Cardboard and No Wheels railroad

[MR SPOCK]

[align=center]The title comes from a play on the name Chicago and North Western rail road also dubbed the Cheap and Nothing Wasted rr.

This railroad owned two RDC1 railcars, these were /are diesel hydraulic, with twin Detroit engines in.

My model arrived friday, but I did not have time to run properly until today,

As I wanted to run with a two amp reciever I removed one of the motor trucks and fitted plain wheelsets,

And as I have wobbly track on the branchline I modified the truck mounts by removing the plastic molded dots, this allows the trucks more vertical play and stops derailments, the rubber traction wheels were also changed out for plain tread ones.

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[MR SPOCK]

[align=center]The next part of the task was to dismantle the car shell, really easy as there are only six screws underneath and two tiny screws in the end caps in the roof, the shell came apart ,

I was expecting some pc boards after seeing previous threads, was not expecting so much of it tho, cannot see why it has to be so complex, am sure wires would do the job and be less intrusive,

the cardboard interior detail is amusing,

The windows have a frosted finish that looks too odd, but I discovered that there are two layers of glazing , so the frosted layer was junked also,this left a clear glazed car that even whithout any interior is miles better, Budd also made aeroplanes as well,

After looking at George Schreyers website, I concluded that there was no point keeping the aristo boards as they are for PWC, so they were stripped out as well,

this left a nice clear floor area, and a space for the reciever and battery charger,

the new sitches will go where the old ones were, at least my finger will be able to use them,

the battery is a 1.2ah lead acid, this I worked out would sit in the space I think is allocated for the luggage racks behind the drivers bulkhead, it is pretty well out of sight,

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[MR SPOCK]

[align=center]The next part was to wire up to the battery and run a test to see how much this would haul up the very steep branchline,

once the receiver was programmed the shell was popped back on and was coupled to one aristo lightweight,

the Budd romped to the top easy,

the next test was with two aristo's,

easy

the rest of the day was spent running the unit and planning the next bit of work.

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[stockers]

Very nice. That looks really good under the trees there.

 

[chris m01]

Nice one.
I can't understand why this model was supplied with two power bogies and rubber tyres. Mine will pull a very long train but the real thing never did. Dropping the one motor is a good idea - especially when running on battery power.

 

[MR SPOCK]

Very nice. That looks really good under the trees there.

[align=center]Yep the trees do look good but they are a damn nuisance hope the wind will flatten them soon, then I can enjoy the sunshine on the branchline, at the moment its wind chill factor almost alpine,
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[MR SPOCK]

Nice one.
I can't understand why this model was supplied with two power bogies and rubber tyres. Mine will pull a very long train but the real thing never did. Dropping the one motor is a good idea - especially when running on battery power.

[align=center]This one will shift seven aristo streamliners, and take four up the hill and thats with one motor and no tyres,
450hp is quoted as the RDC power output

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[Richie]

Very nice work Pete , Where do you get your Power Sonic batteries from as they look like the ones that come with the Sound Traxx sound units ?

 

[MR SPOCK]

Very nice work Pete , Where do you get your Power Sonic batteries from as they look like the ones that come with the Sound Traxx sound units ?

[align=center]I get all my batteries from Alarm Detection Supplies they have a shop on The bay place,

Vanessa is very helpful
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[Richie]

Very nice work Pete , Where do you get your Power Sonic batteries from as they look like the ones that come with the Sound Traxx sound units ?

[align=center]I get all my batteries from Alarm Detection Supplies they have a shop on The bay place,

Vanessa is very helpful
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Many thanks for that Pete will look them up

 

[MR SPOCK]

[align=center]Today I got a spare hour so managed to wire up all the componants for the railcar,just got to make up componants for car lighting now,

The battery charger gets warm so that is kept away from all the rest of the gear,I use a standard wiring color code so all my equipment is the same, yellow for charger supplies ,white for smoke units ,red /black for module power and blue/green for motor power,the battery charges from the track when in use or idling,I can isolate the wheels if I visit a DCC or DC or live steam uninsulated track.The metal shell is used as an antennae for the radio control.

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[royale]

Nice one, Pete - really looks good.

 

[MR SPOCK]

[align=center]I found some interior pics on sister betty site,

car interior,

drivers cab,

the seats are single sided and revolve to suit direction of travel, no chance on this RDC,
the drivers cab is on the right handside, even tho C&NW rr was left hand road
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[stevedenver]

i could be wrong-but i think at some point in time those had great vivid diagonal stripes on the ends-perhaps red and yellow or ...green and yellow

btw very impressive and tidy work

ive always liked RDCs and im not sure why as they are rather plain--but are nice looking and railroady 'trams' if you will

like this!!!

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=107873 < Link To http://www.railpictures.n./viewphoto.php?id=107873

 

[MR SPOCK]

i could be wrong-but i think at some point in time those had great vivid diagonal stripes on the ends-perhaps red and yellow or ...green and yellow

btw very impressive and tidy work

ive always liked RDCs and im not sure why as they are rather plain--but are nice looking and railroady 'trams' if you will

like this!!!

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=107873

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Thanks for that link Steve, now I can see the underframe gear,CNW only had two rdc1 so this has been converted ,I may not put the stripes on!!
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