How do you build a trolley car?

Answer 1

If you're building a small trolley car (or tram), get a model vehicle kit or a model railroader's kit. And they can be scratch built with incredible results. But if you want to build a "real" trolley car, and it's "full sized" for serious operation, it may be cheaper to buy a used one somewhere and fix it up. Even that (the fixing) could be horrendously expensive. Just ask the guys in Denver working on their project trolley. But, if you want to build one from scratch, you'll have your hands full. Very full. Ever build a railroad car? It's the same thing multiplied by a factor of ten because instead of wheels with axles, you'll be mounting traction motors under the trolley. (Trolley, by the way, is the little thingie on the end of the pole on top of the car that picks up the power from the wire.) The traction motors are built directly onto the axles of the wheels, and are just big (!) electric motors that weigh tons. You'll need some switchgear to control the speed and direction of the machine, too. This is gonna be a project and a half. You may be able to adapt something off a light rail vehicle, but it's gonna take some uptown engineering. If this sounds like you, go for it. You'll need contacts. A number of urban settings still have a trolley line working. Start searching the web. Whether or not they have old equipment for sale or not is something that each one would have to be asked individually, probably. So ask. If they don't have any, ask if they know who might. There are a ton of trolley systems operated in urban areas overseas. Can you travel? Bring a trolley back on a cargo ship? Anything you get you'll have to move. Even if you get it in Canada. (There are trolley systems there.) There are many rail historical societies across the U.S. Some are devoted to local urban rail systems, the trolley crowd. Find some and look at what they're doing. Your best bet is still to look around in the various large urban settings that had streetcar lines and see if any of the old coaches are lying around somewhere. There are still some about, but they'll be tough to find (if they haven't been turned into diners and such). You can probably get one for a song, but you'll have to move it. And they weigh many tons. (How do you think they maintain traction with a steel wheel meeting a steel track in a tiny surface area? Weight. Tons of it. That's why locomotives and trains like this are called traction engines....) Oh, and notice that none of this addresses how you'll operate the thing without tracks to run on or overhead wires to power up the trolley. A few links are provided to get you started. Lots of model railroad clubs have information on the full-sized equipments. And there are lots of them around. Start there. Good luck.