Tuesday, March 17, 2020

The United Transit Trolley Twins


While I'm in a testing mood I decided to take the old DC trolleys out for a spin. A few weeks ago John kindly gave me an AHM United Transit trolley, which means I now have two, and two makes a fleet :-) You can see they both run quite well for 45 year olds after suitable cleaning and lubrication.


It turns out that orange and green AHM trolley has a burned out motor, and that green and yellow two-truck Bachmann trolley in the lower right corner that I bought as-is at a swap meet last fall runs terribly. The gears grind something aweful - I don't think they mesh properly - and seem to have trouble making the trolley move. Also, the trucks have very limited rotational movement and can't negotiate the tight Mortimer Park loop. However, I think if I ground out the openings in the chassis I might get some suitable rotation out of the trucks.

4 comments:

  1. Nice 'click-click' over the diamonds.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Those AHMers have make interesting sounds even though they have no sound effects.

      Delete
  2. Looks good James, I'm so far behind on your posts ha ha. You have been busy over this isolation period! I'm still working so my progress on my layout is minimal.
    I have 2 AHM trolleys and a non motorized tender and they both work sketchy at best, despite having two different motors in them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm home everyday now, so idle hands and the devil's playground and all that .... My keyboard will no doubt need replacing when were finally sprung :-) Given the age of those AHM trolleys it's amazing any of them still run.

      Delete