Fig. 76.—The Toy Railway in Operation (2).
A Water-motor, steam engine, or whatever power you can get with which to operate the railway. A bicycle inverted with the tire removed from its rear wheel has been used satisfactorily, as has also a sewing-machine with the belt slipped off and the cord from the spool put in its place.
A good substitute for the tin tracks ordinarily sold in shops for toy railways will be found in those shown in [Fig. 78]. These
Fig. 78.—The Tracks.
Tracks consist of quarter-inch strips mounted upon pieces of cardboard. Make a small gimlet-hole in one end of each stick, and drive a short finishing nail in the opposite end (see [Fig. 78]). Cut the cardboard strips the length of the sticks, and tack them to the sticks as shown in the illustration. If inch and one-half spools are used for the car wheels, the inside gauge of the tracks should be an inch and three-quarters. By lapping the cardboard strips over the ends of the sticks, and the sticks over the ends of the cardboard strips, and placing the nail dowels in the ends of the sticks as in the drawing, a strong track is formed when the pieces are fitted together. This may be extended to any desired length by adding more sections to it.