Going for a spin on the Way Out Layout

I haven't been ignoring the Way Out Layout. I have been tinkering with it now and then, but I did lose the plot for awhile. There was something that didn't quite sit well with me, but after staring and thinking for a long time I realized there were two problems: there were too many buildings on the beach side of the layout which destroyed the open field look I wanted, and the arrangement of buildings was too scattered in the urban area that fronts the side road that divides the city and beach. Now that I've resolved those problems, the layout arrangement is looking better to my eye so I can get on with modelling and detailing.

So, to kick things off I decided to try running the two AHM trolleys I bought at a swap meet back in the spring. They were $5 each, but the seller didn't know if they ran. I found they ran haltingly at best. I opened up the Public Service trolley, scrubbed its wheels and pickups clean, and oiled the gears. After a bit of run in it ran quite smoothly, and I shot this video once it could do reliable laps. Although, I should note that sometimes it would stall on the wye switch frogs because of its large flanges. You can see in the video how it bumps through those switches.

I see more tinkering on the horizon.

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.

AHM Birney Trolley Data Sheet

I think my powers of investigation are slipping. I was so happy that I found the box for the AHM trolley I forgot to open it to see if there was anything interesting inside. It turns out there was.

The data sheet was right where it should be: tucked inside the bottom of the plastic insert used to hold the trolley in place.

And maybe more importantly was some code that was stamped on a box flap. It looks like April 1975 was part of the code, but I'm not sure what the rest means. So, maybe it wasn't released in Feb '76, but earlier in '75. The signs so far point to sometime in '75 or '76, so maybe I bought mine a little earlier than I thought.

Oh, and one other thing, Vince suggested I look into the work of David Voice. I'm ashamed to say I hadn't heard of him, but I found his book for $5 at an online book seller, so I ordered it. It's quite a charming look at tram modelling circa 1982. Interestingly the first kitbash project it discusses is a conversion of the AHM trolley to a British prototype. From the text, it looks like the Birney was manufactured by a company called Mehanotehnika, now called Mehano, located in Slovenia. So, this lines up with the box stating the model was imported from Yugoslavia back in the '70s. Well, I'm off to see what other tidbits Mr. Voice has for me :-)

Time travel makes inflation no less shocking

Did we get the time machine out of the garage? No. Did we find strange journals in an alternative universe? Well, sorta. Did I find an old ad for the AHM trolley? Yes.

It appears that the AHM trolley was introduced in early 1976. That ad was snipped from the February '76 issue of Model Railroader and it looks like there was also one that month in Railroad Model Craftsman. $8.88 US; an internet inflation calculator tells me that translates into $38.20 US ( ~ $47.25 CDN) in today's money. What did I pay in either '76 or '77 when I bought mine at George's Trains old Mt. Pleasant store?

$16.50 CDN = $67.45 CDN today!

AHM trolley couplers

If you saw the video in the previous post you'll have seen the segment where the old AHM trolley and trailer got stuck in the Neville Park Loop. The curves have a 7" radius - which is ok for single-car operations with the fleet - but cause a problem when the trolley is pulling a trailer. I think the problem is with the coupler - which is just a short metal bar that pivots on posts moulded on each trolley. The bar isn't right for such tight radius track. I need to replace it with something that has more free-play so the trucks aren't forced into odd angles against the rail during turns. An interesting problem.

Power at the Alta Vista TC Electric Street Railway!

I had some pleasant time wiring up the new streetcar layout. I’ve been meaning to do that for a long time and now that I was sort of in the groove with things electrical on the EVRR, I thought I’d do the long postponed Alta Vista TC wiring.

[That power plug on the front connects to a terminal strip where each track section gets a feed. The end panels are connected to the strip via plugs so that they can easily be disconnected for transport - that's one over on the left.]

Ok, well the Alta Vista TC trackage is just a big, thin loop with funny shapes on each end, so not much wiring. All I did was add power leads to each track section on each panel so that power wasn’t dependent on good inter-panel connections and power drops were minimized. Also I wanted to make it easy to plug in my DC power pack as well as my DCC so I could quick change from running DCC equipment to DC stuff. So, nothing really exotic, just making sure the solder joints were solid and that the panels could be easily plugged and unplugged from the main power terminal. I used 2.1 mm jacks and receptacles for all that.

Once everything was done, and some DCC streetcar runs were made, I pulled the old AHM DC powered trolleys from the shelf and gave them a try. It's a good feeling to have some track ready-and-able for testing and playing with streetcars again.