backyardtrains

I only know enough to get myself in a pickle... I have a problem with prototype modeling is that I'll find some obscure thing, like these busses and then obsessively scour the Internet to find as much information as I can just to model it. And 90% of the information I find will be helpful to the actual building process. 😂

Yep those are the one and only Breda buses. Apparently Breda made some other articulated busses for export but the Seattle ones seemed to last the longest. Eventually they tore the diesel motors and associated equipment out and ran them as trolley only.

Since I'm talking about the Breda buses, here's my initial plan to build them. The original plan was to CAD them up and print most of the parts but as I worked on the CAD, I realized they would be fairly easy to scratch build. For the sides, my plan is to build a .020" styrene shell (interior and exterior) and sandwich a piece of .060" acrylic between. That should give me plenty of structural strength. I'll probably end up drawing and printing the articulated section as I'm not sure how I'd go about building it. I'm guessing probably resin print vs FDM (I have both). No interior, panagraph/trolley wire details needed as that was part of the final assembly. Right now I'm trying to either source a wheel/tire combo or just CAD and print those as well. I've got plenty of reference photos so I should be able to replicate the busses fairly well. My goal is to build at least 3. I'll probably skip a lot of the underbelly details, engine bay etc because well, they are what I call "squirrel food" models. My vehicles have to be able to withstand some real weather elements as st railroad is all outdoors. Vehicles get moved inside for storage but they can also be left outside for a while.

Looking at my pictures better it wasn't even a crane. Looks like a heavy duty forklift in the background which sounds even more sketchy. But hey it works.

Ahh that sounds like a reasonable suggestion. Something that could be bolted up to the bus frame relatively easy and lightweight.

Yes certainly a staple of my childhood as well. Nothing like getting onto 520, hearing the bus driver put the petal to the floor and the bus groaning under the strain, then about 3/4 of the way across the bridge you'd get up to speed just to take the off ramp. We rode the 254, and 255 all the time.

I have a picture and news clippings of the unloading process. Because this was a branch line and only 1 train at a time, when they got shipments of these busses in they take the locomotive off the cars, bring a crane in, lift the railcar up, roll the railcar wheels ( it's called a truck) out from under, dump the flatcar minus the truck back on the rail (this was all done over a grade crossing), stack some boards and drive over. Pretty easy and low cost.

Short story, a company had plans/models in HO scale which is 1:87. 1:29 is exactly 3x bigger... HO is exactly Half O scale or 0 Gauge. 1:29 runs on 1 Gauge track which is 45mm... Long story, German company started this gauge of track, German prototypes, bastardized American trains to German track gauge, American modelers demanded more accurate models and now we have 6 different scales that function on the same gauge track. 😂

Hello forum, I'm mainly a model railroader, in the oddball scale of 1/29, but dabble in 1/25 plastic kits for vehicles for my layout. I've scratch built and kitbashed vehicle projects but my latest project has me stumped because I'm not an expert on this type of stuff. The area I'm modeling (Issaquah WA) had approximately 200 Breda busses delivered via rail for final assembly between 1988 and 1991. Breda was/is an Italian tram/trolley manufacturer that won the bid to make dual motor (electric and diesel power) articulated buses for the new downtown Seattle transit tunnel. I'm planning on scratch building these busses as well, but I'm currently in the process of kitbashing a AMT Mack truck per the photos below. But here's my question, I don't really know what the back of the truck would look like or how it may have towed the buses off the railcars. I'll I've got is these two photos. I'm looking for some suggestions, ideas, plausible ideas etc to make these look like the prototype. Thanks in advance, Craig