Don Watson said:
Here’s a steam coach that I bashed a number of years ago. It is constructed using a Bachmann combine kit and a Porter kit from North East Narrow Gauge (gone now). It is powered by a Magic Carpet Drive (NWSL) mounted in the rear truck. The boiler is mounted to the front of the combine and the drive frame is free to pivot under the boiler.
now that is pretty darn cool
(http://largescalecentral.com/FileSharing/user_2849/My%20Trains/Steamcoach-1.jpg)
Doc
Wow, that’s beautiful Doc!
I am such a fan of these odd one offs real and model.
I agree that the cost to power such a creation would blow the $30 budget on the Mik’s challenge. One year for the competition when Dave T supplied us with a flat car kit I built this using a cheap RC car for the drive train, battery compartment and radio gear. it works on the flats but not so well on grades.
What we need in this hobby is a really cheap drive/gear box that doesn’t blow itself up. I wonder how say an HO engine would work if connected to G scale wheels?
I really like that steam powered rail bus Don W. I built one like that using a Stainz and a Bachmann combine. Here is a video of it in action.
Good stuff guys.
This is the standard LGB version:
I like this one too. It’s a Stainz loco backwards attached to a coach via a pivot:
Pete Thornton said:
This is the standard LGB version:
Seeing the Michelin man on the hood, I wonder if those weren’t running on rubber tread flanged wheels?
Pete Thornton said:
I like this one too. It’s a Stainz loco backwards attached to a coach via a pivot:
That’s beautifully integrated, especially with the roof continued between the two.
John Caughey said:
Seeing the Michelin man on the hood, I wonder if those weren’t running on rubber tread flanged wheels?
Ask and ye shall receive:
https://janheine.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/railroads-adopt-pneumatic-tires-to-reduce-suspension-losses/
Michelin has built a prototype railcar with pneumatic tires that is undergoing tests on an abandoned rail line near Saint-Etienne in Central France (photo above). “It’s not a coincidence that we are testing this right where Vélocio discovered the advantages of supple, wide tires for bicycles during the 1920s,” said Jean-Claude Bibendum of the Michelin company*. “For decades, cyclists have tried to approximate a steel railroad wheel by inflating their tires to the maximum pressure, thereby reducing the suspension effect to a minimum. Now it has become clear that this approach has no benefits. Even professional bicycle racers are running their tires at lower pressures to reduce suspension losses. It’s time for railroads to re-examine their tire choices as well. Steel tires on railroad wheels may soon be a thing of the past.”*
The company has found that supple casings are key to realizing the advantages of pneumatic tires on railroads.
For all their design innovations, railways still retain one fundamental weakness — they put metal wheels onto metal tracks.
Not just inefficient as there is limited grip between two such smooth surfaces, but noisy as well. So why don’t they use something different? It wont surprise you to learn that railway companies have tried. And sadly failed.
It’s mainly a Frenchman we have to thank for the best attempt to deal with the metal upon metal, and that was tire magnate, Andre Michelin who upon returning from an unpleasant train trip instructed his engineers to develop something better.
Unsurprisingly for a tire manufacturer, they came up with a tire for railways.
And also : https://youtu.be/JnauMOuMTls
La Micheline ou le mariage du pneu et du rail
Michelin
Published on Jun 30, 2014
Yep caught on like Wild Fire!!!
But I didn’t ask about the tires, I wondered if that railcar wasn’t riding on them.
Don Watson said:
Here’s a steam coach that I bashed a number of years ago. It is constructed using a Bachmann combine kit and a Porter kit from North East Narrow Gauge (gone now). It is powered by a Magic Carpet Drive (NWSL) mounted in the rear truck. The boiler is mounted to the front of the combine and the drive frame is free to pivot under the boiler.
(http://largescalecentral.com/FileSharing/user_2849/My%20Trains/Steamcoach-1.jpg)
Doc
Hmmmm, now your giving me ideas Doc. I have one of those porters I bought a while back and has sat in a box ever since, and I just happen to have a few spare coaches around 
The Paris Metro (subway) uses rubber tired wheels.
The bogies in Paris’ metro trains do not only have rubber-tyred wheels but also backup steel wheels and rubber-tyred horizontal guiding wheels. Trains run on a concrete surface with auxiliary steel rails. Today, five metro lines run on rubber.
Oh - there’s quite a lot of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-tyred_metro
Those rubber tired trains are nice and quiet. But I prefer the older ones that have steel wheels. But then I’m a rail fan. . . . . (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-smile.gif)
normally the big advantage of metal wheels over rubber is rolling resistance.
It appears the tire has “10 bars” in yellow chalk on it… that is 145 psi… so that’s how it can be efficient… wonder how tire wear is?
Greg
Paris Metro reference brings this to mind, https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/the-metro-at-50-building-the-network
The idea for tires came to Drapeau and Saulnier when they visited Paris, the first subway system to incorporate tires to address a problem of overcrowding. Supplied by Michelin, the rubber allowed trains to accelerate faster, which in turn allowed for more trains to run on a given line.
While Paris had envisioned converting its entire network to tires, that never happened, in part because steel-wheel technology caught up a few years later.
Building a system entirely with tires allowed Montreal to save on operating costs. Slopes at the front and back of each station help the trains accelerate and stop.
Wonder how this affects people with peanut allergies;
Anyone who has taken the métro has likely noticed a distinct, peanut-like smell in the tunnels and stations. That’s because the trains are fitted with wooden brake shoes dipped in peanut oil.
Conceived by engineers in the 1960s, wooden shoes were chosen for health reasons — to avoid metal dust flying into the air under braking.
Montreal has wooden brake shoes soaked in peanut oil.
That shows the vast difference between the US and Canada, in the US, there would be thousands of mothers picketing the metro system because their kids have peanut allergies!
Greg
Those rubber wheels defeat the self centering principle of tapered wheels, thus the horizontal tires are a must…
Seems to me that sand could equal the traction …
