sorta the opposite of braking, so I’m still a little confused about the OP’s objective here.
I don’t have a copy of Feb 55 that Bear mentioned, so I’m not sure what Armstrong’s objective was either, other than maybe doing what we do with flywheels in DC or various CVs in DCC. Certainly once the train is stopped more than briefly, any effect of the flywheel would dissipate. Moving the car again would generate some resistance by getting the flywheel spinning again and that could be considered “braking” of a sort, but rather oddly counterintuitive when switching the single car by itself.
In O, I can see there being noticeable effects. In HO, the mass vs scale thing would be so out of whack that even of such a system could be rigged, it would have very limited effects. I am having a hard time imagining how it would be driven through forces picked up through one of the trucks, but I don’t have the article. Maybe it’s simpler than it seems? If so, then I suspect the puny flywheel wouldn’t be much in terms of affecting operations. The rubber band idea might work, but I’d think any flywheel heavy enough to be worth spinning would result in lots of slippage, plus the system would need a clutch to allow the flywheel to keep spinning as the train slowed or stopped to really work at all.
On the other hand, I could see a decoder and servo mechanism that would apply a piece of spring wire under tension to the axles of one truck that might just work as a brake. It would be finickey to get right the first time or two, but such an install would probably get easier as it goes along.
I’m sure we all agree that you did.
Well, the jimmy-riggin’ is up to you. You just, uh, jimmy-rig. I’m sure that we’ve given you some ideas. On the chance you haven’t seen Athearn’s rubber band (Hi-F) drive, here’s a picture:
It’s pretty obvious that the motor could be replace by a flywheel. I think that’s just what you’re trying to do.
If you have any further questions, please feel free to ask them.
We all await your results,
Ed
Maybe I’m out to lunch here, but I seem to remember someone mentioning the use of shortened coil springs on the axle tips to cause a little drag.
Also, was it John Allen or some other well regarded model railroader who prefered to not have his cars totally free rolling?
If I’m out to lunch at least it was free![swg][(-D][(-D]
Dave
EDIT:
Now that I think about my answer I realize that I have it wrong in that you don’t have the braking effect at the right time. You want braking when you are trying to slow down, not when you are accelerating.
There is no free lunch, Dave (unless your name is Duffy [swg] ).
I think you’re right about it being John Allen using the springs, though.
If you want to create momentum, use reasonably free-rolling cars and ballast them to about 12-16oz. I had a number of Rivarossi passenger cars done like this and they performed flawlessly. However, I ended-up removing quite a bit of that weight for fear of wearing out the bearing surfaces in the relatively soft plastic of those trucks.
Wayne
John Armstrongs primary objective was that the boxcar had the necessary inertia/ momentum to carry out a “flying switch”. The fly wheel operates on the same principle as the “friction drive” toy cars etc, using chain drive from the wheels to the fly wheel. He obviously built one and mentions that running it ahead of the caboose in a long train with sprung draft gear that with “even mild changes in engine speed will result in prototypically-violent slack action…” sorting the men from the boys*.*
“I could imagine running a whole train equipped with flywheels - but I’d rather not…”
To quote further from John Armstrong, “How about building several of these cars? Wouldn’t recommend it! Even with one of these in the train, you find that it takes much longer to get up to speed and to stop smoothly. That’s nice but with several there wouldn’t be a long enough O gauge main line in the country to get up to 60 mph and stop before the end of the track. Also, in case of a derailment the cars would pile up ‘way to realistically for my blood.”
“Hmmmm, why is it that I think Walthers used to sell a model that did this?”
If you wa
The John Armstrong flywheel box car used a couple of flywheels the size of roller skate wheels (O gauge, remember) driven off both axles of one truck by a chain riding in sprockets. It had nothing to do with a locomotive flywheel, and produced a result, raging slack action, that no electronic locomotive manipulation could duplicate.
The John Allen ball bearing rough handling detector was adjustable from hypersensitive to reasonable - the ball rolled on a track which was arced down at the middle, with a screw adjustment to vary the arc. A little rough and the light would flash momentarily. Too much coupler force and the ball fell off the end of the track. The carbody had to be lifted off to reset it. Walthers did sell a copycat kit. I believe the clear car side was actually a bit of graphic art, not an actual car.
[EDIT] The graphic posted while I was composing. Apparently the Walthers variant didn’t have the end-of-track drop pockets found in John Allen’s original.
A West Coast O-gauge club had a variant on the theme - a NdeM box car lettered, “Peligra, Dinamita” (“Danger, Dynamite,”) Rough handling dropped the ball on the trip-pad of a rat trap - the exploding box car then disintegrated.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - without trick cars)
Drag is not the same thing as momentum.
I will agree with Dr. Wayne that adding weight to a car is equivalent to the flywheel concept. Both increase momentum.
But the simple solution is for the OP to carry out his project and report back. It CAN be done–Irv showed that. The question now is whether it’s a good idea. And the OP can settle that by carrying out his project.
Again, I look forward to the results.
I suggest that more than one car be built. There may be a notable difference between one car and several. And, as much as the folks here are willing to talk about it, an actual demonstration will be the only true resolution.
Again, I look forward to the results.
Ed
Ed
I recognize that. The OP referred to automatic “braking” in his title, which is why I posted, but in fact he seems to want both drag and momentum. With his flywheel setup, drag will be created as the flywheel accelerates up to speed, and momentum will result as the car decelerates.
Yes? No?
Dave
Armstrong made one car so he could “kick” it with a switcher and have it roll onto a siding. Someone wrote in and said it was a neat idea and maybe one could make a few of them and have in the same train–but John wrote back and said it wouldn’t work because getting the flywheel going on even one was quite a process so getting a whole string of them moving would be defeating the purpose. Also, with more than one, you couldn’t stop short enough to leave it rolling on its own… Anyway, a flywheel would keep it going, not stop it. The original transistor that would slow the train just like the real thing. John Armstrong built the thing himself and I don’t remember seeing it available commercially, although someone may have produced versions of John Allen’s “Hotbox” car, which he built to embarrass some ham-handed individual on his operating crew. It had a fairly big steel ball, situated on rails he could adjust for degree of sensitivity. I don’t remember if it was Allen or someone else (help me out, Bear!) who had a boxcar lettered for Ferroreal de Mexico with a big sign saying “PELIGRO, DYNAMITA!” that blew up if handled roughly!! (It had a mechanism inside something like a mouse trap. Oh, and once Allen’s “hotbox” light turned on, the body shell had to be removed and the ball put back in the middle of its track. (One of his regular operators wrote in after John died and said the crew regularly removed the ball early in the operating session and put it back near the end!!)
Deano