K&NWLR: From road to rail - Bedford bus

The Sunstar Bedford bus model has a lot of room for a more-or-less plausible conversion to life as a 45mm gauge railbus. I couldn´t help but use the one with the British Railways livery ...



K&NWLR: Sunstar OB Bedford bus conversion by kandnwlr, on Flickr


You can just about see the little estate railway in Gn15 with its train of hops to the right of the rail bus.




K&NWLR: Bedford railbus by kandnwlr, on Flickr

Nice looking bus. Is it a kit or a err model? Do you have a pic from underside?

It´s a diecast model of a road vehicle in 1:24 made by Sunstar, but as far as I´ve seen so far none have been converted to rail. I´ll post pics of the "works" underneath once I get back from the alps.

Here we go. The Bedford OB has a sunroof which can be misused to stuff the batteries in the bus (there´s no room underneath). Underneath was a little different. Even 45mm gauge doesn´t leave a lot of space to get the front wheels to swivel, so the solution is to make the back wheels able to move up and down. To do this the motor is slotted into a tube allowing a few mm of movement either way. And it provides enough leeway to get round my curves, without having to effectively demolish the front underside of the bus.


K&NWLR: OB Bedford railbus top view by kandnwlr, on Flickr


007 by kandnwlr, on Flickr