Anyone know of a reasonably priced, 16.5mm gauge, rolling road (or static rollers, stationary test track, or whatever else they may be called)? As I won't have a continuous run on my layout I would like to have some way of 'exercising' locos and this is the obvious solution. However, although I have found reasonably priced "O" and #1 versions I have only seen 2 "HO/OO" units. One is mounted on top of a power unit (Gaugemaster) and costs about £100 ($150) and the other is 'standalone' but costs even more . I thought I saw one in MR a while back, but can't find it - maybe I dreamt it . I might have considered the powered one as it can be used for normal track control as well, but as I'm using DCC this is a no-no. I am seriously considering building my own, but it would be a bit of a job, and with the price of small ballraces (needing 24 to take a 6 axle diesel) it may not save much.
I think I have seen that somewhere, but I can't remember where. I looked in Micro Mark for it, but they don't have it. Could you lay it on its back and run it that way? How about an auto reverse circuit, and run it back and forth on a stretch of track? Either solution would be cheaper than the prices you quoted for the rollers. Russell Hedges
Years ago before all this "store-bought-stuff" was available, we made our own. When plastic wheels first started, we threw them away until my Dad simply pulled some plastic wheels off and turned them around then slid them back on their axel. Then he drilled a row of holes along two small sticks, then glued a spacer block at each end. Then he "C" clamped the two sticks to hold the row of wheels, and used two brass "wipers" to power the engine. Later he made slots to simply drop the wheel sets in, and it was "Duck Soup" to change setting for different engines after that. To clean the wheels while running, he dipped pipe cleaners in alcohol and held against each wheel. The pipe cleaners were easy to clean and got rid of all build-up with no wear to any wheels.
Interesting suggestions Russell, but a proper rolling road has some advantages for me. For cleaning wheels the upside down system is fine, but for running in you really need the weight of the engine on the wheels. This gets the gears meshed as they would be in normal use and there is also some resistance for the mechanism to work against. I did think about a reversing system, and several people have suggested it, but this has a few cons against it. Cheap reversers tend to be forward-stop-reverse-stop-forward-etc which is probably not good for the mechanism . Some don't even have a 'stop' time, just forward-reverse . So one would need a more expensive unit that had controlled deceleration and acceleration. Secondly this would still need a couple of yards of track to run up and down (space), or I'd have to make special arrangements for part of the layout to be used for this . The last point is the real killer - I'm using DCC. Short of having a computer hooked up I think it would be difficult to arrange an auto-reverse. There may be a DCC device to do this, but it'll probably cost. A rolling road would also be useful for general maintenance and fixing work as you could run the loco in it's proper orientation with the body off, and be able to see/hear what's happening without chasing it all over . Watash, I like the idea of using reversed wheelsets. The wipers for power pickup would be a bit of a nuisance, but if one used metal wheels it should be possible to arrange an 'all wheel' feed via the 'rollers'. Definitely worth thinking about . I also visited Micromark (and Trainquest and a few others). Only saw the O and #1 versions anywhere. I can't believe that no-one in the USA (the HO nation of the world) makes these things - I'm sure they're out there somewhere . Maybe I'll drop Model Railroader (or the X-files) an e-mail before I start building my own.
