Tyco Trains

Welcome to the forum.

	Username:

	Password:

Save Password

Register
Forgot your Password?

[ Active Members: 0 | Anonymous Members: 0 | Guests: 15 ] [ Total: 15 ] [ Newest Member: Yellow_TankCar ]

Select Skin:

All Forums

The Builders Depot

Customizing & Kitbashing

Scrap Box Boxcab

All users can post NEW topics in this forum
All users can reply to topics in this forum

Printer Friendly

scsshaggy
Big Boy

Status: offline

Posted - July 16 2020 : 2:18:12 PM

Several things come together in this project.
1) I’ve been doing projects from the scrap boxes lately, partly to use stuff that’s been languishing in boxes, and partly to do fun projects that don’t need me to shop for stuff at stores and train shows (both unavailable, lately).
2) There’s a fictional company (Earthworm Tractor Company) from the writings of William Hazlett Upson, of whom I am a fan. I thought of an additional fiction in which Earthworm gets into the industrial switcher business.

(Photo from Amazon website)
3) I had what is probably the mechanism from the Marx answer to the Athearn Hustler. I had finally figured out that the reason it ran poorly was that it needed a shim to correct the mesh of two of the gears. Once I had that corrected, it was worth building something around it.
4) I had an old Model Railroader article about building boxcab diesels from old caboose shells. I also had some old caboose shells that I picked up cheap at a swap meet last year. I wanted to try out the idea.

Incidentally, when I saw the byline again, I realized that I knew the author through a mutual friend.

Here are the basic pieces. There’s the motor/truck mechanism, a caboose (I ended up using two of these), and a piece of sheet plastic from which I made the beginnings of the frame. Of course many more parts, like couplers, details, and more pieces of sheet plastic would be added.

The plastic frame piece is assembled into the truck assembly. This will be the basic platform for adding on the body, couplers, etc. You can also see some shims built into the frame for correcting the gear mesh, and for stabilizing the frame.

Here, the couplers are added. It took much shimming to get the proper height. The yellow wires and the light bulb will soon be gone.

The basic form of the frame and the shell are now in place. Caboose details having nothing to do with a locomotive are carved off, and holes for the windshields are cut in the ends.

Here’s how the frame and the shell assemble. There wasn’t much room for screws on the end toward the gears, so two hooks grab a small flange on the shell. The other end has screws that come up through the shell into a larger flange with threaded holes.

Detail parts like air tanks, ladders, railings access hatches, and uncoupling levers now dress up the frame.

Lead weights, glued into the frame add a bit of weight for traction and electrical pickup.

The frame is now completed and painted. The crew in Earthworm City, IL has proudly attached the company’s trademark.

External details are now on the shell. There are two headlight castings, an exhaust stack turned from a piece of sprue, a radiator housing made from a chopped down cupola and a piece of grid-type roofwalk, an air horn turned from a piece of copper wire, some railings, and some small overhangs over the windows and windshields.

Details better seen from this side are the ladder to the roof and the air operated bell. The bell is an old Mantua bell with a hole drilled into the top. Pressed into the hole is a piece of wire representing the air pipe.

A head-on view shows the wind shields cut in the end. The overhang above the window is plastic angle stock salvaged from some old bridge parts.

A piece of lead glued under the roof adds more weight. The end windows are glazed with clear film from the leaders on a roll of slide film. The middle windows are glazed with pieces of black film from the same leader. This nicely simulates a window with darkness behind it.

The finished product sits painted and weathered in the yard.

Tests on the mainline show it able to haul three freight cars and a caboose up the ruling grade.

It’s not a bad runner. There is a bit of noise that’s inseparable from the design. The big spur gears that take the power from the motor shaft to the worm shaft turn at the speed of the motors, so teeth are meshing loudly. If I run it on half-wave DC, or in parallel with a taillight bulb, it’s quite controllable at all speeds. On full-wave DC, straight off the throttle, it has two speeds: Dead stop and Mach 6. That’s not a problem, since both throttles on my layout have half-wave DC available.

Carpe Manana!

Country:

USA ~ Posts: 2359 ~ Member Since: September 17 2013 ~ Last Visit: May 19 2024