Third Rail Shoes

[Supermicha]

Does anybody knows where i can find HO scale third rail shoes like used from New York Central, New Haven and Metro North?

Thanks

[jrbarney]

Michael,
I used "HO scale third rail shoes" as the search term in a Google search and found one store that has some of an unknown brand in stock:
http://users.foxvalley.net/~railsunl/Models/other-ho.html
You'll have to scroll two-thirds of the way down the list. There are some other leads that result from that search that you might want to follow. And, of course, you might want to try the same request as a keyword search at the Index of Magazines at this site, especially if you are willing to make your own.
Bob
NMRA Life 0543

P. S. I just did a search in the Index of Magazines - had to use "thirdrail shoe" as the search term:

Third rail shoes Model Railroader, April 1945, page 162 ( CONTACT, "DOERIGHT, G.A.", ELECTRICAL, PICKUP, POWER, SHOE, THIRDRAIL, WIRING, LOCOMOTIVE, MR )

Homemade third rail shoes Railroad Model Craftsman, March 1946, page 42
( SCRATCHBUILD, SHOE, THIRDRAIL, CONSTRUCTION, RMC )

Current Collectors Railroad Model Craftsman, June 1948, page 12 Construction of "Flipper Type" Third Rail Shoes ( SHOE, THIRDRAIL, RMC )

As you can see, it only returned three, rather old article citations. They may be from the era when some folks did HO using pickup shoes on an outside third rail, and may not be for dummy shoes used as a detail part. If you're still interested in these articles, you should be able to get a photocopy of the MR article from [e-mail], but for the RMC articles, your best bet is the NMRA's Kalmbach Memorial Library:
http://www.nmra.org/library

Bob

[Jetrock]

I think MTS made a third-rail shoe casting, but it was purely decorative. I have seen articles about using actual live outside third-rail (overhead third rail) to power electrics but haven't seen it in practice, and it would probably involve scratchbuilding your own third-rail shoes out of brass or something.

Third-rail is something of a blessing for trolley modelers--it's easier to model than overhead wire, and there is less impetus to actually power the model via the third rail!

[james1960]

Don't forget Bob Hegge also wrote an article that is not so old callled:
What brought the catenary down - Hegge lays some third rail
Model Railroader, June 1978 page 67
( "HEGGE, BOB", INTERURBAN, THIRDRAIL, TRACTION, MR )

[ahuffman]

One method that was used years ago was to use very small brass wood screws driven in the extended ties, widen the slot with a hack saw blade and solder rail in the slot. This can work for over-running third rail like some of us O scalers used. I've never seen anyone model under-running third rail which I think is what NYC used.