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Carlson .19/.29 Rail Mite
Designed and built by John Carlson
The car shown in the photos was John Carlson's personal McCoy .19 powered rail mite. Carlson raced the car briefly on the small indoor rail track owned by the Chicago Mite Car Club. The 1/48th mile, oval-shaped 4-rail track had 35 degree banked turns and was located in the basement of the Calumet Park field house in Chicago. Although the track was originally intended for .09-, .19- and .29-powered rail mites, it soon became apparent that the cars powered by the larger engines were simply too powerful for the small track and competition was then limited to .09-powered rail mites only.
In designing his rail mite pans, John Carlson often simply modified the designs of his successful tether car pans by adding rail guide mounts to the sides of the wood patterns used to cast the pans. The photograph showing the different wood patterns for Carlson's pans clearly illustrates how he added rail guide mounts to what was originally a tether car pan pattern to produce the pattern for a rail mite pan.
This particular pan was also wide enough to accommodate either a .19-size engine or a .29-size engine, and Carlson produced examples in both aluminum and magnesium.
As a result, John Carlson was ale to use the same basic pan design to produce either a tether car or a rail car, powered by either a .19-size engine or a .29-size engine, with either a cast aluminum or cast magnesium pan.
