Doesn’t help that I’m not sure of the correct name of the item in question, either.
I’m watching “Blazing Saddles” right now (RIP, Alex Karras, aka Mongo), and in the railroad building sequences, there’s this object that runs on the tracks and is powered by two riders, one on each side, with a see-saw like gizmo between riders (who are on the front and back ends, facing each other) that they take turns pushing down. One character calls it a “hand car”, but I’m not sure how correct that is (as funny as Mel Brooks is, I don’t assume his research is completely accurate).
What I’ve never been able to figure out is how they get the thing to go in a specific direction.
This. Handcars appear to be geared for a bit of speed (like a car stuck permamently in something other than first gear), so it’s probably easier to provide the initial acceleration by pushing it with a walking or running start, and then jumping on board to begin working the pump lever.
The responses so far seem to disagree on whether it requires a mechanism to set the direction, or whether the treadle mechanism automatically delivers power in the direction of movement. So my ignorance is still intact.
If you look at the link in post #5 you’ll see one with a simple crank mechanism that can turn in either direction. You would have get it started in the direction you want, or at a minimum orient the push rod so that your initial push or pull on it gets you going in the right direction.
However I’m sure sometime in the past I saw a handcar that had a lever to change direction, though I don’t know what the mechanism was.
Hi there, TriPolar. I’m posting as a rail geek to say I’m pretty sure you never saw a handcar with a reversing mechanism and you are probably misremembering something else, perhaps the brake pedal. By the way, that’s a great video Colophon posted of handcar operation put together by someone who clearly loves the things: really nicely done.
My brother Joe has just completed his second run of metal Kalamazoo handcar models in 1/8 scale and I’ll see if I can figure out how to get some pics up. He did a ton of research and the workings are lovely and simple but no levers to change direction, alas. As I said we’re a bunch of wonky rail nuts at times and I can’t think of a handcar with a reversing device in existence. Of course being wrong means you get to learn something new, so…
Indeed. The mechanism is so painfully simple I can’t think of any need for (or how one would employ) “a mechanism to set the direction.”
To start a handcar:
climb aboard.
push down briefly on lever, and observe resulting direction of handcar travel:
if handcar begins to move in desired direction, continue pushing down to bottom of stroke, and then follow up with regular up-down pumping action.
if handcar begins to move in wrong direction, cease downward force, and pull UP on lever instead. Car will begin to move in desired direction, at which point you then follow up with regular up-down pumping action.
In the rare situation where the hand lever is at the top or bottom of its travel, you have zero leverage, and the car won’t move; it will be necessary to step off, push the car a few feet manually, and then climb aboard and start pumping the hand lever.
It’s been a long time and just some B&W photos of an old rusted out handcar. I certainly could be mistaken, and you seem to have much more info than me. Thanks for setting me straight.
