After the Wright Brothers and their famous flight, daring young men started adding propellers to everything – including trains. One of the most famous examples is the Schienenzeppelin, which set a land speed record for a petrol-powered rail vehicle when it hit 230.2 kph on the Berlin-Hamburg line. But the fascination for prop-powered rail vehicles extended even to small, obscure, backwoods operations…
This was a palette-cleanser project. Early this year, I finished some projects – such as a trio of cattle wagons – that had hung around the workbench far too long. Feeling a little burnt out on prototype modelling, I wanted to build something purely for fun. So I went hunting in my stash of unbuilt kits and when I found this one, I knew it was time to tackle it.
In the mid-2000s, when my modelling focussed on the two-foot gauge railways of Maine, I used a number of kits from Backwoods Miniatures of the UK to create steam cranes and derricks for the slate quarry that provided the main source of revenue for my model railway. While placing an order, I threw this kit into the basket for lark.
It’s an On30 Aerocar and while I never intended to use it on my layout, I thought it would be a fun build. Plus, it reminded me of a rustic version of the Tri-ang Battle Space Turbo Car – a thing I always wanted as a kid but which, for some reason, my parents wouldn’t buy for me. Maybe they liked my eyes…
Despite the silly subject, this Aerocar is a well-designed and manufactured resin kit with plenty of nicely-executed details and excellent instructions. I thoroughly enjoyed putting it together. That said, I decided early on that I would make a few modifications.
Most notably, I fitted the vehicle with a Lokpilot Micro – a non-sound DCC decoder from ESU – because the instructions made clear that the tiny motor that powers the propeller has a 4V limit. Any more will burn it out. Therefore, I hooked the decoder up to my testing rig and used my multimeter to measure the output voltage to the motor. I then adjusted the maximum speed to 3.5V, to give me some headroom.
As a bonus, the decoder controls the headlight.
I did not take photos of the decoder’s installation but here’s what I did: I ran four wires – track pickup and motor leads – up the centre of the back panel of the cab. This piece has a pair of timber supports cast on the wall and I scratch-built an equipment cabinet door to span these, hiding the wires. I then mounted the decoder (and a resistor to limit voltage to the headlight) to the underside of the roof with some double-sided tape.
The kit, as supplied, includes a pair of shelf brackets and some strip styrene to form a driver’s bench, but I wanted something more elaborate. An online search turned up some lovely brass photo-etched kits for Great Western Railway benches from Severn Models. These are 7mm scale (1:43.5), so they’re larger than the Aerocar’s nominal scale of 1:48 – but I intended to use a 7mm scale figure for the driver – one of the UK Phoenix range figures I used on my Maine two-footer – so the bench would be perfect.
I repurposed the supplied brackets to build a shelf for the driver. For controls, I used the supplied brake wheel, but also added some foot pedals fabricated from styrene strip and phosphor bronze wire, and a pair of levers fashioned from straight pins. A straight pin also supplied the fill pipe and cap for the fuel tank.
I thoroughly enjoyed this project and I’m glad I can move it from the “do to” to the “done” pile. It stoked my enthusiasm for modelling, so I can now get back to the bench to take on some more prototypical projects.
The Model Railway Show 