On3 Railbus

[james_coldicott]

Time I posted something here and we have the next of our Slim Gauge Circle get togethers on May 9th. Decided to see how far I can get on this project before then- I have very little evening time but can put in a long lunch break each day so lets see how it goes...

The project is a 1/43 scale diecast RIO Fiat Omnibus which I was given last Saturday as an unfinished project by John Hughes' widow- John was a prolific modeller and fan of American Narrow Gauge Railroads since the late '60's over here in the UK so this will be a memento to remember him by.

John had already started the conversion to rail use as can be seen in the photo's. John had already replaced the radiator grill with some mesh and there is a Portescap coreless motor and gearbox installed through a slot in the floor and a brass frame built to attach a front truck to. A broken set of wheels through the gearbox and that's about it- everything else will come from the scrap box.

James

[james_coldicott]

another

[james_coldicott]

one more...

[james_coldicott]

last one for now

[jacq01]

  James,

  a nice deviation from the peat cars......
  Is this the railbus conversion Wiseman offered some time ago ??

  Jacq

[james_coldicott]

Hi Jacq,

...no I don't think so though I'm not familiar with the Wiseman product. The Portescap is held in place with Milliput so I doubt it's a commercial offering!

Been making a few plans- just made a live one side axle and planning a split axle front truck so I can pick up power from all 6 wheels with the minimum of wipers. Taken the glazing out of the firewall/ windscreen moulding and cleaned it up and added some texture/ extra scribing. I'll reglaze the whole bus with Microscope cover slip glass. Am going to make new step supports next for replacement wooden running boards and then I can get the brass parts primed with etching primer and maybe still have time to get some finish paint done before my deadline.

James

[Ray Dunakin]

That's going to be a really nice railbus when it's finished!

[shropshire lad]

Hi James ,

  I'm glad to see that you are getting stuck into sorting out the railbus , I didn't think you would get going so soon . I'm also glad to see it survived the attentions of young Liberty May ( I'm afraid I might accidentally call her Liberty Belle one of these days ) . So will you get it done in the next ten days ?
 As you know , I shall be missing the meeting this time as I hope to be in Leverkusen admiring two of Europe's best layouts with "The Scarlet Pimpernel" ( Malcolm Ferriday to everyone else ), so I hope it goes well ,

  Nick

[marc_reusser]

Love the Fiat Bus. Sounds like quite the undertaking....and diecast is always such a PIA to work with. Look forward to what your progress.

MR

[james_coldicott]

Nick,

whether or not it is finished in time remains to be seen- just decided to postpone some of my other projects and get on with this one first- partly in response to your challenge- have you started the tractor yet? 

I'm sure Liberty ROSE won't mind too much being called Liberty May or Liberty Belle but you are a braver man than me to try! ;

Hope the trip goes well and you manage to avoid too much of a surfeit...

Marc,

yeah I know- I hate diecast too (except for the amount of cheap vehicles available in 1/43)- I'm just trying to decide whether to open up and square the window apertures or just leave well alone. Tricky enough scribing around the door panels etc- any suggestions?

James

[shropshire lad]

James ,

   Sorry about this misnaming of your "little precious" , I knew I should have checked with Angela before writing . Maybe I'll hold off from calling her the other names until I've got myself some Dutch courage .

  No I haven't started the tractor . I opened the box and got it out , had a look at what Chuck has been doing with his Fordson and put it back in the box . Maybe I'll get it out again in 10 years time ! For anyone who is curious about what we are talking, I was given one of the Universal Hobbies 1:16th scale Fendt Dieselross tractors that was being discussed a couple of weeks ago elsewhere on the Forum by the same person who gave James the railbus . I really don't know what I could do with it , so I'll just store it for the time being .

  Nick

[james_coldicott]

So a bit of progress- sorry for the horrible quality of the photo's- very overcast and rainy here today! So, I didn't find any wheels suitable for a split axle arrangement on the front trucks so this is what I came up with instead. These are steel rimmed KB scale wheels with new turned stepped axles to set the correct back to back (.672" if memory serves). One tire of each wheelset is shorted to the axle by soldering fuse wire to the front of the tire and passing it through a hole in the plastic centre then wrapping it around the axle- you have to be fairly ginger with the soldering iron so as not to melt the plastic wheel centre!

The truck sideframes are some old brass HOn3 ones from the scrap box and copper clad bolster to allow the pickups to be isolated.

Once I get some brake beams and shoes on there you won't notice the pickups quite so much...

[james_coldicott]

...other side...

[james_coldicott]

because I've ended up with pickups on the front wheels (I hate having pickups on un-powered wheelsets) I'm adding a shed load of lead wherever I can to the body to help the wheels track properly under the pressure of the pickups.

[james_coldicott]

I've also scribed around the door openings- a pretty fine scribe but will be more visible when painted. I am loathe to strip all the paint off the body but as it has chipped so much may end up having to... the paint has all been keyed slightly with a fibreglass pencil...