ALL ABOARD....
Finally got to the point where time could be spent on the passenger cars. The plan is to make four 10' cars (80' scale), with one being the observation car. At first I was thinking about using aluminum to make these cars, but I quickly realized that welding aluminum required more skill and equipment than what I had. Steel it was. I drew up the plans and bought the steel for all four cars as it was much cheaper than buying material for one at a time. Here is what I want the car to look like via a CAD drawing. The 5 dark gray things on top are the seat cushions.
Well... the steel was delivered. Over 1,000 lbs of it! I had them cut the material to the approximate sizes that I needed to minimize the amount of time it would take me to cut it up and make it easier to handle these long 10' pieces.
Since this car is 10' long, I needed to make sure that it would be strong enough to not sag in the middle. Here is how I made the frame. The spine is made of 1" x 2" steel channel with 3/8" x 2" plates welded on. I later welded a 2" square channel to the middle portion of the frame below to stiffen it up.
The next step was to make the sides. 3/4" square channel was used. The side frame was then welded on to the 1/8" floor.
Here it is with all the sides welded to the floor.
The unit was then flipped over and the frame was welded onto the floor. Here you can see the 2" x 2" channel in the middle of the frame. This thing is SOLID!!! I calculated that each car would weigh about 375 lbs with the trucks. That should give it enough weight to hold it on the tracks when empty. It was assembled in this order to make it easier to move these large heavy pieces around.
Can you say EXCESSIVE!!! My knee and a 3" pipe were used to shape the roof ends. To insure no gaps between the roof and the frame, just about all my clamps were used. It was then flipped over and spot welded.
The original plan was to spot weld the end panels on. I decided to run all the wiring through the frame and needed access to the frame ends. So.... The ends will now be fastened to the frame with some 8-32 machine screws.
There will be 4 adjustable seats that can be moved around for larger/smaller passengers. Here's a view of one of the padded seats.
The side sheets are 15 ga and 10' long. A plasma cutter was used to cut the 13 windows (each side). To assist in this effort, two templates were made for the two size windows.
Here it is with the side panels welded on.
Then I flipped it over to make and install the skirts. This is when I realized how heavy this thing is! (I may need to make stronger horses to hold it up)
Four red LED side lights (2 on each end) will be used. They are pretty bright, so I am experimenting with various resistors to dim them.
Here are the trucks that will be used. Brakes on all 4's.
I used string to pull the wire for the lights through the frame. All that is left to do is to sandblast and paint.
Here it is painted all black (for now). To make the floor less slippery, Herculiner truck bed liner was used on the floor.
Well, it's all done except for the Daylight colors and lettering. The four seats are removable and can be locked in place to allow more/less space for the passengers. The car weighs about 375 lbs with the trucks.
Finally painted the Daylight colors on it. Many of my passengers tell me how smooth the ride is. I'll have to try it out sometime.
Three more to go. Next... the observation car.