If you take the wheels off a FIAT Punto, you might just notice that those rims fit nicely on a rail. [AT Lab] did, and the resulting build makes for a very watchable video.
Some of us have been known to spend a little too much time chasing trains, and there’s little on rails that won’t catch a railfan’s eye. That goes for rail speeders too, home constructed railcarts for exploring abandoned lines, and there are some great builds out there. We like the one in the video below the break, but we can’t help noticing a flaw which might just curtail its career.
It’s a simple enough build, a wooden chassis, a single motor and chain drive to one axle. All the wheel fittings are 3D printed, which might be a case of using the one tool you have to do everything, but seems to work. It rides well on the test track which appears to be an abandoned industrial siding, but it’s in those wheels we can see the problem and we guess that perhaps the builder is not familiar with rails. The Punto wheels have an inner rim and an outer rim, while a true rail wheel only has an inner one. There’s a good reason for this; real railways have points and other trackwork, not to mention recessed rails at road crossings or the like. We love the cart, but we’d cut those inner rims off to avoid painful derailments.
If you’re up for the ultimate railway build, take care not to go near a live line, and make sure you follow this video series.
“but we’d cut those inner rims off to avoid painful derailments.” I think you meant to say that you’d cut the outer rims off, not the inner ones.
it’s the inner rims of the wheel, but they are mounted in reverse here… but yeah, it’s not at all clear :)
I think the proper railroad term for what is being referred to as “rim” here is flange.
I think I’m confused about how that FIAT wheel works. If you remove the wheels, aren’t the rims a part of what you removed?
No, you’re confused about the structure of the sentence.
You remove the wheels, then use the wheels (including the rim) on the project. If you look at the picture, the Fiat Punto is no where to be seen, only the wheels remain.
Ha! Of course you are right.
“one tool you have to do everything”
“it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument
‘When your only tool is a hammer, all the world starts to look like a skull!’
The wear parts are the car wheels.
Tops of rails are hardened.
No need to cut the outer part of the rim off.
It will fall off on it’s own, in a hundred miles or so.
More or less, the same punchline as the ‘Asian clap’ joke.
Something about not needing roads and trying to get the thing up to 88Mph.
This is one of those 10/10 bad ideas. I love it!
the only thing wrong with this build is a lack of a shovel holder. you kind of need one to dig out of situations where abandoned rails have accumulated a surplus of dirt. abandoned rails tend to be abandoned for a reason.
ahhhh… but what if there’s another person on a similar contraption but coming from the opposite direction, moving at high speed and also assuming the tracks are abandoned?
its not an actual train so i would fathom their stopping distance is rather short. at least within visual range. typical turn radii are wide and grades are shallow so very little chance for them to sneak up on you.
This makes me wonder if there are any high tech hobos that could hitch their vehicles to the back of a train while it’s moving to get a free ride.
Like if you had one of those rail trucks and a grappling hook :P
We don’t live in the world of Wile Coyote physics.
But don’t let me stop you.
Please ensure your attempt is videoed!
The grappling hook was a joke but the overall premise isn’t entirely unrealistic.
I don’t see a reason someone couldn’t connect an extra unofficial train car.
They would either need to sneak up on a moving train somehow which requires good engine and fast car to chase the train, or attach at rail station, but this would be noticed.
Trains aren’t always going that fast and sometimes they will have a point in the middle of nowhere where they stop to let another train pass first.
Either of those situations lower the requirements.
Amtrak hauls private cars for a price.
I bet you could pry open your wallet and rent a historic private railcar for a coast to coast trip.
WAG middle five figures.
More if you want the butler.
Amtrak would suck, but it would suck less than being at the end of a freight.
Yeah, but Amtrak no longer allows people to travel on the open air observation platform at the ends of many cars.
Trains periodically travel over detectors which count the axles. If the axle count is not what is expected the crew will stop the train and figure out why.
I would make the top of the bed rotating to drive back.
would just rotating the seat and a gear complication (to drive the motors in the other direction) accomplish all that is needed ? the control stick (judging from the controls I have seen and used) would be somewhat uncomfortable but could be replaced or modified
“If you take the wheels off a FIAT Punto, you might just notice that those rims fit nicely on a rail.”
As someone tried to point out above, if you take the wheels off a car, that car has no rims. Being non-existent they do not fit nicely or otherwise.
“rims” is common parlance in automotive enthusiast circles for wheels.
Correct.
If you want fancy wheels, you go into a tire shop and ask for a ‘rim job’.
Just like getting heads rebuilt at the machine shop.
What it needs is a quick way to drive off the rails in case something’s coming.
Riding the rails scene from the movie ‘The flim flam man’ with George C Scott: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k8H0Iz2gaiU&pp=0gcJCRsBo7VqN5tD