I am building my second Athearn 200 Ton Railroad Crane (from a kit bought at a swap meet) and decided to install some lights on the crane, a la Dr. Greg's wonderful build article last year (the Athearn motorized crane). I reviewed his images and description of how he created the electrical pick-up wipers for his model and found that I could do the same in a slightly different manner.

I don't use track spikes, as I use flathead wire nails (covered by ballast), but I do have Tichy .020 and .025 phosphor wire rods on hand. I felt that the smaller ones (.020) were a bit too flexible to be used to secure a wiper, but found that the .025 rods were significantly stronger.

I drilled a hole in the truck crossbar that was just a hair smaller than the .025 rod diameter, enough for a snug fit- not a force fit. The drill size was eyeballed, as I chose from a set of drills (that came with a pin vise) that were not large enough to label for size. I drilled through the crossbar, then bent one end of the .025 rod in an inverted "L" shape at 90 degrees and inserted the length into the hole. The bent portion laid across the wiper to hold it in place and the longer shaft was inserted into the drilled hole. I then soldered the top bent portion of the rod to the wheel wiper. I then bent the portion of the rod which came out the other end of the crossbar at 90 degrees in the other direction, to hold the wire in place in the hole, as CA will not work well on the acetal plastic truck. Then I soldered a 28 AWG stranded wire to the wheel wiper and routed it through the unused mounting hole of the truck.

Siouxlake/ Ron