HOn2½ Tractor Trailer Rail Truck

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Rubber band drive. I need to figure out a wiper system so I
can test it on some track. Just holding the truck and
powering it looks like it might work.


I made a video of the railtruck running on two 1.5volt NiCad batteries. The motor is a 6 volt gear reduction drive powering a rubber band drive. It's running about half speed at 3 volts. This at least proves the concept of using a rubber band to drive the truck. I also got to thinking of using a battery to power the truck and Radio Control. More on this later. Here's a video testing the drive out on the truck.


I made some improvements on the railtrucks drive axle. The original wheels I had on the rear axle of the truck where to large in diameter and would derail on the tight N scale radius track. So I took a pair of 40" diameter N scale wheels and mounted them on the axle. Works much better. I also made a brass floor for the trailer and added the axle. A couple of pictures.


After having made the drive component improvements I found that the rubber band was stretching. The search was on for new drive components. Once source that was great for drive line ideas is the Central London Area Group. CLAG. Through them I discovered Nigel Lawton's website. He sells drive line components like what I was looking for. So an order was placed for drive belts. Nigel Lawton's website

Now that I had the drive line problem solved I was ready to continue with the possibility of using R/C with battery power. I confiscated a battery out of one of these toys. The battery is a 1S Li-po 3.7V battery at about 320ma.

I did a trial run with one battery to see how long it would last.
On a fully charged battery the truck ran for over six hours.
Here's a video. I added some model railroad humor.


Every time I looked at that truck there was something bugging
me about it. I finally figured it out. It was to wide and to high.
That P.I.E. trailer is 8 feet wide and 8.5 feet high. Way to big for
30" gauge. A quick search on the net gave me the answer. The
Main Two Footers were 6 feet to 6 feet 6 inches wide. Probably
will make mine 6 feet high. So a scratchbuilt trailer is in the
making. I finally came up with a good design for a trailer. I
drew up a design on CAD and printed it out. Glued it to a
piece of cardboard so see if the design would work or not.
It's sort of a goose neck trailer.


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