Question for Lee Willis on Super/EZ streets

Paul - 

First, the article on blending streets was on page 50 in run 256.  I used basswood, 1/8 and 3/16 in thick, for make curbs, etc.  See the article.  It is available in the digital archive here if you can't find an old copy of the magazine.  

I have a bunch of the K-Line by Lionel RailRoadster old-time trucks.  They were the first vehicles I bought and so set the normal for my expectations.  They are hyper sensitive to voltage compared to the WBB sedans but frankly they are the norm and the sedans are just the better behaved. 

First, all 'Streets vehicles - all - are more than average sensitive to dirty wheels, rollers, and track.  Most have one traction tire (I've seen some with none, a few with two!) so they have only three tiny wheels and two tiny pickups for connectivity.  The center rail is very narrow.  Dirt hurts a lot.  When in doubt, clean everything.   if they don't run smoothly.  My WBB sedans are amazingly sensitive to dirty wheels - why I have no idea.  But I have to clean them about once every hour or running (they're new, maybe it will get better when they wear in more)

Anyway, I have six WBB sedans now. Four run well, one died nearly out of the box, and the other is apart in an experiment (more in a moment on that).  The four that run pretty consistently cruise 'smoothly enough' - right on the edge of exhibiting just the tinest bit of stumble - and stumbling a lot if I go any lower, around my country road loop (92 feet, probably not pristine, but fairly clean) at a scale 47 mph as I time and calculate it.  Haven't measured the voltage but more than 7 volts.  The trucks will only go smoothly at about 50-55, and need a lower voltage to do that, and on any lower voltage stumble, etc, and the WBB ford panel trucks will do a bit slower than either. The very earlier K-line (not by Lionel) Ford panel trucks will go about a scale 40 slowly.  These are still available if difficult to find: they have a metal chassis as from a clown car, an e-unit, and working headlights and light bar - and ugly trainlike wheels.   Any of the other K-Line by Lionel vehicles - the step van or shorty bus, run about like the vintage truck does (they are the same guts inside). 

So nothing stock runs at realistic scale city speeds - 20-25 mph.  I tried resistors, but never diodes.  They helped a little, but it took about 5 or 10 watt resistors and those took up what room was inside the vehcile and the improvement wasn't dramatic.   I will be interested in anything you or Dale get that makes an improvement. 

I have five converted Corgi buses and many tractor trailers that will run, very smoothly, at speeds as low as 3 mph.  All have both a big flywheel motor and a 3:1 reduction gearbox.  I'm convinced nothing  but both will run smoothly at low speeds.  But I have yet to figure out how to put both into a vehicle the size of the rialroadster or the sedan, and so I am in the process of trying each alone: tomorrow if all goes well and I get lots of time in my workshop (semi-doubtful) I hope to finish a flywheel motor in a sedan, perhaps try an oversized flywheel motor in another sedan or a WBB van.  I'm still working on figuring out how to do a gearbox in a car but I think I have it nearly figured out: I have gears that should just barely work. 

Thanks for the tips, Dale and Lee.

A semi-local shop has the Lionel step van with TMCC, but if I bought I would only be able to run one vehicle, which is kind of a bust given I'd like to have the traffic moving. Lionel advertised a 1950's era Ford truck with TMCC but its listed at 6" long and 1:48 scale - those numbers don't equate, and I can't find one in person to verify what it actually looks like. Everything else Lionel has made with TMCC is kind of funky looking for street running.

Dale:

Lee recently posted that the "Streets" vehicles he operates would likely not operate well with insulated rails for triggering relays for signaling or block control for multiple-car operations.  Although I have successfully run multiple MTH trolleys on Superstreets using insulated rails and relays, my experience with smaller “Streets” vehicles has been very limited but it confirms Lee’s suspicions as it hasn’t been favorable at all.  The cars are just too light to make sufficient continuous contact with the insulated rails to provide reliable operation.  In addition mine have traction tires which not only limit their ability to electrically bridge the outside rails but also often cause them to come to a complete stop due to insufficient ground contact when they enter an insulated rail section.    

I’m not sure you saw Lee’s post and if you did perhaps you have other ideas for detecting the vehicles.  Please let us know what you come up with.

Bill

First, I have seen the Ford 1950s era truck and it is deinately not 1:48.  Looks to be about 1:32 or so actually.  Way too big. The step van is a roughly 1:48 model of a UPS type van, and most of them have another advantage: really good lever action center pickups as on locos - but then they cost north of $110 normally.

I'm hoping to get some time to work on my streets cars this afternoon, but so far the day has been frustrations with plumbing, etc.

I'm not sure I would want to buy 30 of them if you need 30 separate blocks, but I noticed MicroMark sells an infra-red beam train detection set up for N and HO - it shuts down power for, I think, a short period (longer than just the time the beam is interrupted). This is an option Dale H and I discussed for detecting cars, etc., rather than use insolation blocks on the rails.  Let us know how the magnet/reed switch/latch relay works.   

Dale:

I was wondering where you were going to mount the switches.  Never thought of the underside of the Streets track.  Thanks for clarifying that and yes, please keep us posted on your progress.

Now if Bachmann would only come out with turnouts, the possibilities for multi-car operation and combined trolley and automobile operation would really be unlimited!

Bill

Not that it is a great solution, but you can run the 'Streets into a tunnel, transition to O-27 track -or I suppose you could go to Fastrack too, and then run the route through a switch and back out in 'Streets again.  I do this in two places on my layout: one is a switch to/not from my Main St. loop to the country road, the other into a set of sidings for trucks, etc., underneath a mountain. Not great, I admit, but the best that can be done now. 

Some thoughts:

about switches: one could take an O-27 switch or something similar and make "inserts" that filled in between the rails and alongside them in most places so that, when painted, it looked pretty much like a street surface and blends in well: Use Realtrak with its blackened center rail and that would look very close to street color, too. I played with this idea a bit but never really pursued it.  

The Faller Car system uses magnets underneath the vehciles and reed switches to operate its intersections (where traffic in one direct stops for the other).  It they work in N and Ho scale I have no doubt they will work in O.