Every since I first saw these ZipZaps, I’ve been thinking there has to be something I could build with them! For those of you who don’t know about ZipZaps, they are remote control, battery powered cars sold at RadioShack. I got this one for sale for $12.
They come with a little charger to power the car. The charger takes 4 AA batteries and takes about a minute to charge the car. Yep, that’s right, you also don’t get a LOT of time for this to run! But, the charger also functions as your RC. It does forward, reverse and steering. When I got my latest issue from the ET&WNC, they had an article about light inspection cars and included this advertisement.
All of a sudden, I was inspired. I thought this could work! So, after playing around with some styrene, some old motor parts, and some O scale trucks, I came up with my version of the narrow gauge inspection car!
It’s a bit faster than I really wanted, but where else can you get battery and RC for $12??? 
It runs for a good couple of minutes, but it looks sweet going down the track. 