Nick, I will have to give Mike a call at USA to see if they still carry trailer boggies.
Ron
Nick, did the guy who built the cars for you use Aristo Craft roller bearing trucks?
Ron
Steve Weidner said:I like it Steve, much simpler! I'm already thinking this contraption would sound like a herd of cowbells!!! But there'd be plenty of time to experiment, hanging all kinds of junk in there to get a variety of noise happening....
take small tin can - small enough to fit inside a boxcar. Drill holes in the bottom close to the perimeter. use thread to hang some 10p nails inside the can. On the open end of the can, epoxy or solder a small piece of copper wire (about 12 or 14ga) across the bottom so the can rocks back and forth. Do two cans for each car to make noise. when place the can inside the car, one can should have the wire running perpendicular to the center line of the car, the other on 90 degree to center line so each rocks differently. Be sure cans are open side down so that they can rock back and forth.
If I follow you correctly, your idea is that one can will swing laterally, the other transversely. That’s so simple! BUt what I don’t get is wouldn’t the can find a place to rest at an angle against the car wall, or just flop into a stable position? How wold you cause it to remain in a rocking/unstable position? I would have thought suspending the can from a string in there and it’d be free to just swing anywhichaways. Or maybe have the tincans stable, and a bunch of junk on strings hanging from the inside of the roof…
This business reminds me of those boxcars of John Allen’s that had a ball-bearing in them. The ball bearing was free to roll from end to end on a track. If you switched your cars too hard or accellerated or decellerated too fast the thing would reach the end of the car, causing a short, thus obliging you to handle your train more gently.
Then of course there are those LGB stockcars cars that emanated cattle sounds. Just let’s not go to cabooses with Christmas Carols…
How about a small pulley to a cam which would move whatever noise contraption you come up with? I would be looking for a rotational thumping sound . Or maybe it could be powered by a small battery operated motor but then the problem would be it would be “thumping” when the car was standing still. I would think one could sinc it to a small switch kinda like the setup you would have for chuffing sounds of a steam locomotive. Maybe someone who is not “electronically challenged” as I could build one.
Yeah, Mike. … Or how about a couple of tincans and other junk in there suspended from rubberbands… I like the idea of a cam on one of the truck axles, that O-ring idea sounds interesting as well. Or a cylindrical cam running eccentric from wheel to wheel could activate a plunger running up into the car. The plunger could mess with the junk inside somehow… still thinking… along with your rotational thumping, there ought to be noise that is sort of irregular and random-ish as well; we can’t have too regular a rhythm to all the other clatter and jangle and rattle and clunk…
John;
This is TOTALLY impractical, but it would work for short runs. Put some Mexican jumping beans in an empty can (a short one such as for tuna or pet food) and shine a 9v lamp into the can (the heat from the lamp makes the critters inside the beans twist & wriggle, hence the random “jumping”).
Yeah it’s crazy, but it might also be fun.
Best,
David Meashey
… Now we’re getting somewhere, Dave. Maybe a hamster on a treadmill could set the whole kit’n’kaboodle rotating…
I’m on my way to the pet store!