Pennsy Street Tractor made from Lionel Handcar-- UPDATE with new K-Line handcar motor

Neat project Ken. Very cool.

Bob

Another incredible project Ken.  You're definitely putting your 3D to some good use.  Will the street tractor run an slower than shown in your videos?

That's really cool Ken!  If I tell you how to get a lot more pulling power, will you print one for me?

Seriously, look for the K-Line Plymouth, it has a dual gear motor and drives all four wheels.  It's the exact same frame, so it'll bolt right on to your shell.

Here's three Plymouths pulling a dozen cars, including up the 2.5% grade.  One of these chassis in your shell should pull three or four modern boxcars, especially on flat track.

For the ultimate, you could add full command/control with sound.  It actually runs pretty smooth, I was a bit jerky at the controls, I was trying to run it really slow, and without cruise control, that's tricky.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

That's really cool Ken!  If I tell you how to get a lot more pulling power, will you print one for me?

Seriously, look for the K-Line Plymouth, it has a dual gear motor and drives all four wheels.  It's the exact same frame, so it'll bolt right on to your shell.

Here's three Plymouths pulling a dozen cars, including up the 2.5% grade.  One of these chassis in your shell should pull three or four modern boxcars, especially on flat track.

For the ultimate, you could add full command/control with sound.  It actually runs pretty smooth, I was a bit jerky at the controls, I was trying to run it really slow, and without cruise control, that's tricky.

And a kick-*** smoke unit too......

@RSJB18 posted:

And a kick-*** smoke unit too......

Well, I couldn't fit the smoke unit in since it takes up the whole hood.  I had to remove that to put the TMCC board in.  My upcoming Blunami Plymouth upgrade will feature the MTH HO smoke unit with full command control.

@RSJB18 posted:

Neat project Ken. Very cool.

Thanks Bob! I first found the Street Tractor in a historical photo archive a few weeks ago and as soon as I saw it, I thought about the handcar motor that was still lying in my parts bin and thus the plan formed.

@coach joe posted:

Another incredible project Ken.  You're definitely putting your 3D to some good use.  Will the street tractor run an slower than shown in your videos?

You got me thinking about that so I did an experiment. After running a lap or two to warm up the street tractor's motor, I was able to get it down to about this speed without stalling. The tractor will crawl at a fairly low voltage but the motor just doesn't have the power to pull anything below 11V. Every time I run something conventional, I really appreciate the low-speed performance of all my command engines!

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

That's really cool Ken!  If I tell you how to get a lot more pulling power, will you print one for me?

Seriously, look for the K-Line Plymouth, it has a dual gear motor and drives all four wheels.  It's the exact same frame, so it'll bolt right on to your shell.

That's a very good tip on the K-Line Plymouths, those do look like a better platform to build customs on than the handcar motors. I still have a couple of unused donor frames left in my "guilty pile" of half finished projects but I will start shopping for a Plymouth once I finally get caught up.

I could use the K Line body.

It occurs to me that one of these would look good on the Razorback Traction Company (avec trolley pole, of course). 

And I have a Lionel handcar knocking about not doing much of anything...

(innocent look) 

Mitch

I have just finished redesigning my Pennsy street tractor to fit a K-Line handcar motor. As @TheRambles suggested on my GE 25-tonner build, this is a very nice little motor with a heavy diecast frame, abundantly available and quite economical.

Extracting the motor from the K-Line handcar required taking out 4 screws and then drilling out 1 small rivet to disconnect the linkage to the "gandy dancer" bar. Out of the box, it was quite evident that the who-knows-hold-old grease wasn't doing the job anymore. A liberal application of Red n Tacky to the worm gear resolved the problem handily.

The handcar has a little lever riveted to a plastic gear that makes the "gandy dancer" pump as it runs. There's no need for this motion in the street tractor and the gear is kind of in the way, so I just snapped the gear off with a pair of pliers. From this same photo, you will notice that only 1 axle is powered on this handcar, and that axle has traction tires on both wheels. That means that the locomotive's unpowered axle is also the only ground connection. The third rail pickups are both proper spring rollers which is a nice improvement over the MPC motor's copper slider.

Here is a Fusion screencap showing the new K-Line body on TOP and the old MPC body on BOTTOM. Although very similar at a glance, there are some important changes-- the mounting holes are different, and I have made some further small improvements to the end buffers and the insides of the hoods. It's a very different body underneath!

Here's the prototype build. The original body screws from the K-Line handcar are too short to work with the new body, so I found some 5/8" long #2-56 screws to hold it together. The fit is quite nice, the four screws hold the body on well and aren't as visible as the ones on the MPC chassis since they insert from the bottom. The couplers fit into the end buffers about the same as my original design.

With the new body mounted to the new frame, I was eager to see what it could do. I connected two boxcars and an illuminated caboose to see how the new Pennsy street tractor would perform.

Here's the video of the track test. A significant improvement! No real issues with stalling, the street tractor runs quite smoothly at only 13V.

Cool project, awesome work!