Trolleyville Times

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SPECIAL: BOWSER POWER TRUCK UNDER WIRE!
See Page 2 for details

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ON PAGE TWO

Special Report - Bowser Power Truck Under Wire!

Photos from the National Train Show at St. Paul.

REGULAR FEATURES

Back Issues.

BOWSER'S NEW TRACTION UNIT UNVEILED AT NATIONAL TRAIN SHOW

TROLLEYVILLE MERCHANTS ATTEND ST. PAUL NATIONAL TRAIN SHOW

Alpine Division Scale Models was represented at the National Train Show by Michael DeGhetto and Bill Kift. Alpine Division makes an excellent line of HO scale structures, O and HO scale traction overhead wire parts and the Innovator throttle, which some feel is the best analog model railroad throttle ever available.

Both Mike and Bill are members of the Southern California Traction Club (SCTC), an HO scale modular traction club using live catenary for power. Bill even serves as the club Treasurer. Actually almost 25% of the entire club was at the St. Paul train show as George Huckaby, representing the Great American Train Shows, LTD was also at the show talking with many retailers and exhibitors about the GATS BuildAKit program. George also owns Custom Traxx, a supplier of authentic HO scale traction decals.

A Bachmann Spectrum 44 tonner spent the entire show pushing one boxcar around a circle of track at about 20 scale mph without stalling.

See Page 2 for photos from St. Paul.

NEW POWER UNIT MAKES PUBLIC DEBUT IN ST. PAUL

The "breadboard" model of the long awaited revised traction power unit was available for examination by the public at the recent National Train Show in Saint Paul, Minnesota on July 23-25, 1999. Eventually this will be the standard power for the HO scale PCC, the Brill Suburban, the LVT Jewett car and the IRR lightweight interurban. All of the body castings must be revised slightly to accommodate the new power unit. Two units were on display, the first is the test unit on the Brill suburban floor, which successfully ran over 200 hours without incident.

The other unit was installed in a Brill suburban which continued to run on their little loop for the entire show. The car is shown as the blur in the back of the picture below. The new power unit's excellence could not be fully demonstrated due to the old power supply used to power the car but it starts moving at 2 volts. [Hint: Maybe a certain Trolleyville Merchant should provide an Innovator 3500.]

Also in the picture are two PCC cars custom painted by Custom Traxx, a Trolleyville merchant. To the left is a model of San Francisco MUNI #1061, formerly Philadelphia #2116, and to the right is Twin Cities #396, later Mexico city #2396. Both of the cars were made from Bowser Streamline PCC Car kits. For those of you trolley fans who have had reservations about Bowser trolleys, most of your problems are history. First, newer production methods have virtually eliminated the flash on the castings. If you get a newer car, you will clearly see what we mean. Secondly, the new unit will allow the PCC car to be the right height over the rail head, namely one scale foot. Remember that even with the limitations of the casting, the casting is a very accurate model of the 1945/46 all-electric 100î wide car without the extremely recessed windshield. Third, if you insist on a flywheel, you can repower if you like but the new unit is eight wheel pick-up so your problems with Atlas crossings and turnouts are now history.

Also, the new unit will allow you, the modeler to get out those Q-car bodies (Brooklyn and St. Louis), BEC kits (San Diego) and IHP bodies (Kansas City and Pittsburgh) and now have your own good running PCC panorama. Why not repower your Boston/San Francisco LRV or power your Philadelphia Kawasaki LRV shell with these new power units when they are available. Call Bowser and get your reservations for the new power unit before CUSTOM TRAXX reserves them all. It wonít cost you much more than the old unit.

Bowser has not forgotten the many of you that have used the PSM and Bowser PCC cars over the years. There will be an adapter for the new truck to fit the older castings. The new power truck requires the mounting screws and the attaching points on the castings to be relocated, so there will be an adapter. One of the adapter designs under consideration was shown at the show:

The arrows show the locations of the current mounting screws and sleeves on the old chassis. They mount to a brass bar which attaches to the new mountings. The new chassis mounts using the same screws and sleeves used for mounting the old chassis, at least for now.

c Bowser still intends to provide painted PCC and Brill Suburban trolleys in the future. So keep checking the Trolleyville newspaper and the model railroad and traction magazines. Two magazines that Trolleyville recommends that you scan frequently are Rail Line News and Trolley Talk. Custom Traxx hopes to have a pilot sample of the new power chassis installed in one of our cars to run at the Ventura GATS in August 1999. We will let you know how it does. For any more information on this subject contact Custom Traxx at 310-475-5597 or E-mail at traxx@earthlink.net