| What or where is Worktown? Worktown is the current incarnation of my motorised 4mm Scale bus layout. Scenically it is set in a typical grim Lancashire mill town of the 1960's and could be Bolton, Bury, Leigh, Tyldesley, Rochdale.......you get the idea! It gives me an excuse to have buses from almost any of the former fleets that were absorbed into SELNEC and GMT. Ribble and Lancashire United are regulars as well! Why motorised? Ok, time for the Jon Fitness boring quote:- "If you went to a model railway exhibition and nothing moved on the layouts, what would you do?" I would really like more bus modellers to have a go at motorising. It can't be that difficult if I can manage it!! It animates the hobby and could well bring in more interest especially to the younger end where the future members of the MBF need to come from.
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Worktown depot Motorised? What's all that about then? The motorised vehicles are a mix of kits and altered diecast models and are battery powered mostly using heavily modified Faller(tm) chassis. They are powered by rechargeable batteries and have a steering axle at the front. Attached to the steering gear is a small arm with a magnet on the end. The magnet traces a buried steel wire in the road surface. Where the wire goes, so goes the bus! The buses stop and start by means of an on board reed switch, which is triggered by strategically placed magnets under the road surface. The main downsides of this are cost (Those Faller buses aren't cheap!) and scale. British outline model buses are generally 1/76 scale (OO) and the Faller buses are 1/87 scale (HO) slightly smaller and narrower. It means the wheels are smaller, the track is narrower but has the slight advantage that a HO bus will fit inside a OO one (just!). Below, I have started an article on motorising a bus, using one of the more difficult conversions, but one which will be useful for the more common rear engined types. A rear entrance half cab conversion will follow!
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| Motorising an EFE Atlantean |
This is how I motorised my Bolton Transport Atlantean.
It's not the only way to do it, but it does show how to use a Faller bus
as a power unit. The technique should also cover other rear-engined
buses. It's a bit more complicated than the usual "straight into a single decker" job because for it's size, the atlantean is a bit cramped for space. There is some serious surgery required to both bus and chassis! Read on........! |
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| 1 | Start by stripping down the Atlantean and removing the
entire floor area, right to the edges. This in itself is not a simple
job and is best done with a slitting disk in a mini-drill, slowly and
carefully. Usual warnings about goggles etc apply here. The rear engine cowl can remain in place.
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| 2 | You should end up with a lower deck looking like this.
Smooth the cut edges with a file or emery paper. Place to one side and start on Faller bus chassis. |
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| 3 | I used the dual door single deck bus that comes in the
starter set for my power unit. The roof, windows and interior are
removed and discarded, and you are left with just the bottom half.
Remove any remaining superstructure down to level with the lower edge of
the windows. Loosen the batteries from the base, take note of which wires go where for future reference and unsolder or cut the wires to the batteries and the reed switch. Remove them and keep them safe for later.
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| 4 |
Carefully remove the pin that the front steering axle swings on and
remove the axle and magnetic steering arm. Store these carefully for
later.
At a point just ahead of the front wheels, cut off the front overhang, leaving the front wheel arch area intact. Use a razor saw and try and keep it square on as you cut. Keep the material you cut off for later on in the job. |
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| 5 |
Next up, at a point just ahead of the rear wheel arch, cut through and
separate the rear half from the front. Again, use a razor saw and cut
square on the edges. Use a mini mitre box if necessary to get a square
cut. Now comes the important bit Carefully measure the wheel base of the bus body you intend to motorise, be it an atlantean or whatever, to obtain the distance between the front and rear axles on the removed base plate. Place the two halves of the cut faller chassis back to back so that the motor is now between the front and rear axles. The former rear overhang of the faller chassis should now be in the middle! Now calculate how much you will have to change the wheelbase of the faller chassis to match that of the atlantean etc. and cut an appropriate amount from the front half of the chassis. Again, keep it square as you will have to rejoin the two halves (back to front of course) Refer to the pictures below if this all seems confusing!
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| 6 |
When you are happy with the fit of the two halves of your chassis, this
is the time to permanently join the halves together checking that all is
square. Fortunately the plastic that the Faller bus is made from will
glue together strongly and simply using a liquid solvent glue such as
"Plastic Weld" or similar. (other glues are available!) for strength,
brace the joint with pieces cut from the previously sliced off sections
of the chassis and allow to harden, preferably overnight.
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| 7 | When the glue has set, re-fit the front steering axle and check that the chassis unit sits properly on it's wheels and make a trial fit in the bus bodyshell. You will probablyhave to open out the chassis wheel arches so that they don't show behind the atlantean's arches. |
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| 8 |
Referring to your notes, re-solder your batteries and reed switch but
with one major change.... Reverse to wires to the motor so that the motor runs the other way round otherwise your bus will go backwards! Also the reed switch will need moving to the nearside of the bus if your stopping devices under the road are set for British driving.
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| 9 |
When you have completed stages 1-8 you should now be ready to trial fit
the modified chassis back into the modified bodyshell. When happy with the fit of it. you may have to glue in a couple of locating strips in the shell to keep the chassis in its correct alignment, while keeping it removable for maintenance. Those batteries are a bit nasty but they can be painted a darker colour to try and disguise them! You can also see from the picture I have fitted a wider front axle. These castings are available from Mark Hughes models and are a worthwhile modification, improving both looks and steering.
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| 10 |
Cut the front step and driving area from the plastic interior moulding
and fit this in it's correct place in the bodyshell to complete the
front end. This should be all you need to do and you should be able to re-assemble the rest of the vehicle and have a test drive. These mods are just a guide and you may come up with better methods yourself, but these basic methods show that most solid based die-cast buses can be motorised. Good luck with yours!
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| The Motorised Fleet. At the moment I have 7 motorised buses, some are modified EFE models and some are modified kits.
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Seddon Midibus from a westard kit with a scratchbuilt chassis. Decidedly less nippy than the real thing was! |
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