Standard Gauge Interurban, Trolley, Railbus

Very cool! 

Very neat. I thought I'd seen everything, but a powered caboose is something new. I really like the railbus, and I like the separate cab just fine. 

Love it!  What and awesome Standard Gauge layout as well.

Very neat projects. You did a good job with them. Love that railbus.

ARNO

Very Nice! You put a smile on my face. 

Thanks everyone.

I want to do a version of the caboose Trolley again, I think I can improve on it.  And I know I want to do different versions of the rail bus.  Hoping that with practice my skills will get better.

Right now I'm working on a MOW work car; Marc posted a picture on the Standard Gauge Blog, here. It seemed to make sense to start with a 212 Lionel Gondola, so it'll be a little different from the one in that picture, but very similar concept.  I'll let you know when I have something to show.

Hojack,

Thanks for sharing your projects. Like Arno, I especially like the railBus. Would it be possible to see a bit more about how you powered it?  I'm curious about how you modified the gang car motor. 

Thanks!

Rob, powering these things is a puzzle.  McCoy makes a great under-floor SG powered truck with a strong motor in what looks like a Lionel 10 series truck.  I'd love to get a case of them to use on projects like these but they are not readily available.

Fortunately, others have puzzled this out before.  I have found a G scale DC motor unit that works well in some projects.  But old O Gauge motors have the advantage of already being AC, and set up for center rail pickup.  There are some small O Gauge motors that fit inside a wheel truck if you need to be completely under the floor - handcars and such - but they tend to be not strong enough for Standard Gauge.  I have some motors out of O Gauge diesels that are heavy and strong - but haven't yet figured out how to mount them.  

The gang car motor is also a good strong motor.  But it does stick up into the car, and you have to cut out some of the floor for it to pivot.  It has just a single pickup roller, so to improve performance and prevent stalling I used a pickup roller on the front truck of the rail bus as a second roller.  

That just leaves the drive wheels.  On the G scale DC motor that I use, I am able to remove the stock wheels and press standard gauge (lionel loco pilot truck) wheels onto the long axles and have them 2-1/8" between flanges.  But the gang car motor doesn't lend itself to that, and you can't replace the drive axle with a longer one without re-machining the whole thing because of the drive gear.  So I solved this one very inelegantly: by JB welding a set of SG wheels on the outside of the existing O Gauge wheels.  Getting them exactly centered is very important and very difficult.  Crude, but it does seem to work. 

I am trying to find some brass bushings or collars the right diameter to make axle extensions which would be the better way to do this.

Only one axle of the gang car is powered, so the other axle is easy: just replace it with a SG axle and press the solid wheels on it.

Not having learned this from anyone, it's basically a matter of asking questions, searching for photos or other examples of how others have done it, and then just trying your hand at it.  Be prepared for some unsuccessful attempts; there are some mangled messes in the trash here.  

This, by the way, is why I used a build-a-loco in the Interurban.

I'll try to get some photos in the next couple of days.

Those look like pure whimsical fun.  I congratulate you on your ingenuity.

Here is a Marx diesel motor converted to standard gauge. Not mine, but I hope to do one someday.

Steve

That's a nice axle-extension job, using the kind of collars I was thinking of.

Your conversions are awesome. Thanks for posting. Love that railbus!

Bob

Neat!  I like the interurban and the railbus.

Okay, so here's a peek under the hood, so to speak, of the Lionel #50 gang car motor as adapted to run the standard gauge rail bus.

I stripped down the motor, removed the reversing mechanism and the main housing with the workers sitting on it.  The part of the orange housing that remains has to stay, because it holds the end of the armature and the brushes.  I cut an arched hole in the floor with room for it to pivot, and attached it with one bolt.  I used a piece of brass bolted to the gang car frame to create a pivot point on the motor housing.

the horn off the gang car went here:

Here you can see the end of the brass piece that anchors the motor to the floor of the car.  The original pickup roller that you see here is augmented by another roller on the front truck.  The wheels I used in this case are solid die-cast wheels: they actually came off the G scale motor I used on the caboose Trolley, but they are pretty much standard gauge wheels.  As you can see I ground off some of the motor frame where it would have interfered with the bigger wheels.

The axle on the right is the idler, I just slipped a standard gauge axle through the hole in the motor housing, spaced it with some nylon bushings I had in a drawer, and pressed the wheels on the axle.  The drive axle is where it gets ugly:  There's a little sandwich there of the original O gauge wheels, fender washers to get out to 2-1/8", and the new wheels, all JB Welded. Not very pretty, but it you keep it all centered it works fine!

Hojack (and Steve):

Thanks so much for sharing your motor conversion experience and for taking the time to post photos. I often have difficulty visualizing stuff like this, so the pics are especially helpful. Feels like I'm going to "tinplate school" ( you guys might consider charging tuition!)

The willingness of so many to share makes this forum a great place to be!

Projects I can identify with, although in O.  Interesting conversion of Marx to std.

gauge.  Finding power and wheels for these projects is certainly usually a challenge.