Upgrade or replace Spring-Belt Drives?

[Green_Elite_Cab]

Hi guys,

I know I will probably need to take pictures of this thing, but bascially, I have a brass New York Central T3 Electric, produced by Alco models, that has a Spring-Belt drive.

Essentially, the electric has a wheel arrangement of B-B+B-B. The two center trucks are powered, and the outer ones are dummies (all were powered on the prototype).

Located in the boxcab is a motor with a pair of pulleys on each end. These pulleys are grooved and have a pair of spring belts (for a total of 4, 2 in each truck) that travel down through the frame into the truck and connect to another pulley, which drives the worm gears and wheels.

The problem is that the spring belts seem to be catching on something, and so the pulley slips underneath the springs on the motor end. This drive is so weak that the model can barely propel itself on one truck (and I'm starting to doubt it can move very far even if both trucks got rolling).

The prototype was able to haul some fairly long trains (such as the 20th Century Limited) into Grand Central Terminal, so I wanted to try and at least get close to a respectable passenger consist.

Is it possible to modify or upgrade the spring drives, or will I need to do something more dramatic?


Ken Lawerence, who appeared in RMC a couple times, rebuilt this make and type of locomotive with a pair of Bull-Ant powered trucks, but these are $93 a piece, and they are shipped from Australia! It would be very expensive to do this (almost as much as the model!), and it would require some surgery.

Here is Ken's Westchester & Northern. It used to have Catenary on it and New Haven style electrics, but it looks like he converted to third rail!

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://rrmodelcraftsman.com/boomertrail/cm_extra_westchesternorthern.php">http://rrmodelcraftsman.com/boomertrail ... rthern.php</a><!-- m -->

Here are a pair of photos on the the Hollywood Foundary site of the conversion. I'd need to cut a pretty big hole in the floor, and then I'd need to solder in the bolsters. Supposedly there was an RMC article with more details, but I can't find it. I'm POSITIVE I saw it online once, but I cannot find it there either.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.hollywoodfoundry.com/gallery/T-Motor%20chassis%20top.jpg">http://www.hollywoodfoundry.com/gallery ... %20top.jpg</a><!-- m -->

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.hollywoodfoundry.com/gallery/T-Motor%20chassisbottom.jpg">http://www.hollywoodfoundry.com/gallery ... bottom.jpg</a><!-- m -->