Faller Railbus re-gauging and restoration.

[Narrow Minded]

Many thanks to Jack (90733 of this parish), the management of the W&L can now realise their vision of a railbus replacement for the revenue losing services.
All previously inspected vehicles had driving cabs at one end only and the required turning deemed them unsuitable.

Very quickly the "Playtrain" and "Intercity" stickers were removed (I thought they were heavy duty transfers that would need loads of work - instead they just peeled off and all I needed to do then was quickly wipe off the glue residue with a de-greaser )

The vehicle was then totally stripped to its component parts;



All there excluding the glazing (which needs no work so has been "stored" safely ready for re-assembly) and the wheelsets which are being replaced.
There is only one screw (which holds the cover on the power bogie) - the rest simply un-clips! A little care has to be taken and I used an engineers 6" metal ruler which was nice and thin enough to gently separate joints and ease them away from the locating lugs.
The end glazing (screen and quarter lights in one piece) took the longest to remove to avoid any damage, but even they were a simple "push in and down" technique in the end!

So, the body parts are ready for paint and the interior awaits seating etc. Meanwhile attention turns to the motion;



The trailing bogie is at the top with the parts of the power bogie below it.
The plan is to try and keep the railbus as original as possible (hence the "restoration" title) so I plan on attempting to re-use these as far as possible.

The axle arrangement turned out to be 2mm diameter for the trailing wheelsets and 3mm on the driver - so there's the first hurdle

here's a close-up of the motor block, along with The Screw;



The observant will have already noticed that this unit is actually a universal bit of kit - there are fittings for three wheelsets.
The horizontal motor mount makes this a definite "keeper"

As for the trailing bogie;



no, I'm not going for wooden axles The cocktail stick is keeping the wheels to gauge while I check for "wriggle room" and plot the next installment of this project

[mandatrix]

Whilst working on your Faller railbus the decision will be how to colour it

[laalratty]

Whilst working on your Faller railbus the decision will be how to colour it

I can't see that colour scheme going down well at the Westwood and Loscoe...
An interesting project Greg, I'm intrigued to see just how you go about regauging this

[Chris Cairns]

I guess in keeping with the full size WLLR theme it could be painted up as the 'Wasp', although as it is a German generic model perhaps a more Continental Europe colour theme would be appropriate, and still in keeping with the full size WLLR worldwide theme.

Are you going to make use of the track side operated reversing switch?

Chris Cairns.

[Andrew]

Whilst working on your Faller railbus the decision will be how to colour it

I can't see that colour scheme going down well at the Westwood and Loscoe...
An interesting project Greg, I'm intrigued to see just how you go about regauging this

Now that's a shame, I think they look nice in chocolate and cream:



As well as being the livery of my old West Kent Light Railway and reminding me of watching the KESR's old AC Cars railbus from the battlements of Bodiam Castle in the early 80s (their house colours were C&C too back then), it kind of fits with the dubious blurb I wrote for mine on my website:

"When I'm feeling in need of a vaguely plausible "history" for my stock it becomes a 1950s attempt to provide economical winter services on the Vale of Rheidol line, later sold on to the WKLR's preservationists. Like some of BR's other railbuses of the era we can suppose that it was constructed by Germany's Waggon und Maschinenbau company - and perhaps that a mix up between metric and imperal measurements accounts for its rather small size..."

Told you it was dubious...

If you do go for a two-tone colour scheme I found it surprisingly easy to paint those moulded stripes on the side to represent gold/black/gold lining. Where the mouldings stop across the doors I bridged the gap with microstrip to maintain the look.

I've got another one somewhere which I'm tempted to paint in a version of BR green after travelling on the GlosWarks' "bubblecar" - either with "speed whiskers" or with small yellow warning panels and a white bit above the cab roof.

I still use the switch on the side to control mine manually, but have retained the underfloor switch too, which I activate with little loops of coathanger wire to run a basic automated shuttle.

I'll be interested to see how you deal with the red plastic wheels. The black I added paint has rubbed off mine, so it looks a bit garish down below...

Good luck with the project - I'm a big fan of these little railcars. Forget my Roundhouse and Accucraft products - my railcar's my wife's favourite!

Cheers,

Andrew

[jim@NAL]

that's fantastic l

[Narrow Minded]

Nice paint jobs (shame about the colour! )

[Narrow Minded]

Serious head back on now

The body is currently in the paintshop (hurray for dry weather!) and to answer your questions Chris, I'm planning on replacing the wheelsets with metal ones during the re-gauging and yes - I'll be keeping the standard controls. (If you could embellish your "coat hanger auto reverser" I'd be most grateful )

[Andrew]

(If you could embellish your "coat hanger auto reverser" I'd be most grateful )

Hello,

I'd like to pretend that the Cox's Railcar Reversal Ramp is a wildly complex invention, but in fact it's a very simple device inspired by an incident on a friend's line when another Faller loco changed direction on encountering a particularly bushy clump of "Mind Your Own Business" growing in the "two foot". After that I examined the original Faller control mechanisms (great big lumps of unattractive plastic) and realised I could do the same thing with a simple loop of wire:



And that's all there is to it. As the railcar approaches the little lever on the bottom of the powered bogie engages with the loop and is pushed across, putting the railcar into reverse. The only vaguely tricky bit is getting the loop at the right height (too low and it sails on past, too high and it stops the train) and the right way round. I think you'd want yours slanting in the opposite direction to mine because at some point or other my railcar had its wires crossed, quite literally, and goes backwards when the lever on the side indicates it's going forwards...

Hope that's useful,

Andrew.

[Narrow Minded]

Perfect, thanks Chris - I'll certainly be copying that so I can set up a "Shuttle Service" when the mood takes me

Been busy with other stuff recently but here's some more progress;

Panels etc painted - just need to sort out the seating arrangements for the passengers now!





Body out of the paintshop too ready for lettering, roof still in primer awaiting a colour decision







And here's the Busted Bricks replacement steel wheels - a PERFECT match!

[Andrew]

Perfect, thanks Chris - I'll certainly be copying that so I can set up a "Shuttle Service" when the mood takes me

Happy to oblige, it does work pretty well - but I'm Andrew, not Chris!

The steel wheels look good. Wonder whether they'd fit the original axles? I could be tempted, partly to lose my red wheels problem but also to get a bit of "clickety-clack" going on...

Cheers,

Andrew.

[Catweasel]

Re. Busted Bricks wheels. I have a mains version of the chassis E-Train. I intend to convert to battery power and fit steel wheels, which are on order. If the axles are 3 mm, the wheels will go straight on,if smaller it's no problem fitting a larger axle. The fun bit I'll have is fitting rods to the chassis. Years ago I had a Graham Lamb loco named Peregrine based on this chassis and she had rods. I lost the loco in a house fire and am going to build a replica, with modern bits.

[Narrow Minded]

Sorry Andrew, I'm making a habit of mixing-up names at the moment - hope it's not becoming a trademark!

Only the driving axle is 3mm, the other three are closer to 2mm. It looks like an easy job to open out the bogies to accept the replacement 3mm axles though.
(BTW just in case they're needed, the traction tyres fit the steel wheels!)

[dougrail]

Oh hello


Brilliant - looking forward to seeing this new shiny very soon!

[DolwyddelanLightRail]

Seeing the Intercity sticker on that has given me an idea...it's probably a very good idea I don't do anything battery wise in 16mm!

Are the dials on the cab desk painted on or a print out and stick on?

[Chris Cairns]

Hi Greg,

I thought I had a battery Playtrain rail car (found the 12V track powered one) but a box of Faller bits & pieces eludes me at present (I'm sure I also have the DB red unpowered rail car trailer).

On the bottom of your engine unit there is an orange/red pin that protrudes down. This is used to stop and change direction of the rail car using track mounted switches.

This is the change-O-matic track (from a Hit Train set).



With the red lever vertical the rail car will stop on top of the yellow channel. Rotate the red lever to either side and that will set the direction, thus if the rail car comes from the other direction it will be reversed.



The orange switch above controls direction (rail car will run to the right). So if a rail car comes from the right it will have it's direction reversed, but if it comes from the left it will continue straight ahead to the right. The yellow/red switch above is a stop switch. Rail car will be stopped if it approaches from the left (I think it continues over this switch if it comes from the right). Once stopped you hold the red lever to the left and the rail car will reverse back to the left.



So effectively what Andrew has made is a direction switch, but as he says you need to get the diagonal part orientated correctly and decide which is the front of the rail car - powered bogie or un-powered bogie  (no confusion with the Playtrain/Hit Train locomotives which is front).

Are the dials on the cab desk painted on or a print out and stick on?

James, Greg has very cleverly highlighted the moulded parts on the cab console by painting them exceedingly well.

Chris Cairns.

[Narrow Minded]

That's a great set of photo's and descriptions of the track system, thanks Chris
I should definitely be able to rig up automation for the "Inter Village 12.5" now!

I suppose fitting some original track parts would be pretty straightforward if any turn up, failing that Andrews "bent wire" (or maybe a bit of rail?) will do the job!

At the moment I don't have any passenger seating. Jack (90733, who kindly supplied the railbus) says he's found three, so I'll still be one short.
Does anyone have a spare passenger seat please?
Failing that, could anyone take a photo of one that I could use to make a start on scratchbuilding from?

[Narrow Minded]

...it's probably a very good idea I don't do anything battery wise in 16mm!

Just out of interest James - why not?

[jim@NAL]

I have a set of seats out of an LGB carriage. would that be any help

[Narrow Minded]

I have a set of seats out of an LGB carriage. would that be any help

Not sure at the moment - I can see where and how the seats fit, but I've no idea yet what size or shape the originals were
I'll certainly come back to you once I get some more info Ta