Twin City Rapid Transit (TCRT) 1300 is a special streetcar to me. I am certified to operate 1300 at the Minnesota Streetcar Museum, so I have spent many hours at the controls of 1300 in museum service. It is only natural that I now have a model of this very streetcar!

Shortly after the model arrived, I made sure to take some photos of it sitting on the layout of my local model railroad club:

The model was made by Orion in Japan and imported to the U.S. by Northwest Short Line. The person I purchased the model from is from Japan, so it seems this model has been shipped across the Pacific Ocean at least three times. I was fortunate to find and purchase a painted model of 1300 (I do not know if this was factory painted). Overall, the paint is in pretty decent condition, but the model needs some attention before it can grace the rails. The original open frame motor was no longer serviceable, but I am an advocate for remotoring older brass streetcars, so the first order of business is installing a new can motor. After the car has a new motor, I will install a DCC decoder and wire the car to run off overhead electric power via the trolley pole. My model did not have a fender (people catcher) when I purchased it, so I plan to build one from scratch. Finally, I plan to install Como-Harriet destination signs in the appropriate places. 

The photo just above is of the original open frame motor. Before taking the photo I had resoldered the wires to see if I could make the motor work once again. No success. I did not consider this to be much of a loss as the attempt was really to just satisfy my curiosity about the condition of the old motor. 

Although these open frame motors certainly do the job (when they are actually working), new can motors allow for much smoother operation with lower current draw. The open frame motors also have difficulty at slower speeds and are not the kindest with DCC. I did not want to deal with those issues.

There are many options for remotoring brass streetcars, including a few different options for motorized trucks. However, the commonly available motorized trucks have wheelbases greater than the trucks for TCRT 1300. I decided the better option was to switch out the motor itself and retain the spring band drive. To do this, I purchased a new can motor and brass flywheel (Northwest Short Line part numbers 2032D-9 and 402-6, respectively - I bought the motor and flywheel as separate parts, not as a repower kit). 

An issue that makes a simple switch out of the motors not so simple is that the shaft of the open frame motor is 2.4mm in diameter, but most replacement motors have a 2mm diameter shaft. How can this problem be addressed? The problem is common enough that special brass sleeves (A-Line part #12053, it comes in a pack of 4) are made to fit over the shaft of the newer can motors to add that additional 0.4mm. Why does one need to buy these sleeves? A sleeve is super helpful because the brass pulley for the spring band drive system has a bore of 2.4mm. That 0.4mm may not seem like much, but could be enough to cause immense frustration, so I did not want to contend with that frustration.

Gathering the necessary parts was greatly aided by finding this website on the East Penn Traction Club domain, discussing how to switch out motors on older brass streetcars: Trolleyville Schoolhouse: Repowering HO Scale Streetcars with A-Line Components

I did not follow the instructions on that website word for word. Rather, I followed what was helpful and deviated as I saw fit.

Perhaps a bit too much glue... I made sure to keep the glue out and away from moving parts! The motor is now in place with trusty E6000 glue.

The photo depicts the result of the second attempt to glue the motor into place. I tried a different type of glue, but that did not hold once I put the spring bands into their proper position on the brass pulley. The strain of the two springs was enough to overcome my original glue. Fortunately, the only cost to this mistake was time. 

But I skipped ahead as I should discuss how I arrived at the result in the photo.

Two options for securing the new motor into place are (1) gluing the new motor in place after careful positioning and (2) putting in some sort of mount for the motor and then mounting the motor. Clearly, I chose the first option.

The new motor sits lower than the original open frame motor, so I measured the height of the old motor's shaft above the brass car floor. For the switch out to be done properly, the new motor's shaft had to sit at or just above (preferably just above) the height of the old motor shaft. That way the spring bands can have the proper stretch to perform properly. After noting the measurement, I gathered materials to build a platform for the new motor. The old motor sat on a small piece of rubber, which I assume helps address vibration and noise, so I included that as part of my new platform. The rest of the needed height of the platform was addressed by gluing together 5 pieces of 0.020 inch styrene sheet. 

The pieces of styrene were glued together using Model Master liquid cement (I scored the styrene pieces before gluing), whereas the styrene was glued to the rubber pad using weather sealer (I read that sealer works well, but that is why my first attempt failed). Once the platform was together, I used the sealer to glue the platform to the brass and the motor to the top of the platform. Prior to gluing the motor to the platform, I used the sealer to glue the flywheel to one shaft of the dual shaft can motor (the end with the positive and negative leads - the flywheel was short enough in width to leave enough space between it and the power leads to allow for soldering wires to the leads) and the brass sleeve to the end of the other shaft. Once everything was assembled I let this all set for 24 hours.

I made the decision to not glue the brass pulley to the brass sleeve that was now glued to the motor shaft. Not gluing the brass pulley to the sleeve allows me to make needed adjustments to the positioning of the brass pulley. Plus, the brass pulley has an integrated screw to keep it properly tightened to the brass sleeve and motor shaft. Once the pulley was placed on the motor shaft, and the spring bands placed around the pulley, I made final adjustments to allow the spring bands to be as perfectly vertical as possible, and then tightened the screw on the pulley.

A few hours after installing the pulley and putting the spring bands around the pulley, I noticed the spring band tension had pulled the pulley end of the motor down and the flywheel end up. The glue (sealer) had failed. Well, it was my failure, because I assumed the sealer needed only 24 hours to cure. Turns out the sealer needs 7 days to cure. I could have given the sealer another chance, but I decided to switch to a glue I have much more familiarity with, which is E6000. For those unfamiliar, E6000 is an glue used in industrial applications (and hobbies) that holds strong, is slightly flexible, and can be cut away with a knife if needed. I've used E6000 for other hobby projects and have great experience with it.

I removed the spring bands from the brass pulley and the pulley from the motor shaft. Next, I reglued the motor to the platform and platform to the brass car floor. As shown in the photo, I probably used more E6000 than necessary, but I wanted to be sure everything held. After waiting the 24 hours needed for E6000 to cure (as clearly indicated on the tube), I put the pulley on the motor shaft and spring bands around the pulley. The E6000 held!

That now catches us up to where the project currently stands (as of June 21, 2025). The next major task is to install the DCC decoder.