A short while ago on Facebook a gent posted some blurry photos of his father’s collection, and asked if anyone would like to buy the lot. I spotted a bunch of railcars and trucks on a shelf and asked about the red railcar - thought it might be an old Aristo brass model T. Turned out to be a modified diecast model and he kindly held it back when someone came and bought the whole collection. I was intrigued by the drive, so we came to an agreement and it turned up yesterday.
Here’s the photo he sent when he took it down from the shelf. Still not very focused.
Then his kids got their hands on it and dropped it, breaking all the gold plastic bits. I took it anyway, and here’s what it looks like with the headlights, spare wheel and back seat all glued back in.
It appears the owner removed the old chassis and made a new brass one.
As I mentioned, the drive was interesting, especially that back axle. Initially I wondered if the drive went through the axle, but no.
It seems to be made of metal or very hard plastic, and is a skew or hypoid bevel, where the input and output shafts are not on the same plane. The Climax geared locos used these type of skew gears to drive each axle from the driveshaft that went across the top of both trucks. (Anyone ever seen anything like this gear set?)
Anyway, you will note the whisker track pickup on the wheel - there’s one on each wheel. It appears to spin the motor, but I haven’t persuaded the car to move yet - the wheels seem dirty, it had no oil, and the bevel gears don’t seem to be meshed completely. We will persevere.
