Garden Railway Forum

Posted: **Thu Feb 25, 2016 8:00 am**

Photographed at Moreton Mill circa 1985.

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

Posted: **Thu Feb 25, 2016 9:40 am**

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.)

Posted: **Thu Feb 25, 2016 11:12 am**

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.

Posted: **Thu Feb 25, 2016 2:49 pm**

tuppenced:116448 wrote: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

Posted: **Thu Feb 25, 2016 4:09 pm**

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:

Posted: **Tue Mar 08, 2016 3:32 pm**

tuppenced:115999 wrote:
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

David

Annie, I've now found a crisper photo of said wagon:

which has the Plus of showing that the end is also Squirmy Steel.

[In some lights, my brain can tell me that these are flat wooden laths, not corrugations. But comparing the two pictures magnified convinces me that it is curved sheet material. David

Posted: **Thu Mar 24, 2016 4:45 pm**

Annie:116059 wrote: 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.

It is very similar in size to the original Isle of Man Railway four-wheelers which were either 16'6" (B, C and D classes) or 17'6" long (A class), 7' wide, and 9'6" tall and ran on three foot gauge. They were built by Metropolitan in 1873-5, were close coupled - mainly in 1887-89, and eventually mounted two bodies to an underframe on bogies 1909-26. I have done a fair few miles in them in the bogie carriage form, and I can tell you that compartments in the former 'B' and 'C' class carriages were a wee bit tight.

A bit more brutal looking, at least to my eyes, were the 20' four compartment 3rds Brown Marshall built for Norwegian State Railways CAP gauge. They would right knee knockers on the 200 mile journey from Hamer to Trondheim!

Peter in AZ

Posted: **Thu Mar 24, 2016 5:15 pm**

Pete,

The similar Western Australian Government Railways coaches were on 16 foot underframes - Ozzies were less well nourished then :-)

Many WAGR vehicles were built in Britain, based on NZR designs.

By using this sharper photo and counting the corrugations more carefully I've decided that the corrugated vehicle was on a 15' long frame.

I've now acquired 10 vehicles suitable for kit-bashing. One is an IoM wagon that scales at 17' 6" in 1/24 scale - less of course in 1/20 scale.
We shall see what I make of them.

But I have a sheet of the right pitch corrugated styrene handy, either to clad a wagon as above, or maybe for making Masters for aluminium wriggle-tin.

David

Posted: **Thu Mar 24, 2016 5:44 pm**

Dave,

Most of the later IMR wagons built 'Across' were on underframes between 14'6"-ish long. Those constructed locally were a little longer - 17'6", 16'6" or 16' - depending on from whence the frames were recycled. As they were built on old coaching stock underframes, the carrying capacity was limited to 3 or 4 tons compared to the 5 or 6 for goods wagons built as such, as Douglas shop could be bothered to re-spring them. I have a strong suspicion that the wagons on coaching stock underframes were used for things which were bulky rather than heavy, such as hay and empty gas bottles.

Peter in AZ

Posted: **Sat Mar 25, 2017 6:36 pm**

tuppenced:116662 wrote:
tuppenced:115999 wrote:Annie, I've now found a crisper photo of said wagon:
and have made some slow progress with my Western Australia rake.

Here's the inner body (without corrugated), shortened from an Accucraft W&L van:

You might ask why the 'sep' headed screws, and so many of them.
It's because when I bandsawed a chunk out of the middle:

everything looked OK for a while, until the poured urethane Relaxed, like this:

and it proved disturbingly difficult to get the two halves matching, let alone lined up, let alone fixed together solidly:

So I made up a jig (below, and foreground of first picture).

I held it in a vice, and it lined everything up for final trimming, drilling and screwing to a central block of wood that stays part of the van.
The new doors will cover the screws, and the underframe will be shrunk to fit.

By the way, the wooden panel infill (bits of wooden Venetian blind slat) is to prevent over-zealous fingers from crushing the corrugated sheathing. Hopefully . . .

David

Posted: **Thu Mar 30, 2017 5:40 pm**

The Tin Van now has a roof (brutally hacked out of the original Accucraft roof on a linisher), plus trial pieces of straight and curved 1/24 scale corrugated, er, aluminium (ticking on with ticky tape):

: Tin Van Roof.jpg (335.65 KiB) Viewed 6790 times

David

Posted: **Fri Mar 31, 2017 12:04 am**

Hi David, interesting to see you covering a wagon with corrugated iron. I have considered doing the same, as it typifies VR rolling stock practice. I roll my own corrugated sheet, but it is still susceptible to damage. I wondered if for the roof, you were to mix some auto body filler, lay a thick layer on the roof, then pull the corr. sheet down over it. When set even if it didn't stick the sheet down, it would provide a solid profile to glue the sheet to and stop it being so easily damaged. I haven't tried it myself yet, but figured that's how I would go about it. Graeme (GTB) has used corr. cardboard to great effect, but it too is vulnerable. Perhaps some experimentation is required. Just some thoughts.
Grant.

Posted: **Fri Mar 31, 2017 12:22 am**

I'm sure this build is done by way of an experiment to see how such a van can be made, but having gone this far I can't see any purpose in modifying an existing van body when there will be none of it to view when complete. Possibly Mk2 will be a simple ply box clad in corrugated sheet?
Plastic sheet with scale corrugations should be available and be less vulnerable to damage than the thin metallic cladding?

Garden Railway Forum

Coaches for the Kotanga Tramway.

Re: Coaches for the Kotanga Tramway.

Re: Coaches for the Kotanga Tramway.

Re: Coaches for the Kotanga Tramway.