Garden Railway Forum

Many thanks you your kind words and encouragement!
Steps to be added once I've worked out if we're going with three or two axles.
The hinges are very simple. Each half is a strip of thin brass sheet bent around a thin brass rod into a funny "R" shape. The doors and door frames have a pocket cut into them that the bent out leg of the R shape fits into. The lower hinge piece has a piece of brass rod soldered in.
I made a batch up and paired together the most similar halves.
These are then glued to the door and then the door and hinges glued to the frame with epoxy being very careful not to get any in the hinge.
Hopefully this close up goes someway to showing them. I think inspiration came from a Colin Bonnie droodle.

I have found and used the very small piano type hinges that you find on some glasses cases, you can cut them up to make a single hinge or use them whole. Some are as small as 25mm long, others are around 75mm long. Again a great job on those doors.
Grant.
PS was the opening sash window on the carriage end your doing?

Thanks Grant, that's a good tip. I'll keep an eye out for glasses case hinges. I'm taking a lot of inspiration from carriage 12 on the Mid Suffolk Light Railway where I drive. The carriage end windows can be opened for ventilation but also to hang the tail lamp on its bracket more easily, which I think is a neat trick. I've cheated and fixed the window in the open position as I didn't design in a pivot point. It's rather vulnerable so I don't know how well it'll last.

More progress today, finally installing the seats in the passenger compartment and test fitting the luggage racks before I put the string net on them. Long term friends of the DVLR may well recognise the drab green legs and brackets from the old carriage livery. There'd have been tins of it knocking around in the paint shop (indeed, there are tins of it on my bench still) so I thought why not?

Better and better and better.... looks superb inside as well as out.

Those luggage rack brackets look spot-on!

Rik

Still going on the brake composite. Thought I'd share the internal detail in the guard's compartment.

I needed a way of hiding a Lego pneumatic air pump. I use these so that the air brakes can be taken off even if a loco has no means of generating air. So, a tall cabinet was needed. Taking inspiration from real events on the Mid Suffolk Light Railway, the story goes:
Fed up with a certain driver poaching from the footplate, the board made the decision to amend the rule book to prevent the conveying of firearms unless in a locked cabinet.
So, a gun cabinet, I suppose this makes this carriage a shooting brake... The second thing to show you is the guard's desk. Just three pieces of plywood, but I've enjoyed adding stuff to the top: the guard's lunch and some pencils.

Superb Zac. I love adding little details like that even if nobody sees them subsequently.

Excellent! I love the scuffed edges of the desk - and is that ham in the sandwiches?

Rik

Scale pencils - now that's something I've never seen in any scale.
Bloody brilliant as always, Zac.

Thanks all, this is the sort of modelling I get a lot of pleasure from and, fortunately, it doesn't cost avery much at all making bits from scrap. Standard issue ham sandwhich - just bits of card glued together!
The pencils, I couldn't resist really. They are 0.5mm mechanical pencil lead dipped in yellow acrylic paint. The paint was scraped back with a craft knife to give the black stripes. Once dry it was snapped into suitable lengths, sharpened and then the sharp end was dipped in cream acrylic. Once dry this is rubbed back at the tip to give a working 16mm scale pencil. [attachment=0]IMG_20260411_150629.jpg[/attachment]
They don't bear up that well under very close scrutiny but the look convincing from a normal viewing distance.

16mm scale pencil. Love it.

Dr. Bond of the DVLR wrote: ↑Sun Apr 12, 2026 5:11 pm it doesn't cost very much at all making bits from scrap.

Couldn't agree more, it's the excuse I tell myself for the state of my workbench. I keep all sorts of off cuts of every thing, you never know what you might need for some detail item. I put pencils on the desk in my signal box, but didn't go to anywhere near the extent that you've gone to.
Grant.

Whoa!! just reading through this post again,

Dr. Bond of the DVLR wrote: ↑Sun Apr 12, 2026 8:03 am I needed a way of hiding a Lego pneumatic air pump. I use these so that the air brakes can be taken off

I feel I have missed something along the line, could you please expand on your air brakes comment using Lego pneumatics.
Grant.

Preseli Chris wrote: ↑Sun Apr 12, 2026 9:43 pm 16mm scale pencil. Love it.

16mm scale "working" pencil .....

Rik

ge_rik wrote: ↑Mon Apr 13, 2026 7:32 am 16mm scale "working" pencil .....

Indeed. The Douglas Adams quote "surprise is no longer adequate and he is forced to resort to astonishment" applies to me, reading this thread, when I got to the bit about the scale pencils actually functioning...

Thanks all!
Grant: That signal box interior is spectacular. I like the hold down clips for the train register on the desk.
I've been thinking I need to make a tea cup - did you make the ones shown, if so could you share how you did it?

In terms of air brakes, I've had a long running project to have working air brakes on, at least some of my stock and I've had a fair few design iterations.
The system depends on LEGO pneumatics components becuase they are exceptionally well engineered and very air tight so the train can hold its charge for at least 15 minutes. The lego pneumatic hose is also well engineered - it is flexible and quite heat resistant. There are a few old threads on here but I suspect the photograph links have long since died. I'll put some photos up here of the installation on this carriage as it progresses.

I'm having trouble believing what I've just read, the idea of working air brakes.
Working hand brakes have crossed my mind a few times especially when I find a wagon in a siding overnight has been blown by the wind generally to be derailed at points. My son has those Lego pneumatics ( mmm, might call for some self control here) and they are very well made. Looking forward to see how you have gone about this.
Grant.
PS. sorry forgot about the cups, styrene tube cut to length, appropriate hole punch provided styrene ends and a bent piece of wire supa glued into place for a handle. Painted in thick white enamel.