Eric Courtney's
Miniatures by Eric!
A Great Source of Traction Products!
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Several new products will be appearing over the next few months from Eric Courtney, owner of Miniatures by Eric in Busby, Alberta, Canada. Custom Traxx and the Trolleyville Times became aware of Eric many years ago when we discovered his excellent line of HO and O scale trolley poles. When Custom Traxx needed a Kansas City PCC shell to demonstrate their then new decal set in 2007, Eric simply made one for them and the Custom Traxx line of resin castings was born. All of his resin cast bodies that we have used have made wonderful models.

Eric routinely casts between two and three prototype shells prior to releasing the shell to the market. The next photograph shows the progress of the development of the Philadelphia & West Chester / Philadelphia Suburban Trans'n Company 55-76 Center Door Car.

In the photo, the model at top left is an MTS Imports, Inc brass model imported some time ago. In the top center is the second shell from Eric, partially painted before we discovered a problem. In the top right is the first shell submitted by Eric for evaluation. The car in the bottom half of the photo is the current shell that we are evaluating. These shells demonstrate the effort that Eric is willing to invest to get the most correct model practical. Modelers should now that Eric casts purely for the love of it and it shows!

Eric was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in October, 1948. His family moved to California in 1951 to Los Angeles. He spent grades 2 and 3 in the area of Los Angeles known as Watts. At the end of his third grade, the family moved to Whittier, California where he lived until he was drafted by the U.S. Army. He spent 6 years in the Army. When his tour in the Army was complete, he remained in Seattle for about a year. Not being able to find a job, he returned to Canada and found employment with the Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR) as a carman in Calgary, Alberta. He worked there for 5 years and because of the cold winters, he apprenticed as a jeweler and stayed there for 6 years. He was forced to give up the jewelry trade because of a bicycle accident. He had started making brass detail steam parts for his HO scale locomotives during his time as a jeweler so he went full time making CPR and Canadian National Railway (CNR) diesel detail parts. He has been making detail parts for 30 years now. During the last 20 years he has done sidelines. He cast O scale brass CPR and CNR steam engine kits and then started making RTR O scale engines. He also produced ON3 and HOn3 resin kits for a few years. He then caught the bug for trolleys upon joining the Edmonton Radial Railway Society. Eric is shown in the next photo on one of their vintage streetcars.

He then cast a couple of the Edmonton trolleys in resin and he sold quite a few of them. He then decided to make other HO trolley models and trolley poles or them. At this time, the Southern California Traction Club (George Huckaby and Byron Brainard) noticed his Pacific Electric (HT-P1) poles on eBay and gave him some suggestions to improve the operation of the poles. A few years ago, he dove into making N scale trolleys and poles, which have ben received very well. He has been married to Diane for 38 years and have three children. Eric is shown (extreme right, light blue sweater) in the next photo with his wife (red sweater), his three children, their spouses and their children.

We have found Eric always to be a professional, a pleasure to deal with and an asset to the model railroad and traction communities.

Eric's four HO scale trolley poles are still among the best available for operating from live overhead wire. In a very generous gesture, he allowed his design of the Form 11 PCC trolley pole to become the basis for the trolley pole used by the Bowser 126XX series of PCC cars.
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Bowser 126XX series PCC cars arrive!
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As planned, the first of the 126XX (single trolley pole) PCC cars arrived in the United States on March 1st and arrived at Bowser on March 9th. Custom Traxx received their order on March 16th and were so pleasantly surprised at what they found. The major engineering challenge in these models was the illumination of the Toronto Advance Light, SEPTA Subway Light and SEPTA Emergency Beacon. In the latter case, the effect of the rotating beacon had to be created. Determining that this effect can only be reasonably accomplished with a DCC decoder, arrangements were made for a Train Control Systems T6XT decoder to become available specifically for the SEPTA PCC cars.

The initial design by the manufacturer employed standard sized LED's mounted on the main circuit board, allowing the light to flow up to the roof mounted light fixtures. This caused light to be seen trough the plastic shell, given the car a toy-like appearance. Departing from the initial design, the manufacturer created a third circuit board that he mounted under the roof directly under the roof mounted lights, attached the third circuit board to the main board with a three-pin plug and mounted the LED's for the roof lights in the roof lights themselves.

Of course this revised approach was not known to us until we actually removed the shells from the power chassis. The final design mounted super-small LED's in the lights themselves resulting in a striking effect in the SEPTA Subway Light (SKUs 12601/12602) and a very realistic appearing TTC Advance Light (SKUs 12603/12604).

The design employed by the manufacturer, eliminating the requirement to add the two LEDs to the main circuit board, will help speed the process of developing Tsunami sound for the Bowser PCC car by the summer of 2011.

Note 1: When removing any of the 126XX bodies from the chassis, it is suggested strongly that you remove the trolley pole bushing (part 12508) with a needle nose pliers first. The bushing is only held in place by the friction of the contact on the main circuit board. This will avoid losing the bushing.

Note 2: When the body shell is removed from the power chassis for the first time, it may resist due to sticking paint. Just be careful and work the shell, making sure that the tabs that hold the body to the power chassis are pulled away from the floor. The 'toothpick" approach advocated by Con-Cor with their Electroliner could be used here.

Operators of the SEPTA (SKU 12601/12602) cars should be advised that Train Control Systems is marketing a T6XT decoder, designed specifically for these and subsequent Bowser-built SEPTA PCC cars. This is a plug-in decoder that requires two wires to be attached to quick-disconnect plugs on the main circuit board. Connect the purple wire to the terminal marked F4 on the circuit board and connect the brown wire to the terminal marked F5. See the next photo for the location of the terminals. Function 4 operates the Subway Light and Function 5 operates the Emergency Beacon. After that and the normal readdressing action, you are off and running. The T6XT is available from Custom Traxx for $32.95.

Note the terminals F4 & F5 in the above photo. On most of the cars, there are little plastic clips on these terminals. These clips are easily lost if there are no wires in the terminal. Using tweezers, just insert the wire through the hole in the terminal from the bottom and then push the clip onto the terminal. The clip will hold the wire snugly. If the clips have been lost, simply solder the wire to the terminal.

For owners of the TTC (SKU 12603/12604) cars, the M4T works perfectly. Plug the unit into the 8-pin receptacle under the circuit board and connect the loose purple wire to the tab marked F4. The M4T is also available from Custom Traxx for $39.95. The next photo shows one of the Toronto PCCs with the Advance Light illuminated.

The M4T decoder works in the other 126XX series PCCs as well as the 125XX series (San Francisco F-line) PCC cars without any wires to connect.

All the 126XX series PCC cars come with working trolley poles based on the Miniatures by Eric HT-P2 design. Modelers operating from overhead wire should be aware that some of the cast trolley shoes, as is sometimes the case with Precision Scale Trolley wheels and shoes may not be of sufficient width to reliably track through overhead frogs and crossings. Most commercial overhead frogs and crossings are made in compliance with NMRA Specification S-5, which calls for a shoe width of 1/16" or 1.5875 mm. Some of the shoes sampled were as narrow as 1.3 mm. Filing the shoe with a square file until the outer walls of the shoe are very thin will minimize if not eliminate this problem in most cases. shoes can also be replaced with the Bowser 12507 collector which complies with the NMRA Specification.

See the Custom Traxx web site for more information! If a modeler has any questions do not hesitate to contact Custom Traxx.

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Philadelphia Suburban Trans'n Center Door Interurban by Miniatures by Eric!
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The Philadelphia & West Chester Traction Co, predecessor to the Philadelphia Suburban Transportation ordered its first all steel cars in 1919. The 28 Jewett and Brill wooden cars had become insufficient to handle the increasing traffic, These ten cars, numbers 45 to 54, were center door cars with very wide center doors, enabling very fast loading and unloading. Two passengers could enter at the same time two passengers were exiting. They arrived with ornate gold pin-striping, numbers and lettering. Of course these had to be two-man cars, but that was not an issue in 1919. They were not as fancy as the older cars. In fact, they were quite spartan inside, with rattan instead of leather seats. The motorman has his own cab. The cars were very successful.

In 1925, the company bought 10 more, numbered 55 to 64, followed by another 12, numbered 65 to 76 in 1926. The latter 22 cars were almost identical to the first ten but they were 3 inches narrower and 7 inches longer. When the cost of two-man operation became an issue, the company always tried to operate the cars in two-car trains, requiring two conductors but only one motorman. Nine of the first ten cars were scrapped with the arrival of the Brilliners in 1941. Scrapings continued until only eight cars were retained for emergency and snow day use. These cars had the exteriors somewhat modernized by blocking off the upper sash as shown in the next photo. Notice the relocated trolley retriever, the lowered coupler and the anti-climber enlarged to match the lower one-man cars that by now held down base services:

Some of these cars stayed in passenger service until the 1980s. Several are now in museums.

Eric Courtney has developed a striking HO scale resin casting of these cars, which compare favorably to the brass model imported some time ago by MTS Imports, Inc. The car has a pewter floor, also cast by Eric, that accepts the Bowser 125115 traction mechanism (33" wheels). Modelers should appreciate the large amount of effort that goes into making a resin casting but the even more work that goes into trying to make an accurate resin casting. Custom Traxx obtained the first resin casting, mated it to the pewter floor, and installed a Bowser traction mechanism. After a few weeks of examination, there were several problems found with the first shell. They were all identified and discussed extensively with Eric and he subsequently produced a revised second shell. This shell looked really great so assembly started a second time. The shell was modified by blocking off the upper sash as PST had done when modernizing the surviving cars in the early 1960s. The car was then painted in the final cream and red scheme. It was not until decal application began that we discovered another error in the shell ends. This was only discovered because we had chosen the last paint scheme with the end numbers above the flashing red lights. there simply was not enough room to place these numbers in the red area. This started a painstaking look at the end dimensions only to find out that the windows had been undersized along with a few other dimensions oversized. Nothing was out of line by more than 3 inches but cumulatively it made a significant problem. This also points out the difficulties of trying to make a shell like this without others reviewing it. It took so much time to find this and demonstrate it to Eric but once he got it, he knew that the shell had to be revised, even though the shell had already been released. We continue to be impressed to the lengths Eric will go to ensure the most correct shell available. No shooting the messenger here! We were even profusely thanked for our input. This car was to be reviewed in the March 2011 Times but correcting this problem delayed the review one month.

The new shell was received in late February and the process of finishing and mating it to our already prepared floor, with Bowser 125115 traction mechanism and A-line 20040 flywheel kit, began. Eric became aware of the problems painting the "smile" on the front of these cars when using both the second and final two paint schemes. He determined that it would be much easier to mask the front of the car without the headlight, so in this third version, he made the headlight a separate casting. After we painted our car, we drilled a hole in the correct place using a 61 drill, then a 43 and finally a 29. This sure eased the job of painting the ends. The headlight castings will surely ease the process of illuminating the headlights.

We were still testing the car at press time, so here is a photo of the almost finished car testing on one of the Southern California Traction Club Modules and on the Southern California test track.

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