THE LITE AND NARROW: Maintenance Trailer for a Speeder Ramblings on Narrow Gauge and Branchline Modeling
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An easy to build MOW model you can’t buy at any store ...
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everal months ago I purchased the Woodland Scenics track maintenance figures in O scale. Included with the set was a static handcar for standard gauge in O scale, but I model On30. It was a case of discard the item, put it away forever in the parts box or do something with it.
Lew Matt is a published writer, photographer, and illustrator whose work has appeared in many model railroad hobby magazines.
Since I was planning to build a trailer for my maintenance speeder anyway,
I decided to use the handcar as the basis for the trailer project. It already had some railroad tools cast into the floor, so I was a few detail pieces ahead of the game. (For the speeder construction article, see the Nov.Dec. 2010 issue of Model Railroad Hobbyist, page 125.) Standard gauge would never do, of course, and a static model just isn’t my thing. After viewing a dozen speeder trailers on the internet, I was an energized bunny. I chopped off the plastic wheels and filed all the detail off the ends, bottom and sides. A frame of pre-stained 2” X 8” lumber went around the edge to increase the width and length slightly
and give the car some depth to clear the undercarriage wheels. A 2” X 4” piece of wood was glued from side to side, along the bottoms of both of the old bolsters to raise the trailer up a bit for wheel clearance. When I made the speeder, I used the power truck from the Bachman HO San Francisco cable car. That left the unpowered truck available. Since the wheelbase of the unpowered truck was way too short, I cut the truck apart to separate the axles. I glued the axles to the 2” X 4” bolsters making sure to center and true them. At this stage I discovered that the opening for the wheels under the trailer was a tiny bit too narrow at one end only. A little
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FIGURE 1: The completed maintenance speeder and trailer make an excellent couple and run very well, even on rough track. Page 96 • Issue 11-05 • May 2011 • The Lite and Narrow column, page 1
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