I want a street/highway system with moving n- or ho- scale cars. The Faller Road system doesn't seem to have American vehicles and no speed control. The radio control cars that I have seen are all racing cars and high speed. Would it be possible to add a DCC chip to a small handcar or powered wheels/truck and put a plastic automobile body over it, but if so, how could the rr track be made to look like a street/road? I want slow speed and vehicle control. What is the best way to go? Thanks.
My best solution is to use an HO railway track mounted on a "cookie cutter" plywood roadbed 2"-3" under the visible layout. A 4 wheel short wheelbased mechanisim (eg, a Spud unit) with plenty of weight added and a sprung tower with a bar magnet can pull a vehicle on a roadway above with a small magnet inside. The two magnets will align so the topside vehicle will always point in about the same direction as the track below. I experimented with this system and achieved good operation through
6mm/1/4" ply and across railway crossings. (no steel rails!) The road vehicle (Wiking plastic) needed more weight because if it caught on less than smooth roadway it would stop momentarily and then leap forward to catch up with the magnet below the baseboard. Also cornering could have been improved with some form of castering for the front axle, or perhaps lift the front axle clear of the roadway with some form of castoring wheel or ball bearing underneath at the front. This system requires there to be no cross members along the route of the operating roadway, but as the roadway rail system base needs support, a second cross member beneath the usual ones would do the job. Curves down to a radius of about 6" would be practical. N scale track and mechanisims might be more suitable, but running might not be so smooth. A shortcoming of this scheme is that vehicles can't pass in opposite directions unless you get the size of magnets right. Kadee underbaseboard magnets might be right for under the baseboard and magnetic noticeboard rubber magnet for the vehicles, although the Kadee magnet has it's poles at the sides rather than front-rear. A yard trackmobile would need to drive around underbaseboard point motors!
there is a very large system with individual car control at Miniatur-Wunderland in Hamburg/Germany. Google for it and look up their Car-System pages.
However I should warn you, that (a) the english version might not be very talkative (the german one isn't complete either) and (b) the system is VERY complex. Probably there are some other sources as well?
The problem is a simple one; small lightweight mechanisims don't collect current adequately and don't perform well, particularly at low speeds.
I suggested using railway track _under_ the baseboard because model railway locomotives can be made to operate in the manner you want to achieve. The magnetic interconnection is there because some connection is required. An alternative would be a slot and a wire between the loco and the road vehicle, but that leaves a visible slot and the centre of the baseboard dropping to the floor if you mack a continuous circuit. ;-)
Third party bodies can be fitted to Faller chassis (at least in HO), although you may have difficulty if the vehicle you want is small. Although you cannot control the speed of faller vehicles remotely, you can adjust the speed by means of a varialbe resistor on the chassis. The vehicles are stopped by a magnet placed under the track, so electromagnets can be used at level crossing, loading docks, and the like.
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