Garden Railway Forum

These coaches seem to be based on German/Swiss/Harz designs but at £40ish a coach seem a bloody bargain.

Does anyone own any of these and what is the general consensus on them please? What work would be required to make them 16mm/live steam friendly?

Cheers

Do you have a link to the product please?

I sure do.

http://www.gscaleonline.co.uk/epages/es ... cts/N58072

Is it just a simple wheel swap for 32mm? 'Tis a bargain at that price. Ideal for a tramway type line.

Someone's been reading Garden Rail again.

I was tempted to try and "Victorianise" one....

I have seen one running on 32mm. I believe the design is a close copy or even a clone of a LGB coach, maybe the drop-in wheelsets supplied by Garden Railway Specialists would be a good starting point, cheers Rob

Tempted to get one and re gauge. Anyone else done this?

LGB-type wheels are easy to re-gauge, we did this with LGB and Kalamazoo wheels back in the 1980s.

Pop out the axles from the bogies and then remove both plastic wheels, they come with a molded on stem.

What you will do is to trim the backs to get the "back to back" spacing correct to 32mm gauge from 45. Memory is the back to back for 16mm/32mm gauge is 28mm, so divide that by half and there should be 14mm of material behind each wheel (compare with existing 32mm wheels before cutting!!)

Take the cut wheel and stems, slide back on the axles and then you can (if you wish) put the plastic you cut off on the wheel-to bogie sideframe side of the wheels.

The whole conversion takes no time.

As for the quality of the cars.

They were reverse engineered from a famous German brand's models, some claim they are the same dies, not true, as not everything is 100% interchangable size and fitting wise.

They do not use automotive grade plastic like that famous German brand. They are lightweight and the plastic is not UV resistant (one coach left in the Tennessee sun for a year disolved) like the famous German brand. I would put the quality on par with Bachmann's Big Hauler line.

Another common modification for the cars is to put these cars on the smaller Bachmann wheelsets, it lowers the cars and the added weight of the metal wheelsets helps. But this does not help the re-gauge issue.

I believe there is an article on this month's Garden Rail...would be happy to buy s/h comeone's copy? I think they would need rewheeling and also couplings altered, possibly to Accucraft choppers or centrebuffer?

Ive got said Magazine. I dont recollect much about wheels....

Aha. I did buy a copy but left it in Tywyn...might need to get a copy or find mine soon.

However I'd be after a rake of the green and cream ones, which seem to be rare these days. The green and cream ones suit both GER and GWR liveries, as well as pay tribute to a certain kids show...!

If i had one Id try to victorianise them...planked sides or add moulding and drop light windows.....

Mouldings you say? Like, bodywork over the main bodies? What would that look like,any prototypes?

Doug et al-

One of the problems with them is they are a modernized Saxon car with Reko type windows, very modern.

Terry Foley (tac) modified some to look Hungarian with decent results, he sent me some photos a while back due to my reference material and interest in East bloc narrow gauge.

Tac did the article in Garden Rail. Very nice his carriages look too

Ah but surely we have a prototype(ish) by form of the European coaches that the Welshpool and Llanfair use?

As for windows fair enough - though I understand the glazing can be removed? And surely, as there's no fire or heat in these things, one could make plasticard overlays and spraypaint them?