Continued from another thread...
Speaking of cable cars and two-thirds of a California car, I realized a while back that the Bachmann "cable car" model *was* two-thirds of a California car, and decided it was time to try a kitbash. I started with two of those cheapola "cable car" models, costing $2 each at a couple of swap meets, and bought a Bachmann powered cable car primarily for the power truck, which operates pretty well. I still have quite a bit of work to do, but here is the result:
The body is still a little off kilter (need to go back and strengthen the roof line) and of course it still needs poles and a more substantial trailing truck, but the power truck from the Bachmann unit is actually pretty decent, and while the wheelbase is a bit wide the 26" wheels are about right and it runs acceptably at slow speeds--it actually handles insulated-frog turnouts better than most of the single power trucks I've seen.
Here's a photo of a Sacramento "California style" car for comparison:
After the conversion I realized I had the middle part and the back end of a cable car left over, so I decided it would be fun to use the leftovers for a single-truck early streetcar. In Sacramento, many local streetcars began life as single-truck horsecars, which were later converted to two-truck California cars and then later enclosed...but that's another story. Here's a photo of the bash in its current state (with a white-metal Birney truck and some wheels from the parts box):
Here's a single-truck Sacramento car for comparison:
And here is a shot of the front end of both models:
Speaking of cable cars and two-thirds of a California car, I realized a while back that the Bachmann "cable car" model *was* two-thirds of a California car, and decided it was time to try a kitbash. I started with two of those cheapola "cable car" models, costing $2 each at a couple of swap meets, and bought a Bachmann powered cable car primarily for the power truck, which operates pretty well. I still have quite a bit of work to do, but here is the result:
The body is still a little off kilter (need to go back and strengthen the roof line) and of course it still needs poles and a more substantial trailing truck, but the power truck from the Bachmann unit is actually pretty decent, and while the wheelbase is a bit wide the 26" wheels are about right and it runs acceptably at slow speeds--it actually handles insulated-frog turnouts better than most of the single power trucks I've seen.
Here's a photo of a Sacramento "California style" car for comparison:
After the conversion I realized I had the middle part and the back end of a cable car left over, so I decided it would be fun to use the leftovers for a single-truck early streetcar. In Sacramento, many local streetcars began life as single-truck horsecars, which were later converted to two-truck California cars and then later enclosed...but that's another story. Here's a photo of the bash in its current state (with a white-metal Birney truck and some wheels from the parts box):
Here's a single-truck Sacramento car for comparison:
And here is a shot of the front end of both models:
