Waggon und Maschinenbau railbus

[steammemories]

Hello everyone. I was up at the K&WVR today and got some pictures and video's of the railbus. It was doing it's usual early morning rns before the steam services.

 

You can see them at

 

http:/steammemories.blogspot.com

 

The Metropolitan Camnel DMU was on the move too.

 

Steam service was by the Riddles Austerity 90733

[giralnif73]

Here is a photo of the motor and flywheels inside my railbus after cleaning. I stripped the model this far because the running was so lumpy. I found a blob of white grease in the gap between one flywheel and the chassis casting, while the end bearings on the motor axle were bone dry.

 

DSCF6265.jpg

 

The model seems to have been designed as a sealed unit, to be thrown away when it goes wrong with no regard for future serviceability. The mechanical design is inconsistent: vulnerable parts which need strength for longevity, like axle guards, are plastic mouldings held by tiny plastic dowels, while the buffers, which will never do anything, are metal and sprung. The model seems to have been built to have the power to haul a train, when what was needed was something which was fun to own, use and maintain.

 

I will need to get professional help to get this model back together again and I suggest that if anyone has another model that runs badly, return it for repair or exchange without touching it further. These models are, after all, supposed to be 'ready to run'.

Very interested in your comments on this topic. Can you advise how to get into the motor housing as I have a replacement motor to fit. I have got as far as removing the upper body, weighted "roof" and seating unit!

[47137]

Very interested in your comments on this topic. Can you advise how to get into the motor housing as I have a replacement motor to fit. I have got as far as removing the upper body, weighted "roof" and seating unit!

Hi and welcome to the forums!

 

I sold my model on soon after I got it running. All I can really remember (and the passing of the years won't help here) was the model had a variety of fragile, glued-one details under the chassis which had clearly gone on after the motor ... I really wanted to take these off, and I couldn't. Reassembly needed some force, and I couldn't apply this without breaking things.

 

Hopefully someone else here has some pictures of the insides.

 

- Richard.

[BrushVeteran]

Very interested in your comments on this topic. Can you advise how to get into the motor housing as I have a replacement motor to fit. I have got as far as removing the upper body, weighted "roof" and seating unit!

Why don't you ring Mike at Howes (01865 848000 Mon, Tues & Thurs). We has repaired one or two of these.

[08221]

DCC'd my Railbus tonight, had the seemingly common issue of the horns flying when prised from the roof.

 

Managed to find one, no sign of the other; does anyone know if replacements are available please.

 

Thanks in advance

[robertcwp]

On 22/09/2013 at 21:25, Sam Moss said:

Anyone had any gear mesh problems with their railbus? Mines ran ok for nearly a year but during a wheel cleaning session the other week I noticed one axle was only intermittently driving. The other isn't brilliant so its currently sat in bits in its box. After investigation it seams that the two halves of chassis that sandwiches the motor wasn't fully down. Having nipped up the screws, all this has done is strip the thread therefor the self tappers do nothing resulting in the motor having enough movement to stop drive to the axles. Once I've found enough bigger self tappers I'll have ago a reassembling to see if its repairable. I'm not looking forward to refitting all the electrics......

I have encountered a related problem. On my one, the gear wheels are not fixed to the axles so they spin and the axles don't. Looks like poor engineering to me. The gear wheels seem to be a simple push fit except that they are not tight enough to the axles.

 

I wonder if my other two railbuses will go the same way. One is AC Cars and the other Park Royal.

[tanatvalley]

I converted mine to EM sometime ago and it ran fine but when I tried it last week it did not run and there was only whirring from the motor. On investigation the final drive gear attached to the axle was loose and had split. This has happened to both axles. My EM converted AC Cars Railbus has not suffered this fate. Replacement wheels are marked ‘Out of Stock’ at Howes. 

 

How common is this problem? Does anyone have a solution?

[stewartingram]

Mine split after standing a considerable time, virtually unused. I also noted a missing axlebox assembly. A phone call to the nice gentleman at Howes soov sorted it out. He stripped spares off a broken one and posted them to me at a very reasonable cost.

 

Stewart

[boxbrownie]

Not sure if this exactly the correct thread, but I bought my Railbus as soon as they became available since then it has been in its box, but before Christmas I decided to buy a sound decoder for it and yesterday I fitted said decoder, all went well the horns came out without damage and even the door hand rails (after first releasing one end) stayed well away from the carpet monster.

Anyhoo….as I said it went well, used the supplied Loksound speaker which come already wired to the decoder, I used all the speaker enclosure spacers and sealed/glued it well with normal plastic magic glue and I must say that speaker which most people (including myself up till now) actually sounds very good.

My reason for this post though is the interior lighting, I have read about the loose/unconnected red wire and sure enough as soon as I took the roof/top off there was the red wire laying there unconnected to anything, and that’s before even touching anything. Testing the interior lighting proved to be wasted as the LEDs did not light which I thought might be due to the red wire but upon inspecting the wiring extremely closely there seemed to be no where the red wire would connect to, even taking the LED board out of the small black housing proved there were just two solder connections which were populated by the black wires, I looked carefully at the main circuit board and noticed the other end has a CN8 connector socket so took the interior lighting loom out of the roof reversed the assembly so the loom now reached the spare connector and what do you know, both interior lights worked!

So that was a success……until I noticed the lights are soooooo dim as to be useless, but probably much like in the prototype, no doing the Times Crossword in this Railbus.

 

Now it’s all working lovely, driving extremely smoothly like all my Heljan models and sounds great……after reading this thread no waiting for the cogs to split (I thought that was limited to my Heljan 7mm Locos). 

[paul 27]

Looking to purchase the new model when released, what motor is fitted

the regular 5 pole or is it coreless.

[Hal Nail]

8 hours ago, paul 27 said:

Looking to purchase the new model when released, what motor is fitted

the regular 5 pole or is it coreless.

https://www.hattons.co.uk/newsdetail?id=1081

[boxbrownie]

10 hours ago, paul 27 said:

Looking to purchase the new model when released, what motor is fitted

the regular 5 pole or is it coreless.

Not sure but the old one is as smooth as silk with a V5 Loksound fitted (and was excellent on D.C.).

[rorz101uk]

Hi all, 

 

I’ve just got my railbus out for a run, I’m sure when I brought it run fine. I’ve just been on Olivia trains and it say the second hand ones have been fitted with new cogs. When was this announced? Looks like I need new cogs?
 

 

[cctransuk]

48 minutes ago, rorz101uk said:

Hi all, 

 

I’ve just got my railbus out for a run, I’m sure when I brought it run fine. I’ve just been on Olivia trains and it say the second hand ones have been fitted with new cogs. When was this announced? Looks like I need new cogs?
 

 

 

I think that what they are selling are secondhand models that were returned with split cogs - which they have repaired with replacement cogs; (new or secondhand cogs is not clear).

 

I would guess that there should be a semi-colon between 'Pre-owned' and 'replacement ....'.

 

As it stands, it could be misleading; but I'm sure that this isn't intentional - I think!

 

CJI.

Edited March 14, 2022 by cctransuk

[tanatvalley]

On 13/01/2020 at 19:50, tanatvalley said:

I converted mine to EM sometime ago and it ran fine but when I tried it last week it did not run and there was only whirring from the motor. On investigation the final drive gear attached to the axle was loose and had split. This has happened to both axles. My EM converted AC Cars Railbus has not suffered this fate. Replacement wheels are marked ‘Out of Stock’ at Howes. 

 

How common is this problem? Does anyone have a solution?

I found a solution. Ultrascale cut a new gear for me, see https://www.ultrascale.uk/eshop/products/view/CAT015/557