Fort Wayne - Lima Interurban Combine #91 painted and lettered

Paul Mayer (shoreline decals) has built my Fort Wayne - Lima Combine to perfection and striped and lettered it as # 91 with the decals he made for my car.

This reminds me that I have to finish a lot of my own models, even if I would not meet this perfection.

Instructions - Fort Wayne Lightweight Combine (FW&L, ISC, IRR, ORR)

Mounting instructions for the St.Louis build Interurban combines.

This instructions will be updated and illustrated, and later moved to my "models" page interurbanmodels.blogspot.com



Available Versions:

1. Fort Wayne - Lima (available)
2. Indiana Service Corporation (available)
3. Indiana Railroad (coming very soon)
4. Oklahoma Railroad (coming soon) 

The original Fort Wayne- Lima combine (left) was a two man car and run the baggage (B) end forward. The three other cars were one manned and run the passenger door (A) end in front (right on both photos).

Except this, all cars were very similar. On the model, the Bowser motor bogie is located on the B side for all versions. The main difference is the position of the pilot, on version 1 the pilot is located on end B, on version 2 to 4 on end A.

General considerations:

3D prints are not always totally exact to scale. I provided enough space, but if the body doesn't fit over the frame even with some light sanding, you must claim at Shapeways. Nearly all holes a provided on my parts, but not always have the good diameter when printed.

The Frosted Detail material of the body is fragile, be very careful when cleaning and handling. When you have broken a part, you can glue it with a drop of Cyanoacrylate. Don't be discouraged. Sometimes, I have replaced a broken part with styrene strips.

On the opposite, the Strong&Flexible plastic of the floor and the bogie frames is very resistant and dicfficult to cut or sand. If you have ordered the black floor, you don't need to paint this parts.

Tools:

• Various cleaner (medical alcohol, acetone, toothpaste, soap)
• Small screwdrivers
• Small drills 0.3 to 2 mm
• Fine sandpaper
• Soldering iron with small head
• Cutting knife
• Glue (Cyanoacrylate)

Needed parts:

• Bowser traction drive (28" or 26" wheels) or a Bowser PCC. The original car had 28" wheels when new. 
• Working trolley pole (a plastic dummy pole is included in my floor kit).
• Transparent plastic for glazing

Motorization:

I cannibalize Bowser PCC using the motor, the bogies and the circuit bord with his metal pins. The lights could perhaps be reused, but I have not yet tried out. I unsolder the lights and store them. The surplus PCC shells are also collected for further use. But you can also use a Bowser spare traction drive

Step 1/ Unmount the PCC drive, starting with the cable connectors. Mark the position of cables, if you are not sure how to remount them. Unscrew the motor truck bolster and the trailing truck. Unmounting the motor bogie requests to remove the wheel cover and the wheels. Unscrew the motor. Remove carefully the metal pins supporting the circuit board.

Step 2/ Remount the PCC drive (or mount the spare part drive), start by screwing the motor.

(to be followed)

Fort Wayne - Lima Interurban lightweight Combine

The Fort Wayne - Lima lightweight combine stands beside his one-manned Indiana Service Corp cousin.

Both cars are motorized with Bowser drives.

The models are hand-painted, except the can sprayed primer coat.

Functional Tall Lights for H0 Interurbans

I will try to make a test to print tall lights with the car body, who could be made functional by glueing small red LED behind the holes.

Wait and see how it comes out of the printer ...

Engineers dream (2) - the test of truth

For "Engineers dream, Vol 1", see here

Yesterday, I received the first beta print of the Fort Wayne - Lima Traction Lightweight Combine.

The first and biggest surprise was the pilot, 3D printed in brass. The quality of this print done by i.materialise in Belgium is amazing! The pilot bars are only 0.5 mm thick.

This means that in the future, ANY detail of a car could be reproduced within 3D technology, and that even a second rated craftsman like me could build a first class H0 model ...

The only shadow: brass printing is expensive, with high fix costs. But a whole car kit (without motor) will remain in a reasonable prize range.

The second surprise was that I am not so bad as an engineer. All comes together: car body, frame, truck frames...

Cannibalizing a Bowser PCC, this car is mounted in less than one hour. There are just some holes who must be widened, I will perhaps fix some issues in the final version.

You can even reuse the Bowser circuit board and lighting. The car is running smooth, even through curves with a radius of 16 centimeters.

The third surprise is that I have lost the riveting when exporting the file for printing. But there are just  some parameters to change, and the hard weeklong riveting work will reappear

Ft Wayne Combine ready to print

The print order was sent out today.

One of the last add-ons was a chimney. This high chimney were still visible when the cars were sold to the Oklahoma Railways.

(Of course I will do this version too...)

Ft Wayne - Lima Interurban Combine - The blueprint

Fort Wayne - Lima Interurban Combine, St. Louis Car Co, 1923

An engineers dream

FortWayne - Lima interban car kit, HO scale

An engineers dream is when all is coming together and is matching well.

Now I will check all the clearances all the details for a very last time, check how the Bowser drive will match, and then this model will be "bon à tirer" (good to print).

Ft Wayne Interurban Combine - Unterbody parts

Only few images exists from the Fort Wayne - Lima Interurban Combine, and the unterbody parts are hardly to see on them. Fortunately, better photos exist from the mostly identical Indiana Service Corp cars.

On one side we can see
1 - a fuse box reverser box
2 - a four bloc resistor grid, with perhaps the 3rd position empty
3 - a drawbar
4 and 5 - air tanks

On the other side there are
1 - probably the compressor
2 - an unknown small cubic device
3 - the brake cylinder
4 - an unkown device with a chain
5 - a square box, probably the switch box

Does anybody have further information about this parts? What is the unknown device #4 with his "bicycle chain" ?

Ft Wayne Combine: Last adds on the rear end

Building a roof mat is always a tricky affair. But now it is done.

I installed also a trolley retriever. Can't await to order a first print soon.

Commonwealth truck frames for the Ft Wayne Interurban

The Fort Wayne -Lima Combines had Commonwealt cast steel trucks for small 28" wheels.

The main frames of this truck were slightly incurved upside. Unthinkable to produce this Interurban car without this detail.

As the carbody and frame, this truck frames will be adapted for Bowser drives

Fort Wayne Interurban Combine roof details

Rear view of a Fort Wayne - Lima Interurban combine

There is no known photo about the roof details of this car. Except one. The Bill Volkmer Collection contains a photo of the Fort Wayne Interurban Terminal, taken probably in the late 20ies.

On the right track stands one of the combines that I build.

Even as details are very hard to detect, some interesting features are clearly visible: the long trolleyboard, the position of the ventilators, and the location of the retriever.

Fort Wayne Interurban Terminal

Checking clearances of the Bowser drive

Ft Wayne - Lima Interurban with Bowser drive

To check the clearances of the Bowser Drive, I modelized the essential parts in "full scale". The blue parts are the original Bowser parts who will be translated onto the custom made floor of the Fort Wayne - Lima combine.

Obviously, the free view accross the passenger compartment is lost. This may be achieved later with an Hollywood drive.

Motorisation of the Ft Wayne - Lima Combine

Engineering of the floor plate is under way, in its first version for the Bowser drive. Later I will try a Hollywood Foundry "high end" motorisation.

With a Bowser drive, the car could look like this. Bogie rotation, currently about 16°, may be improved up to a maximum of 20°.

3D brass printed pilot

This is the renedring of the 31-spoke pilot, with his fixing structure.

Drawing this part, with his incurved upper and triangular lower part, was not so easy as it could seem.

Now, I hope that the result would meet my expectancies...

A fine brass pilot for the Ft Wayne Interurban Combine

The Fort Wayne -Lima Interurban combines and their sister cars had some very light steel pilots. 3D printing such a fine piece in resin is impossible. For this part, I will try out 3D brass printing. In fact, not the brass is printed, but the lost wax moulding. This process is expensive, but permits wall thickness down to 0.5 millimeters.

One pilot would cost as much as the half of an entire resin printed carbody. But it is worth to be tried out.

The 3D brass printing process is presented here : http://i.materialise.com/materials/brass

Ft Wayne-Lima Combine - riveting the rounded ends

The riveting of the rounded ends is particular complicated and time consuming. I found a new procedure to accelerate this procedure in Cinema4D. One single rivet is cloned following a given radius and start/end angle. This may speed up the painful riveting work and soon I could start to design the floor plate. A first plate would be prepared for a Bowser PCC drive. With a Hollywood drive this car could be equipped with full interior seating.

The doorsteps will be part of the floor plate this time, as no radial coupler is required for this car.

Fort Wayne & Lima semi-lightweight combine

The Fort Wayne & Lima Railroad purchased in the 20ies several semi-lightweight combines built by St. Louis in an effort to cut operating costs. Identical cars were delivered to the Indiana Service Corporation. Shortly after delivery, this cars were one-manned by turning "back to front"

When the Fort Wayne -Lima was abandoned in 1932, five cars were purchased by the Oklahoma Railway. A sixth car, #91, was used as a building and is presevered by the Illinois Railway Museum.

This car is currently drawn as a printable 3D file. Most of the variants (Ft Wayne & Lima, ISC, Indiana Railroad, Oklahoma Railroad) would be made available. Motorisation could be a Bowser or a Hollywood Foundry drive.