There have been a couple of threads here this winter on rail vehicles such as Rail buses and maintenance cars that were never made for Standard Gauge; and also Arno's great thread on the various creative ways that craftsman have found to power home-built Standard Gauge equipment using mostly Postwar O Gauge power sources.
I posted a video of a rail bus I made with a truck cab. But I wanted to try again, following the more common prototype of a bus-type vehicle which combined baggage capacity with coach seating and a rear observation deck. I used all Ives parts, and powered it with a Lionel postwar Pullmoor-type motor.
I started with an Ives 184 club car, but chopped the back and spliced on the observation deck and back partition from a 186 observation car. The result combines driver's compartment, baggage, coach, and observation in one car. For the engine compartment in front, I used the snout of an O Gauge Ives 3253 locomotive.
The opening shots of the video show the Lionel motor: first in its native environment in what I believe is an F3 chassis which contains 2 such motors; then installed in the Ives car. The knurled brass nuts were drilled out to become press-fit collars on the O Gauge axles, splicing on short axle extensions to widen the unit to Standard Gauge. The motor is ideal: it is much heavier and stronger than the gang car motor I used previously, and it drives both axles of the powered truck - for plenty of torque and traction.
The Ives 179 Rail Bus... never was, but could have been! Enjoy!
