Garden Railway Forum

Big Jim wrote: ↑Mon Dec 18, 2017 1:04 pm Splendid.
I think you are right about the introduction of railcars on various ng lines. It never happened in the UK but it could have done.

Most of our narrow gauge went just a little bit too early, so although a few lines tried to use petrol locomotives as mainline locos, e.g. Col. Stephen's experiments on the Nogger and the Welsh Highland, but the technology was not quite far enough on, or cheap enough, for it to make it to British NG. One thought that crosses my addled mind is what would have happened had someone had a go with a Simplex based railcar. Motor Rail cut its teeth building petrol trams for the Raj in the Edwardian period. Develop that technology a bit, and make sure they can reliably do 15 - 20 mph and you might have had a winner. Certainly, the Rye and Camber, with its pseudo-Simplex and one coach was only one developmental step off a petrol railcar. One thing that is for sure, the Simplex drive train was very reliable, as evidenced by the geriatric fusiliers still working in places like Leighton Buzzard, and on the Lincs. Coast Light.

To be really pedantic, though, the Clogher Valley Railway operated the first Walker Articulated Railcar from 1931-1941, and was in the UK, just not in Britain.

Cheers,
Peter in Va

Just adding my admiration to the cacophony James A really novel way achieve the correct curve for the roof, and one that will come in useful when I roof my remaining stock - so much easier than fitting the planks to a frame which you hope maintains its shape! And that bay platform is grand

James

superb work. I have wanted a railcar for some time. Yours is inspiration indeed. Captures the look and feel perfectly and you haven't finished yet.

Thanks

Dave

Brilliant work. They look stunning. Neat idea with the roof!

Sorry, only just catching up with this thread. Somehow seem to have missed it over Christmas.

Rik

Excellent job Jim,
As others have said, the roof idea is fantastic.

Hi guys.

Managed to carve out a little time to get into the workshop so the railcar has made a little more progress. I'm concentrating on getting the leading car finished off and I will be fitting this with Deltang and a sound card which I'm about to order. A lot of electronics work in this update!

Here you go:

One of the design problems was figuring out how to get power from one car to the other without having large connectors dangling between the cars. I decided to make my own connector using PCB jumper terminals. I think it will work out OK. I need to feed power to the speaker for the sound car which will be located in the trailing car as well as a feed for the directional lights.

Here is one of the connectors being made:




And here it is fitted to one end of the driving car:


There needed to be a pair of these and, while small are slightly over scale so they have been disguised with steps made from pasticard / tread plate and rivets:



Here is a mock up of the connected cables - these will be black on the finished model, they can be quickly unplugged and removed from both cars:



Seats and passengers have also made an appearance. I found some fabric for seat covers which is a little fluffy but gives the first class appearance I was after



A selection of passengers hanging out on the pillar drill:


In place in the leading car:



And finally.....


Anyone else find this stage of model construction a little disturbing !!





Hope you like it all so far

Hi James,

The solution with the jumpers is really neat. I love it!

Andrew

Anyone else find this stage of model construction a little disturbing !!

"They don't like it up 'em Mr Mainwaring"

I agree with Andrew re the jumpers, you've given them a very prototypical appearance.
Until I saw the last pic. I was hoping Elf & SafT had isolated power to the pillar drill.
Grant.

Great work - as others have said, the jumpers look like the real thing!

LNR wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 10:54 pm I agree with Andrew re the jumpers, you've given them a very prototypical appearance.
Until I saw the last pic. I was hoping Elf & SafT had isolated power to the pillar drill.
Grant.

No, the power wasn't isolated but I completed a full risk assessment and method statement and concluded that it was, in fact, risky!