Clockwork Road-Rail Truck

[ColletArrow]

Afternoon all! I'd like to present my latest road-rail maintenance vehicle, that has a trick up it's sleeve...

Overall it's a farily normal truck - 6W, a sufficient cab and a flatbed with a utility crane. It also has additional head and tail lights at both the front and rear for bi-directional running, and handrails and a ladder for easy minifig access.

But on the other side, strange things are going on...

That doesn't look normal. If you've read the title, I'm sure you've figured out what's coming next!

This model started out in stud.io, as an experiment to see what I could potentially use the circuit cubes motors for if I bought them. Then I realised I'm probably not going to buy them before Christmas, but I was taken with the idea of a powered road-rail truck... so my thoughts turned to the LEGO clockwork motors.

I received one of these Yellow Wind-Up Motors as a "silly" christmas gift last year, so I thought I'd finally put it to some use. I first tested whether my madcap idea would even work - I found that by placing the rail wheels just above the railtops then the weight of the truck rests on the road tyres, and the rail wheels only need to use their flanges to keep it on the track. I was pleasantly surprised to discover it worked quite well! So I set about building a truck around it.

The placement of the rail-wheel hinges turned out to be vital - the wheels themselves need to be as close to the road wheels as possible so the wheelbase is short and the tyres stay in contact with the rails. As it happens the wheels can't be lifted as high off the road as I'd like, but it works.

 

This shows how the rail wheels don't actually support the weight of the truck, just guide it around corners. You can also see the top of the yellow motor actually protrudes one plate above the rest of the flat deck, cleverly disguised by the pallet.

As mentioned earlier, the truck also has a small crane. I could replace this with a better-looking one, but it turns out keeping the weight down is essential so this simple, light arm will do.

It's also possible to hook up a trolley for extra capacity, but again for best performance from the motor it needs as little weight as possible, so this is rarely used.

Now, the bit I'm sure you were all scrolling for: the video! I've got my loop of track set up around the christmas tree, so that's where I filmed it - enjoy!

As you can see, from one full wind-up it can manage about 1.5 laps of my christmas tree layout, or about 45 standard lengths of track (so a total of 720 studs). Not that impressive really, but still quite fun. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this, I must dash!

Edited December 23, 2021 by ColletArrow
Fixed video embeding

[Hod Carrier]

Ooo!! Now that's a bit clever. Bit of a shame that it's come too late for OcTRAINber, as I'm sure the novel motor arrangement would have netted you good points.

[Brickwolf]

Great idea and build!

[Feuer Zug]

Clever design. I'd have never thought of using one of those old wind up motors for such a contraption. Ingenious the way you made the "suspension" work to guide around the track, but still have motive power.

[Paperinik77pk]

Aaaah very nice, that windup motor is healthy ,and the way you used it is really original!!! Great road'n'rail truck!

[zephyr1934]

That's brilliant! Great MOC, you did a fantastic job integrating the windup motor into a detailed design.

[ColletArrow]

Thank you all, I'm glad you've enjoyed it!

@Hod Carrier I'm far too late for ocTrainber! Even if I had had this idea at the time, it would have had to stay a digital model - I only had the ability to test and build my idea when I came home for Christmas!

It did occur to me whilst building that I should take a leaf out of @Paperinik77pk's book and try to build something a little more in the 12v style - with the simpler bricks it might even be a bit lighter too, although on second thoughts the small train wheels weren't around until the 9V era so I'm not sure how I'd go about it.

[dr_spock]

Nice clever e-waste-free build. 

 

[Paperinik77pk]

6 hours ago, ColletArrow said:

Thank you all, I'm glad you've enjoyed it!

@Hod Carrier I'm far too late for ocTrainber! Even if I had had this idea at the time, it would have had to stay a digital model - I only had the ability to test and build my idea when I came home for Christmas!

It did occur to me whilst building that I should take a leaf out of @Paperinik77pk's book and try to build something a little more in the 12v style - with the simpler bricks it might even be a bit lighter too, although on second thoughts the small train wheels weren't around until the 9V era so I'm not sure how I'd go about it.

Eeeh, in 12v style it could be a lot simpler, but It would loose the nice, modern shape you were able to create. 

I'd do only one thing on current version. I'll try to explain: the windup motor is immediately recognizable and the studded red wheels are a bit "strange", in an otherwise smooth build. It shows that they are "old", and from another Lego era.

These road'n'rail trucks normally have quite odd wheels mounted inwards to fit the 1435mm gauge. So the smooth tires are absolutely a good choice (I'd replicate them also on the rear axle, they should help a bit on curves). 

This "narrow" setup leaves a big protruding "hubcap" on the wheel.

I was thinking that it could be nice masking the old wheel studs replicating this strange hubcap, with a 18674 red part plus a black(or red) rounded 1x1 tile on top. This way you could smoothen also the wheels, and have a pretty unrecognizable old motor moving a nice, modern truck!

Great work and video!

Ciao!

Davide

 

[ColletArrow]

14 hours ago, Paperinik77pk said:

I was thinking that it could be nice masking the old wheel studs replicating this strange hubcap, with a 18674 red part plus a black(or red) rounded 1x1 tile on top. This way you could smoothen also the wheels, and have a pretty unrecognizable old motor moving a nice, modern truck!

Interesting thoughts - it must be said I didn't actually check any real-life trucks when I built this one!

I did have a play with how best to conceal the wheels - one attempt was to use modern 92402 tyres, which almost fit. An alternative option was the older tyres 2346 which have practically the same diameter; these were better than the small tyres, since completely concealing the red hubs was easy. However I found pretty quickly that the increased diameter caused traction issues - whether this was due to the larger diameter requiring more torque, or the rail wheels not mounted properly I'm not sure, but I quickly reverted back to the standard ones as seen above.

Unfortunately with the smaller tyres if you attach a 2x2 round tile to them you can still see a sliver of red around the edge, but I'll see what I can do!

[Reker1000000]

Nice! I love how cleanly you integrated the motor into the body. Reminds me of the road and rail service vehicle from 3677. I have one of those wind-up motors in red somewhere, but no key...

[zephyr1934]

The modern build style with the bulky windup motor is great. It really speaks to your building abilities how that huge motor is mostly concealed on the tiny MOC, but the motor still shows itself just enough that you know it is there (or if one is unfamiliar with the motor, to know that something is there)