OK I know this will irk a lot of folks but I’m thinking of adding slot cars to my HO layout. Reasons being: my kid likes em better than trains and I’d like to find somthing we can do together. Thw wife and I like slot cars too and there’s not enough room in the basement for 2 layouts.
I see some pros and cons so I’ll start with that. Pros: varies the action on the layout, sometime I just don’t want to play with slow trains, adds operational realities; like keeping croosings clear for road traffic (let the slot cars run as drones) or the other way when racing cars letthe trains run as drones. Building scenery just once, less benchwork needed for one layout. I’d be building roads anyway so why not make em functional.
Cons: extra comlexity in construction especially grade crossings, noone makes actual 1/87th slot cars, vehicle path will be permanently set in stone since noone makes turnouts for slot cars, I’ll probably have to make the entire roadway from scratch since I don’t think the premade sections offer enough variation to accomodate the layout.
I don’t think the electronics would be too hard to do, I could keep the slot cars DC though it appears that some N scale decoders could fit into a slot car meaning they can run off the same power bus. I’m aware that slot cars typically run at higher voltage than trains but they should run plenty fast still.
I’m not looking for opions on why or why not but rather how or how not. I believe that there must be some other modelers who have an affection for slot cars and maybe even some who’vebuilt what I’m thinking of. Besides Faller makes it’s street system and vehicles which isn’t too far removed from slot cars.
slot cars and trains are a tough mix, for one thing the speed at which the cars go is a lot more than prototype speed. If you’re going for the home built roadtrack i guess a good router is i norder as well as plenty of power bus line ( i think its how they call it, its the piece of metal that conduct electricty to the pick up shoes.) . its not impossible but its sure as hell gonna tax your patience, especially i nthe smaller size. I wouldnt recommend the grade crossing though, thats asking for a lot of complexity for something thats not gonna add a lot ( unless you have a football field size where u can have prototyp length warning distance for grade crossing )
for what its worth, if you wanna go the slot car way, build a small layout and see how easy it is to lay down your own track, in HO, u can squeeze a double track in 2 by 4… see about adding crossing and controlling at scale speed… itll give u an idea on how easy ( or tough) it would work on the “real” thing
u might wanna try contacting cudaken, he’s a bit of a slot car nut as well
Yes the difference in speed is quite apparent but that’s one of the pros, varying the pace of action. As for power pickup, it seems that the folks scratchbuilding slot track use copper tape, maybe not the most durable thing but easy to work with. On the issue of horns at grade crossings, folks do that with inanimate grade crossings now so what difference does it make? Heck operators even try to discourage blocking those same inanimate crossings, with road traffic it just gets more interesting and important. And yes a router or rotozip would be a good idea, I was thinking of a jigsaw but that would probably be unweildly.
I’m big into slot car racing, mostly 1/32 scale but I race 1/24 once in awhile. I know a person that has a O scale train running around his large slot car track and it looks ok. I race on routed wood and plastic track. The copper tape holds up very well and you won’t have any issues with it. The only thing your going to have problems with are crossings. I don’t see how you can do it with out having reliability issues. Why not just build a race track and have your trains run around the outside of it. HO scale slot cars aren’t really HO, they are closer to 1/64 scale but it’s your railroad/race track so the only person that should care is you.
Ever since slot cars were introduced, there were attempts to integrate them into train layouts. The first one to market slot cars was Lionel in 1912, but they disappeared after only a few years.
(Picture source: Wikipedia)
Trains in those days were still more fashionable [:)] The 1950´s brought the slot car back, in various scales, down to something close to HO scale. “HO scale” slot cars are closer to 1/76 or even S scale, than HO. Slot cars being oversized, the unsightly slot in the road and the too fast movement prevented the establishment of “moving cars” on layouts. The lack of turnouts added to that . The introduction of Faller´s car system changed that, but even with this sophisticated system, the cars´ movement is rather abrupt. Too much action on a layout distracts the viewer from the trains. In the Miniatur Wunderland, their cars get more recognition than the trains!
In my youth days, you either had a train set, or you were into slot cars. A friendly co-existence was a rare bird. Most “serious” modelers will probably bat an eyebrow at the OP´s wish to add a slot car track to his layout, but it is his layout, and, after all “Model Railroading is Fun!” - even if it includes slot cars!
When I was using HO, I had a small Aurora Model Motoring circuit (road) in my train layout. Not really as big a deal as you might think. There were and I guess are HO car / train crossing sections if you wanted then and you can still get “basic” parts / track on eBay without breaking the back too much.
As far as setting the HO track in the layout, you can either route out a 1/4" deep x 3" wide trench for the track to sit in or just lay it on top and get creative with blending the raised edges into the terrain. Use of guard rails works wonders with that.
As far as prototypical auto speeds, that has to be something you have to figure out. Since you’re doing this for your kids, “prototypical” may not be a concern and I think if you get the right components and know how to “tweak” the cars, you should be able to get them pretty close - providing you don’t try to actually race them!
Those Aurora sets from the 60’s seemed to be more oriented towards scale modeling than racing - they even had dual pins and could run in reverse. The steering wheel-shaped controller also wasn’t oriented towards racing the cars. Plus I seem to recall they had road/road crossings as well as road/rail - and I sort of think they had traffic lights for the roads.
And then there was the Tyco USA 1 Truckign sets, they also were set up to simulate roads and so forth and weren’t really for racing. They had THREE pins on the semis, two on the tractor and 1 on the trailer, so you could back them up through the ‘turnouts’ into that various loaders and unloaders. Skip the out of scale operating accessories and it’s pretty much a scale speed trucks on the highway set, also with road/rail crossings.
The HO Aurora “Model Motoring” sets were awesome. The cars and trucks were highly detailed. They had a catalog/flyer how to combine trains and slot cars. I wanted to do it but didn’t have the money then. I remember when they came out with the Ford Mustang, every kid on the block wanted to first to own one. If memory serves me right, those little slot cars were about $4.00 each which was alot for a 11 year old…what memories…
Yeah I know that “HO” slot cars are closer to “S” trains but thats a compromise I’m willing to live with. And yes the older cars were more detailed and closer to scale than the newer stuff, we are starting to collect the reissues of the Thunderjet cars while the brother in law has a collection of about 100 originals, with no place to run em.
As for grade crossings, I purchased a couple sections of premade crossings but when adding the turns to enable a crossing it end up way too wide for my planned benchwork. Also the limitations of 45 or 90 degree turns, fixed radius and lengths of straight track make a pleasing roadway impossible. Just like the sectional vs flextrack in trains.
In thinking about making the roadway I’m going to try something like a cookie cutter arrangement. Try this on for size guys: using 1/4" masonite do cookie cutter patterns for the roadway using one layyer for a base and adding the second layer to groove out. This will be flexible enough to make rolling hills in the road and I can make the radius of the turns any number I want as long as the cars will traverse it (3" minimum?)
Regarding the grade crossings: I figure I’ll have to cut through the rails to allow the cars guide pin to pass which means adding jumper wires across the gaps, thats easy enough. And the same for the road which is also no big deal. I think the hard part will be keeping large enough clearances for the flangeways and keep them samll enough to not catch the guidepins. I guess it comes down to the directional stability of the slot cars. I have seen some slot cars that use a guide “flag” instead of a pin, maybe that would help if I can retrofit such a thing.
I hapen to have an open area of scenery on my current layout that would be an excellent place to try this. If it doesn’t work then thats fine since this layout is doomed anyway.
Another option is the Faller Car System. The cars are battery-powered (rechargeable) and operate at a constant speed, but you control their path with wires buried in the “pavement.” They do have turnouts, and they can be set up to stop at crossings, or even for traffic lights. They are basically for continuous-running and display. They’re not “race cars.”
The drawback is the high cost, but for those interested in integrating cars and trains in HO or N, it’s an interesting possibility.
“Besides, Faller makes it’s street system and vehicles which isn’t too far removed from slot cars.” If you are interested in the Faller Car System, type in “EuroRailHobbies”. Click on the FALLER icon, I happen to be incorporating old slot car track with Faller Car System HO scale cars, trucks, and bus, in a 35 ft. dogbone, with loops at each end, so that the vehicles ride, (magnetically directed ) on a two-way system. The wire is embedded, in the plaster filled slot. The vehicles have a magnetized lever below, which follows the wire. Each vehicle costs $139-$169, which makes a fleet of vehicles, “rather expensive”!!! Perhaps, you would prefer to use slot cars, and have the roadway run under and over the rail tracks. The slot car tracks can be bent slightly with dry wall screws applied into plywood base. It is possible to modify curves, to make a reverse loop. I wired all my old slot car track with jumpers, when I was using the slot cars. Bob Hahn
Space …the final frontier …oops …different subject.
Actually, you must have the layout space, for trains and/or slot cars to do it right. For example, how much space alone, is required to satisfy the minimum radius for R-T-R 90-degree turns & meaningful roadways, without scratchbuilding the slot car system?
Back in the day, I had an HO Scale layout, and a separate 1/32 slot car layout, even properly banked curves with the flexible masonite-type roadway, plus the basement space to handle it all.
The old Tyco USA1 trucks are pretty close to HO scale. Much closer than slot cars for the same track. I’m thinking if you wanted to go crazy with this, you could probably convert slot car frames to have HO sized vehicles on them. You could also go really crazy and use Z or N scale can motors to improve slow speed performance of the cars.
I’m pretty much resigned to scratchbuilding the road. The premade sections are just too limiting and would require significantly wider benchwork than I want. Just for the record the planned layout will be 24" shelf around the wallsand peninsula nolix making 2 levels and an approximate 300’ mainline run. So I’m looking at the potential for 600’ of slot track if I make a continuous loop.
Either way thats a lot of track to acquire premade.
The Faller system is interesting but has a few drawbacks for me: cost ouch, slow vehicles without ability to race, mostly (exclusivly?) German prototypes. The automation is neat though.
I have an abundance of ho trainset power packs so I could use one for each “lane” of road which gives the option of changing direction of travel and set and forget speed control. They would be a bit awkward for racing though and there won’t be one place wher a driver can stand and watch the entire track. I’ll have to do some sort of wireless DC cab or maybe block control. Wireless DCC would be best for this as it has those abilities already.
As far as my proposed construction methods, it sounds like I’ve got confirmations that this will work. How problematic was it? Any “gotchas”?
The kids are just gonna wait for a train at a crossing and “nail” it :). I remember having more fun crashing trains and slot cars than running them when I was a kid. Heck I remember the slot cars (or were they?), anyway the “smashem up derby set” where the cars would hit each other and explode apart because the body parts were all held together under spring tension until the “hit” at which point everything was released.
If your looking at it strictly from the family fun perspective then I say sure why not go for it. The more fun you can have as a family the better in my book but. if your looking at it form the model railroaders point of view there is nothing that could make your model railroad look less realistic possibly a close second would be floating a model boat in some real water. Seen it done and man was it bad…lol. It’s your railroad so do with it what you like thats the bottom line but how “real” can it look with that slot running down the middle of the road?
Yeah I realize that the kids will have some fun doing a “Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry” but I have to admit I might do it too! Especially if I get a yellow Charger…
Family fun is what this is all about.
As for realism going out the window, IDK how bad it would be. Sure the cars would be out of proportion and the slot down the road takes away some but, so do radii under 60" and selctive compression etc that is in use on model RR. BTW next time you’re at the LHS check out the slot car mags, they have some impressive scenery mostly done with mrr kits and supplies. Even if slots aren’t your cup of tea the do have some scratch building/detailing articles that can be useful on a layout.
That said I think I have some shopping to do for this weekend and a little project to work on
Oh I agree whole heatedly that slot cars are way cool. We have HO slot cars well me and my 7 year old well ok they were my Christmas present but we share. I have looked up some of the cars on line and man a lot of way cool stuff and brother if you thought trains were expensive them little cars run a close second. Hey it’s all supposed to be fun and enjoyable even if your a rivet counter. It’s all about what works for u.
