Inspection Car - JBRR

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Inspection Car

Locos

One of my magazines had an article on track inspection cars, and they included this advertisement from the early 20th century.
I really like the look of the motorized one.  I made an earlier one using the Radio Shack Zip Zaps, but it really doesn't last long on a charge. Jon Radder in Massachusetts provided me with a Stomper, so I decided to use that as a base for a new one.
I got some spoked wheels from Ozark and crafted the rest from styrene, brass wire, and Sculpey.

The woman is a commercial figure, but the man was scratch-built using brass wire and Sculpey.

The Stomper runs on a single AA battery and can make many laps on a single charge.

I routed the headlight from the Stomper to light the lantern.


Now I have something that can make the rounds on my layout.

It still goes a bit too fast for my taste, but you can't have everything.

Radio Shack sells little remote control battery powered cars, called ZipZaps.   Ever since I first saw them, I thought there had to be a use for them.   I picked one up on sale for $12.
They come with a little charger to power the car.  The charger takes 4 AA batteries and takes about a minute to charge the car.   Yep, that's right, you also don't get a LOT of time for this to run!   But, the charger also functions as your RC.   It does forward, reverse and steering.
All of a sudden, I was inspired.   I thought this could work!
It's a bit faster than I really wanted, but where else can you get battery and RC for $12????   :)  It only runs for a couple of minutes, but it looks sweet going down the track.
So, after playing around with some styrene, some old motor parts, and some O scale trucks, I came up with my version of the narrow gauge inspection car!

Update:  10/23/07
The battery in this car no longer works which is why I built the new one above.

 
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