Alright, I like a big 'ol SD45 rolling by just as much as the next guy.
But you could also get a lot of railroading (or rail-car-ing?) into a small trolley layout.
Michael Tylick mentioned in an old MRP article that his O SCALE trolleys could go around a 4 inch radius curve. That’s right, I didn’t stutter. (check it our yourself - MRP 1996, page 51).
Just think what I could do in HO on a 4 x 8 sheet. Or better yet, a 2 x 8 sheet.
That is so tempting.
My wife and I are contemplating another move, and a trolley layout is one that I know will fit into any space.
Seriously, you can get a lot of layout into a 2x4 with trolleys. Your main problems will be with track. Grooved trolley rail seems very difficult to get hold of as do the single-blade switches used on it. Bachmann have Brill and PCC cars although they’re not the finest - that title would probably be held by the Corgi diecast ones. While these aren’t powered and are models of British prototypes you can motorise them relatively easily (Go to http://www.btinternet.com/~beckits/ and click on “OO Scale tram trucks”) and the results are excellent, you get a sweet-running car that looks the part too. 4-wheel cars can be motorised using the little SPUD power trucks which work well with a little ballast.
A 4in curve will limit what you can run, better to scale it up to 6in for longer cars. You could easily get a double oval onto a 2ft board and stay within this radius, leaving space in the centre for a depot and cityscape. Hope this is of use!
Bowser also makes a PCC car, and I think it looks a lot nicer than the Bachmann model. It comes undecorated, though, and doesn’t even include lights. Since it’s a dual-truck car, it doesn’t take very tight turns like a Brill would. Another nice thing about trolleys is the short train length, which lets you climb much steeper grades than you could with 50 coal cars hooked on behind you.
Besides my PCC trolley, I’m also running the Life-Like P2K R-17 subway cars. It’s a nice complement to the trolleys and my above-ground passenger and freight operations.
Trolley layouts give you a nice opportunity to work with urban scenery, too.
Just thought I’d chime back in with a photo of my current fleet. These are a mix of diecast with varying levels of modifications (some with just power bogies, one with an open-top conversion) and also a whitemetal kit.
The benefits of a trolley layout are obvious in terms of what you can get in a give space but I wonder if it would hold interest for long given the limited variety. The choice I am contemplating is to incorporate a small section of trolley line in the downtown scene of my large HO layout. It would probably just run a few blocks and disappear behind buildings at both ends of the line. I haven’t decided if I want to go to the trouble of installing the overhead power lines for something that will offer just a limited amount of operating.
Another thought is this,you can put dummy wire up and still run most of the model trolly’s that are out there as you would regular trains. Nylon model ship rigging wire strung along the poes will give and still look realistic.If you go with a combined trolley and regular layout approach, dallee electronics and bachman have both built automatic reversers which you can set a timing on. So the trolley could run every 15-45 seconds up and back on the same strait city block. while your regular trains do their thing on the rest of the layout.
For a more ambitious layout go DCC imagine 50 or so trolley’s all running independantly along an entire layout. I suspect allot of operation and enjoymnet could be pulled from that !
HI !!!
…Through out the last 50 or so years there have been many trolleys built, most of the best where built in brass and you can still find most of them, it all depends on how much you want to spend, and also Bowser still sells most overhead parts if you want to run as a real trolly system. As for size most one truck trolleys will run on 4 inch curves but 6 inch should be used so that you can run even double truck trolleys. You can use standard rail buried in the street along with switches although I have built my own for years and as of this point in time everything has been torn down to be rebuilt with a new design in HO scale combigning both Logging and Trolley based in the 1900 to 1920’s. So in all actually it is up to you and remember that this is for FUN…Chuck
I’ve seen a couple pretty neat Trolly layouts down at the train shows down in Fort Washington, PA. I think there’s been both an HO and an O layout. Both running multiple trollies, each making their own stops throughout the layouts.
This makes me think about putting a reversing trolly on my “layout” too. I guess it’s something to think about.
You might want to look up a book, I think titled Wabash Valley Trolleys, which discusses Ft Wayne IN and connecting trolley lines. (The longest of which followed the Wabash River, hence the book title.) If a plain circle does not suit you, there was a ‘loop’ built in town shaped more like a triangle. One corner was Downtown, one corner in an industrial / commercial area, the other corner in a residential section. This would give you more scenery possibilities. Spurs could lead to big industries which need lots of employees … and some coal and maybe a small old boxcar or two, once in a while.
We usually have 3 or more trolley layouts at the bigger Toronto area train shows. There’s a HO layout with a variety of stock, an O layout with (I think) brass kits of pre-1970s TTC cars and another O layout with modern cars. All operate from the overhead. (If you don’t operate from the overhead, you might as well do logging.)
I had a 2x4 HO trolley layout. No street trackage, but the overhead worked and accomodated both poles and pans. The Roundhouse 36’ cars were new then, and they ran well on 8" radius curves.
