Powering Tomytec Railway Collection Cars

Powering Tomytec Railway Collection Cars by R. D. Kerr
This page shows the simple process of powering Tomix Tomytec "Railway Collection" cars with the appropriate power chassis. It takes only minutes and requires no tools. The end result is a reasonably low-cost electric railway train. I chose the Ohmi Railway cars from Railway Collection #6. (Note: You have to get Tomytec Tetsudou Railway Collection cars when they are available, because when they are gone, they are gone! I bought these cars separately on Ebay, instead of buying the whole collection, and bought the chassis kits as part of a larger order from Japan.) This bodyshell has very American characteristics and a classic vintage look. Features I liked are the full wood/canvas style roof, separately mounted roof headlights, square-cornered double-sash windows, Brill 27MCB trucks and General Electric underbody gear.
	Here are the components. Left to right are the Tomytec TM-05 power chassis (made to go with the Railway Collection #6 cars), the Ohmi Railway #202 car with pantograph, the companion #1202 car, and the TT-04 kit for adding a weight and metal wheels to the unpowered car. My unpowered car actually rode fairly well on its plastic wheels with no added weight, but I decided to give it the full TT-04 treatment. The final package, lower right, is a Bachmann 42531 Dummy Knuckle Coupler kit.
	One of the few things I did not like about these cars was the interior ends. They have a very wide gangway opening with no door, and the extremely long gap between cars only serves to make it more obvious and annoying. While the outward ends of the pair of cars feature very small dummy couplers, between the cars are the usual clunky "rapido-style" couplers. The Bachmann pack contains three different pairs of couplers, and I swapped in the short shank ones with the "T"-shaped shank to bring the cars closer together with very little effort. Do not use any of the coupler mounting extension pieces that come with the kits. This is a "before" picture, and the "after" picture is below.
	Here are the pieces for the powered car. Use your fingernails to bow out the sides of the carbody, and the plastic chassis and interior floor/seat piece come right out. The TM-05 power chassis comes with three types of truck/bogie sideframe, and also three different chassis end curve pieces. Use the sideframes that match the dummy ones, and the shortest end pieces for the Ohmi Railway cars. The "rapido" coupler box is mounted with a dovetail and comes off by lifting it upward from the truck. I was able to remove these boxes and replace them with short gray boxes from the kit, with the Bachmann couplers installed, all without removing the trucks from the chassis.
	The underbody detail strips on either side of the chassis also can be pried off the chassis, to be clipped onto the power chassis. Be sure to keep these pieces and the interior in the correct orientation (front, back, left side, right side, etc.) Pry the small scale coupler and mounting box unit from the front of the dummy chassis and press it into the front of the power chassis. I will paint my power chassis and sideframes black, but for now the gray helps to show things better in these photos.
	Here is the unpowered car. Simply add the weight between the plastic chassis and the interior floor/seat piece. Carefully remove the plastic wheelsets and replace them with the metal wheelsets. Replace the "rapido" coupler with a Bachmann knuckle coupler (note the short, gray mounting box), and reassemble the car. No glue is needed.
	Here is the "after" picture, showing a much smaller open space between the pair of cars. I would like to close the distance more, but that would involve a lot more work. You could also buy two more cars and cut off their outward ends to splice into the interior ends of these cars, eliminating the large openings, but with more work and cost. I have used many Bachmann and Red Caboose dummy knuckle couplers to easily close-couple other N scale trains, such as Bachmann Metroliners, Graham Farish British Rail Mk3 and Mk4 Intercity coaches, and others.
	How simple can it be? The end result is a nice looking train that runs well, with eight-wheel drive, 6-wheel pickup (and two traction tires), and dual flywheels. This particular carshell features classic slightly-rounded ends (some Tomytec cars have absolutely flat ends), as well as cab doors on both sides (good for either left-side or right-side operation on double track). It would also be fairly simple to convert these cars to live overhead operation, with rewiring and adding a working metal pantograph.
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