Carson Radio Control

[Ian MacFarlaine]

I wanted to share the joy of the almost unknown Carson RC range of 1:87 radio control vehicles. Admittedly it's a small range - a Mercedes bus (beautifully decorated), a variety of VW Beetles, some VW Campers, pickups and vans, of the T2 variant, and a UNIMOG. There seem to be at east 4 or 5 colour schemes in each model - some are more useful than others. Herbie the 53 VW and the Malteser Hildenfest T1 are a bit niche.

These retail for between £90 and £120 each including the controller (which seems to be unique to each vehicle) and the charger built into it. They run off 4 AAA bateries in the controller - which power the controller itself and then also feed the charging cable for the on-board battery on the vehicle. It seems to take about 30-40 mins to charge for which you get 45 mins running, though your actual playtime is going to be longer unless you run each vehicle continually. I reckon that 4AAAs would comfortably do a two day showfor each car, if not more.

Forward and reverse are on one toggle with left and right on the other. The system is sensibly set up so that the vehicle headlights also act as a low battery or low-sognal warning by flashing. They all have working head and tail lights and some have a sound function which is switched on and off by the controller.

These are HO scale which works for me as I am modelling a British Colonial location but using HOe stock, figures and static road vehicles. The coach is fairly unobtrusively handed from the outside, the door is not obvious (clever choice of base model by Carson) so anyone that wanted to open it and move the driver and steering wheel could do so and it would be fairly visibly RHD). The smaller vehicles have opaque windows so no steering can be seen of course. In the VW beetles these just look like tinted windows.

These offer a bit of extra movement on a layout where there isn't space to operate a Faller loop or a Magnorail, or a retrofit would not be possible. They are plonk, plug and play and being able to do a convincing three point turn, they can be used on pretty small layouts by virtue of the ability to reverse. I find the smaller cars easier to drive and navigate around; the biggest gain for me is the speed is controllable down to a pretty slow speed, and as my layout has a rough road surface, this also helps reduce the speed down and avoids the shiny tyre wear that you get with Faller.

There's also the Wiking Control 1:87 system which is a bit costlier (though you only need one controller which you then select each vehicle like with DCC). They do have sound and more lighting features (like indicators) but tend to be restricted to more modern vehicles.

I for one would like to see what Carson brings out next - hopefully something car-wise that was a bit more everyday.

I do have some video on my profile on the 009 Modellers, and Microlayout pages on Facebook. The link to my video on the OO9 Railway Modellers Page is here: https://www.facebook.com/542716612/videos/pcb.7228877003886035/947756863625488  - I am afraid you do need to join the group to view it.

[danny]

Interesting. I'm wondering if there's a potential micro-layout idea in there somewhere, perhaps using the Unimog to haul 009 wagons as a sort of modern variation on the last few years of the Snailbeach when wagons were hauled with a tractor (and not forgetting that Unimogs are sometimes used as road/rail vehicles in reality). However, I'm slightly struggling to come up with a layout design idea that uses this in a clever way, i.e. where the Unimog can do something you couldn't do with a loco.

[duttonbay]

The Unimog could run around a train without the need for any points?

[danny]

The Unimog could run around a train without the need for any points?

That's what I was thinking. But presumably you would need an equivalent amount of space to allow the Unimog to move around, even though you wouldn't need to actually lay track for a loop?

[Hugh Norwood]

I just dug this out of my list of "interesting YouTube vidoes)

[Ian MacFarlaine]

Interesting chat on the Unimog aspect. I won't be buying one (yet) as it is probably outside my era - although I know there were Unimogs on LT in the 1980s.

It would work if either a modeller was VERY good at building up inset track OR used some of the Tomix 9mm gauge tram track sections which would give a nice flat surface to run onto and the space around the track could be built with foamboard. Tomix's tram track also lines up exactly with their moving bus system, which might have some HO or OO applications.

My Flickr album here to show the size of the layout https://www.flickr.com/photos/197750443@N02/albums

[danny]

I just dug this out of my list of "interesting YouTube vidoes)

That's also made me wonder if it would be the right size to rebody as a smaller vehicle in 1:76.