Coaches for the Kotanga Tramway.

[Annie]

Well perhaps the idea of making corrugated iron coaches was a bit extreme. I've seen old photos of bush railcars done with corrugated iron, but using it on the 'varnish' (coaches for fare paying passengers) would likely raise some protests from the local populace.

I have built some plank on plank tramway rolling stock already, though I freely admit that care does need to be taken over making sure each 'plank' does fit properly against its neighbour to end up with a good result. The rolling stock you build is beautiful Graeme so I can't help but take note of your greater skill and experience.

[Annie]

Quite a while ago I started to build a tramway coach in 7/8th scale and it's been hanging around unfinished for ages. So I thought I would cut it down to suit the scale I'm presently working in.

The coach being built in 7/8ths



So far I've cut down the sides and narrowed the chassis and it's looking promising. I'm presently working on making new ends which is a slow process, but we're getting there. The bogies in the picture are 1&1/2 inch gauge from some cheap no brand toy trainset I picked up cheap and are actually faithful copies of a particular variety of narrow gauge bogie I saw in an old photo once upon a time. I have no idea of the maker, - either the prototype or the toy ones, - but I'm planning on taking a mould of the side frames so I can cast them in bog (car body filler) so I can make more just like them.

[IrishPeter]

The only corrugated iron bodied passenger vehicle I ever came across was in a Railway Magazine c. May 1978 or 1980 where they had a feature on the turf railways in Co. Donegal. One of them - 2' gauge not the usual 3' - had a Paddy Car that consisted of a wooden framed corrugated box with openings at the top for light and to let the ciggy smoke out, but it had a touch of class in that it had an arc roof. The whole contraption was built on a turf cage underframe.

Cheers,
Peter in AZ

[tuppenced]

Here's a couple of nice thoughts from Jarrahdale bush railway in Western Australia, 3' 6" gauge:





I believe they are what the Americans call a Combine :-)

Might have a go myself.

David

[Annie]

Now that's an interesting piece of rolling stock David.
Thanks for posting the pictures.

Peter, after quite a bit of my own research I haven't found anything of significance either so apart from the odd corrugated iron roof on a van or a workman's coach I'm going to forget all about it.

[tuppenced]

Australia is the spiritual home of corrugated iron engineering, but I've never seen it used for anything on rolling stock except the roof.

At Last, Annie! I've found you an Australian wriggly-tin-sided van - and not too different from your design for your Kotanga Tramway! Another item from the Millars timber empire, Western Australia.



And look along the RIP track: a four-wheeled carriage not too different from your Kotanga Tramway design.

David

[Annie]

Brilliant David. What an amazingly useful photograph! Thank you so much for finding this photo for me. There is just so much useful detail in this photograph I can use.

Ha! - the wriggly tin brake van shall go to the (tramway) ball afterall.

And as you say David that coach is so very close to what I'm building for the Kotanga Tramway. The diagonal iron bracing is an interesting detail too
Seeing that short three windowed coach made me smile though as I'm in process of building a coach for the mining company's tramway that's so close to that one it's not funny.

[tuppenced]

that coach is so very close to what I'm building for the Kotanga Tramway.  The diagonal iron bracing is an interesting detail

The smaller coach to its left is interesting too as it has a Tropical double roof, the air gap and slight overhang all helping in the heat - a bit.

I'm flogging through the 1700+ pictures in the railheritagewa collection, all in random albums of about 200 scans, with brief captions but not at all easy to Search. you can see that I've come up with shots from the same reel of film on different days.

David

[Annie]

Yes I was looking at that roof and wondering why it was like that.

I started to look at some of the pictures in the railheritagewa collection yesterday afternoon and was amazed at what an incredible resource it is. Pack a lunch and a thermos before going in though because it's difficult to stop exploring once you start

[tuppenced]

Absolutely!

Meanwhile here's a restored WAGR coach like the derelict one with the funny roof. I don't know where it lives, but if it's Yarloop then it will have perished in this month's disastrous bushfire.

David

[Annie]

That's a lovely wee coach David. Now I'm trying to find an excuse to build one just like it

[tuppenced]

Excuse?



D

[tuppenced]

Just found the classification, measurements and more pictures of the little Tropical carriage.

WAGR Class AI (that's Alpha Indigo, not Alpha One) built by the Metropolitan Railway Carriage & Wagon Co, Birmingham England.

This particular 'cascaded' specimen used to be the Viceroy's car, hence the preposterous clear-storey, presumably to clear the plumes of his official hat.
      The rest of the class had plain roofs with lamp pots as per the restoration photo above and workshop photo below.

I'm gobsmacked at how absolutely TINY it is!
Length 16' (4 900)      Width 7' 6" (2 300)     Height excluding clear-story 10' 6" (3 200).

This new-to-me close-up shows a lot of characterful detail that my old eyes don't pick up from a view in gloss paint:



and here's another wreck in use as a caravan - presumably the one that's been restored:



   with an end view after restoration:



   and here's a workshop view at the late lamented Yarloop workshop showing Viceroy's car with clear-storey back left, standard car back right, standard wagon underframe under construction foreground:



Armed with all this information, my braincell tells me it wouldn't be right to kitbash a van into one - it deserves better! For example if I just skin an Accucraft van it would come out 2 feet too long altering the proportions of the windows etc etc. I'm too much of a rivet-counter to do that to such a dainty carriage that still survives to expose my crime. But I might see whether I've got any Gauge One long leaf springs though, and start an AI Project Box for When the Rush is Over.

So I'm now looking sideways along the RIP track for something more suitable - not to mention more Bush Tram - to bodge quickly.

Photoshopping the carriage measurements gives this APPROXIMATE rendering:



Note that the only plane in this picture that's any use whatsoever is that of the vehicle sides! (For example the ends visible have their max heights significantly underestimated.)

Running a ruler over the side plane - roughly of course - shows that the corrugated-clad van is the same size and proportions as the little AI carriage, while the carriage with diagonal braces is a fair piece bigger and the thing that looks like a Festo Quarryman is the same height as the AI but only about two thirds of the length.

(I love photo manipulation - that last sentence took just half an hour, instead of a day using a photogrammetry app or a week on a drawing board. One still has to get the Rules of Perspective right, but luckily there are low-tech tricks for that.)

My next task is to let matters of Scale and Proportion swill round in my mind. For example if I bodge an Accucraft van with Corrugated Cladding, it too would come out two feet longer than the one in the photo. But when it comes to a long-rotted van that was originally a kitbash in its own right, and about which I know nothing beyond this one side matchbox-sized view, I ask myself, "Actually, how much do I Care?"
     Somehow I don't think the answer will be long in coming ;-)

David

[Annie]

Well that expains a lot about why that coach looked so odd with its clear-storey. At first I thought it must be something that had been dumped on top of its roof or was a part of another coach that was stored behind that particular coach.
Like you I'm surprised how tiny that coach is and it certainly does have the Metropolitan Railway Carriage & Wagon Co family resemblance as I can bring to mind a number of English railways that owned larger, but similar looking 4w coaches.

I'm in progress with building at least one of the FR quarryman like coaches. I might build two, but I'll see how the first one goes before making up my mind. I'm cheating terribly by using a FR coach plan as a guide

By the way I'm impressed by the wonders of Photoshop David. I didn't think it was possible to straighten out a photo like that into a side on view.

[tuppenced]

I didn't think it was possible to straighten out a photo like that into a side on view.

Any photo app that lets you get hold of the corners of a picture and pull them around can do it. I use Photoshop Elements cos it's a fraction of the price of the grown up version - and besides the blighters want a Subscription these days. But I believe there are cheaper packages that will Distort a photo just as well.

Limitations:
- You need straight parallel lines in a pretty boxy Subject,
- You can ONLY do one plane at a time,
- The photo alone is not enough for this method.

Method:
- Project the major straight lines (running rails, cant rails, door stiles etc etc) to their Vanishing Points. Then use those VPs to Project minor straight lines towards each other, which means you can make use of crossing points that aren't actually visible in the photo at all !
- Pull all four corners of the picture until a Rectangle you are interested in become rectangular on your screen.
- Use your insider knowledge of the Subject to adjust the ratio of height to width. Eg if there's a wheel clearly visible in or parallel to you plane, adjust the ratio until it become round. Or use any other Number you have, like the ratio of height to width on a door, a numeral, a wagon side etc etc. Or use common knowledge, like the height and spacing of pairs of buffers.
- Use a separate copy of the photo for each Plane that counts. Remember that the glass in a window is further away from the camera than the frame around it, and even that small difference may be enough for you to need a separate Plane for it.

If all you don't have any fancy photo app but do have a Drawing tool that does straight lines, you can use the classic Graph Paper method:

-Find the Vanishing Points of the parallel lines and use them to Outline the significant rectangles in the Subject.
-Then draw the diagonals of each rectangle. They must cross at the exact centre of the rectangle, right?
- Now use the Vanishing Points to draw in the vertical and horizontal centrelines of the rectangle, thus dividing it into four quarters.
- Repeat for each of the quarters giving you 16 rectangles.
- Ignore any plain boring rectangles with no detail in your plane, and repeat again for just those that still have interest in your plane. That gives you up to 64 rectangles within your original.
- Now get a piece of paper and draw a Chessboard on it, 8 squares by 8 squares.
- You've now got enough information to sketch your Rectangle freehand on the Chessboard.
- Of course the proportions are bound to be awry - oval wheels etc but parallel lines will be parallel and square corners will be square, which is a good start.
freehand the Plane of that rectangle (and nothing else) freehand on an 8 square by 8 square grid.
- Apply the Proportion tricks (above) to calculate what proportion the chess square ought to be for your Insider Knowlege to come right (and the wheels become round again).
- Redraw the Chessboard to that Proportion.
- Re-map the photo onto the new grid.

It's more work, but it's still easier than swallowing a textbook on Surveying and Photogrammetry :-)

[Annie]

Photographed at Moreton Mill circa 1985.



Not been around much because I'm having a go at On16.5 at the moment.

[tuppenced]

Brilliant coach - thanks for that!

In 7/8" scale it'd be HUGE, but hey, it's an entire passenger train in one.

David 1/2d

(Oh dear, I see you are another Butterfly, flitting between projects! Anyway, you've inspired me to make progress on my Bush Tram.)

[Annie]

I've just started in On-16.5 because it allows me to do more scenic modelling indoors than I can do with 16mm. I'm plotting to take my 16mm stuff out into the garden all going well.

Yes I thought you'd like that coach David. I'm going to have a go at one in 16mm just because everybody told me that no coaches were ever made from wiggly tin.

[GTB]

In 7/8" scale it'd be HUGE, but hey, it's an entire passenger train in one.

Wouldn't be that big, as it's a 2' gauge cane tram vehicle, in 7/8 scale model form it works out about the size of a 16mm scale W&L pass carriage.

It's not technically a passenger carriage, as Moreton Mill didn't run a passenger service. It is their 'long' work car (as opposed to the 'short' work car) used on the navvy train for carrying the track gang and their tools. You will find a drawing of the work cars, including the matching tin shed on wheels used as a tool van, in the late Jim Fainges drawing collection.

The neighbouring Mapleton Tramway had a combination guard/passenger/cream van of similar appearance, but more conventional construction,that was used in public traffic.

Regards,
Graeme

[tuppenced]

You're right, Graeme, it's the 27' Long Work Car - still a hefty couple of feet long in 7/8" scale:



I'd muddled it with this Behemoth:



which looks a fair bit longer to me. Could be an Optical Illusion:

Here's the Short Work Car you mention: