RABe 503: Feet Examination

Some ups and downs on the plastic passenger train...

As for a chassis, you may recall the race was on between a well-discounted but still expensive Rokuhan Shinkansen three car set (one powered centre car and two dummy end cars) and some incredibly cost effective Rokuhan 'Shorty' chassis. I could have gotten a whole trainset of these for half the price of the Shinkansen set.

First things first. A dremel was applied to the 'tabs' that intrude into the interior space where I'll want to put a chassis later. These tabs are visible in the upper car in the pic below. The lower protrusions that are the doors and the bogie supports were also thinned out from the inside to give more interior space for a chassis.

As for the chassis race, it seemed that the Rokuhan Shinkansen may have been quite the expensive dead end as far as becoming the underguts of my fancy passenger train goes...

It's really, really wide, much wider than expected, and the bogies are too close together, again, also unexpected!

Even putting in a fair bit of of surgery thinning this down (as reassembled in today's first pic with the Shorty above), it's still a smidge wider than my carriage can take, but will fit with the carriage ends removed and the sides prised apart a little. That might be bearable in terms of width, and I suppose the Shapeways top could be shortened if those inboard bogies bother me - and they might not be so obvious in a 6 car passenger train in Z scale where all the other cars have their bogies positioned more correctly. Perhaps I'll get away with it, but I may need to shorten it anyway if I want to use those couplers.

The dummy cars will basically be scrapped except for their bogies. I could use the pickups and lighting setups, but I'm not sure I can be bothered putting the effort in at this stage - perhaps that is something to be returned to in future. 

The Shorties were probably the more sensible option in hindsight, although their coupler shanks are a bit short to be useful here as can be seen below. Perhaps they can be extended, or body mounted. Or replaced with something simple. 

In the meantime, some paint has been spilt on the Shapeways tops to varying effect.

An ETR610/RABe 503 in Z scale? - 1

Of all the 'plastic' passenger trains over the Gotthard, I reckon the ETR600/ 610 / RABe 503 design shared by SBB and Trenitalia are the sexiest - far sleeker than the older ETR 470 and blobby RABDe500s.

Near Silenen

So imagine my surprise when I found them available on Shapeways.

Very nicely modeled (and well printed too, Mr Shapeways).  Until they release a clear plastic material for printing window inserts, I'd have made the windows filled-in, but this shouldn't be a drama as they are in a black panel anyway. Given the small scale, I'll probably pop a sandwich of black plastic and glazing behind the window openings.

As for power, this is yet to be determined based on testing, but the two contenders are: 

• A Rohukan three-car Shinkansen - surprisingly, the middle car is powered and not the ends as expected
• Three Rohukan 'shorty' power cars (the wee black one below). Given the low price of these, I figured they were unpowered trailers that I'd harvest bogies off for the other three cars, but it turns out they are powered...

The original plan was to use two powered Shinkansen cars and have the rest of the cars unpowered (but as I say, it turns out I only have one power car). 

Depending on how these types play together and how much power I need to get up my grades, I may use the Shinkansen on its own towing unpowered Shorties, or just the Shorties, or a mix on the train. 

The Shorties will be lengthened of course, and the Shinkansen sets (or the car shells above them) need to be adjusted a little too. The Shinkansen chassis is surprisingly wide too, so needs a bit of thinning. I had hoped to use the undersides as they are, as they came with some nice side skirt detail that looks about right, but they are two wide for the Shapeways tops.

I'll leave you in suspense for a few weeks here, as I am being forced to go to Europe for some more 'field research'.