Garden Railway Forum

Hi all,

I'm about to start my latest carriage building project, a pair (I think!) of WHR (ex NWNGR) Summer Cars. Until now my bogie carriages have used old Big Big Train running gear, but my supply of those has run out.

Can anyone suggest a good cheap alternative? Swift Sixteen ones look good but the wheelbase is a little short for the carriages in question, which should be about 55mm, although I might go with those anyway. Has anyone tried the Cambrian bogies? Any opinion on IP's plywood ones?

Alternatively, does anyone have a pair of Big Big Mk2s they'd like to sell me?

Cheers all,

Andrew.

I find Cambrian s products very useful although I have to careful with some as they dont suit fat fingers and short tempers. If you have neither of those you ll be ok!

Keep looking for big big ones I just bought last night a bogie big big wagon cheap to remove the bogies for a carrage I notice that big big stuff has gone up in price. I buy the tippers for a few pound but keep seeing them for £15 to much more..

I've used Brandbright plate frame bogies for my WHR carriages, they work well and are simple. I've also got experience of the IP wood bogies, and they are also simple and work well, albeit I've found that quite a lot of the upper wooden disc that is attached to the coach to slide against the bogie needs removing to give the required movement over rough track. Also the wheelbase is very short. Being wood, it is easy to attach additional detail pieces though.

Swift sixteen all the way for me, got a load of them now and I not had any problems yet!
Steven

Thanks all, much appreciated, and plenty to think about...

Swift Sixteen ones are tempting, they look like they'd run very well, but I fear they may look too short on quite carriages.

Brandbright are a possibility, looks like it'd work out at £35 a carriage though...

Interesting thoughts on the IP wooden ones Laalratty. My recently-completed FfR-ish bogie coach runs on those. I've not test-run it properly yet, but last time I did there was one curve in particular where it derailed, clearly not a great piece of track-laying because my Accucraft Baldwin struggles there too, but probably not the worst track in the world either because everything else runs over OK. I wonder whether trimming that disk on the underside would help? Do you mean cutting away on each side, to allow more lateral movement? Or all round?

I remembered this morning that I've got some IMP whitemetal bogies knocking about, might try to use those if the resultant ride-height isn't too great - the WHR carriages sit quite low, and I like overscale floors for strength, which doesn't help...

Any further thoughts welcome. I've just ordered a whole batch of stripwood to allow construction of the bodies to commence, very exciting...

Cheers,

Andrew

I'd cut one so that it can swing forward and back, and the other so it can swing side to side, that way you've got a form of 3 point suspension. certainly helped cure derailing problems with mine on rough track

laalratty:92343 wrote:I'd cut one so that it can swing forward and back, and the other so it can swing side to side, that way you've got a form of 3 point suspension. certainly helped cure derailing problems with mine on rough track

Excellent, thanks, I'll give it a try. Won't be easy because the bogies are already attached...

Cheers,

Andrew.

iv got a big big train if you would like it if its any good to you

That's very generous, thank you. It was actually the carriage underframe I was after, looks like you've already used that! And much as I've always fancied messing about with a Big Big Hymek I don't think I could pay you the going rate - I should have a look on E Bay if it's surplus to your requirements, you could probably get quite a lot for it.

Thanks again,

Andrew.

if anyone wants it make me an offer