I'll say it right now, this scared me a lot! the only cars i could use as the best contenders was a Tyco union pacific gondola(rode the rails like it had square wheels) and another gondola. I would love to have had one with metal wheels but that was out of the question. out of the 8 laps of testing and 2 filmed runs, the total ride had one accident, the camera fell onto a fence. Nothing was injured but i think it scared some residents, but they kept on caroling and building a snow man and what not (who does those things at 11:30 at night?). So in the end, the video was alright but the speed knocked a star off the rating. I'd give it a 3.5 myself. Any suggestions for next time?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9CeH3yV64w
It was alright, jet. Yea, a gondola with metal wheels would've helped, but the Tyco was just a little squeaky and slow. I have two perfect gondolas for the job. An Athearn Chicago West & Pullman 50' gondola (you're standard Athearn gondola), and a Walthers Gold Line 53' Florida East Coast gondola (an EXTREMELY good runner). I have a crappy Aiptek camera (you can tell by the quality of the videos I have on YouTube), but it has a side panel that closes. So what I do is put the main part of the camera in the gondola, and close the panel on the side of the car. It always makes it a little bit heavy on the side of the car that the panel closes on, but I have alot of weights from cars that I've taken apart or that have broke. So i put some of the weights on the opposite side of the car and it's usually balanced out after that. I don't have any videos of my "layout" on YouTube with a cab ride, but I have several (4) videos of trains running, and (3) videos of reviews.