Now some readers may find the following a bit repetitious depending on their choice of reading. I have recently (i.e. in the last few months) had two different on-line magazines publish articles regarding my first forays into N6.5/Nn3 Narrow Gauge Modelling so if you're a subscriber to N Scale Magazine or you read the free download from N Scale Modellers of Australia, you'll already know a bit about some of the models which appeared in the last post. I think some of my stuff has also appeared in a newsletter in the UK.
For those who haven't heard about it, the story is as follows:
As someone who lives within 500 meters of the North Coast Railway in Queensland, Australia (the
line runs from the capital city Brisbane in the south east corner of the state
some 1000 miles to Cairns in the north) and who grew up with a station at the
end of my street within the inner suburban network of the same Cape Narrow
Gauge system, narrow gauge trains have always had a fascination to me. Admittedly the rail network in Queensland, at
over 6600kms of Class I railroading (to borrow the US term), is hardly what you imagine when you think
of narrow gauge and indeed, when Queensland adopted 1067mm gauge for its
mainline in 1865, it was the first place in the world to eschew the Stevenson
Standard for a mainline and adopt something smaller.
Now, regular readers know I am a member of the NGS and 2mmFSA and within those organisations are special interest groups devoted to modelling narrow gauge
and I was fortunate to be able to sit down with one of the driving forces of
2mm Scale narrow gauge in Mark Feilder whilst visiting the UK in 2016 and have a lengthy chat about options for modelling in the smaller scales.
Having visited both the Ffestiniog and Talyllyn (along with Australia’s very own Puffing Billy) I was
interested in seeing how I could incorporate some narrow gauge modelling within
my own interests. Now both of these are
not 3’3” gauge railways (which is what you get if you use Z gauge track in the N Scale family) – they are quite narrow with the Ffestiniog being
1’11.5” and the Talyllyn 2’3”. To model
these to scale – and 2mm Scale is easier on the maths than the other members of the Scale Family – the Talyllyn would call
for a track gauge of 4.5mm and the Ffestiniog a touch under 4mm. Whilst I don’t doubt this is possible – the
Talyllyn has been done for example on 4.5mm track – I don’t yet have the
skill. And so on the backburner the
ideas went until a couple of catalysts brought them back to the fore.
The initial catalyst to have a go was actually as a result of one of the members of the Local Area
Group of the 2mm Scale Association who, having also been intrigued by Mark’s
efforts, sort to have a go himself. David
had acquired examples of the only British narrow gauge models available – the
Peco N6.5 white metal locos and wagons.
Both the locos are designed to run on a Marklin 8800 (now 88051) chassis
and whilst one is a generic 0-6-0ST the other is a reasonably accurate representation
of one of the original Glyn Valley Tramway locos which ran in Wales until the
1930s. David was looking to have a few
more models to run and I was looking for a reason to learn 3D drawing and
printing skills and so a plan was formed…
Now having a plan is all well and good – and as far as plans went this was a pretty simple one. I was going to design some suitable rolling stock to run on David’s narrow gauge line.
What exactly I was going to make was entirely up to me, and how they
were going to actually run was not exactly clear. The initial idea was to include axle boxes in
the drawings and see about using bits and pieces from the 2mmSA shops to get
them to work. Initial designs worked on
this principle but whilst it was a good idea in theory, it didn’t quite work in
practice.
Then I was browsing a 2nd
Hand Stall at a local model railway show and came across a Micro Trains Line
Nn3 boxcar. I offered the bloke running
the stand AU$5 for it on the basis that it wasn’t N scale, whatever
he thought and he agreed. Pocketing the
model I went home, determined to dismantle it and see if it was going to solve
our problems – at least as far as passenger operations were concerned.
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| Donor vehicle - Microtrains Nn3 30' Boxcar. The body is discarded completely. |
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| Chassis awaiting the 3D printed body. |
The dismantling of the
model proved to be very easy – the body came off leaving a cast metal chassis
with the trucks intact. Measuring the
chassis showed that creating a new body to fit was going to be very easy – and
the body was going to be compatible with the locos we already had
available. The biggest problem was we
only had the one chassis. Fortunately,
recourse to a well-known on-line auction site resulted in quite a number of examples being
obtained.
And so to the model. I looked at the coaching stock on both the Talyllyn and Ffestiniog railways along with what runs on the Puffing Billy here in Australia and came up with a basic design. The maths worked out quite neatly on 4 compartments for seating and, following UK practice, this was decided to be for Third Class stock. To get First Class (I won’t go into why second class wasn’t around for decades here – if you are keen, you can easily find out the history) I made the compartments a bit bigger – however I wasn’t able to get 3 in neatly but this wasn’t a problem as I needed to put a guard in somewhere and so the Firsts ended up having two compartments and a guard’s area with provision for luggage and mail. The idea being a normal service train would be three Third Class coaches and a Brake First – the logic being each First compartment held 8 passengers in a 2 a side configuration and the Third compartment would have 6 passengers in a 3+3. Each First Brake would then have 8 passengers and each Third would have 24 – a train would then have 80 passengers assuming a full load which in the world of Narrow Gauge would be extremely unlikely, even on a market day during high summer!
To produce the coaches I
drew up the models in Autodesk Inventor. The method I use is to draw a corner or whole
side and then mirror it, depending on how the final model is supposed to look.
Once I had the coach body
drawn – and I took the opportunity to include seating, and a couple of open
windows so that each side had some variation – I turned attention to designing
a drop in roof. I included pilot holes
in the roof for locating ventilators which were obtained from Etched Pixels in
the UK. Similar ones are available from
other suppliers.
Both drawings, once I was
generally satisfied, were converted to STL files within the program and then
uploaded to Shapeways. I got a test print sent out, and
having found it didn’t quite fit the chassis I made some modifications to the
drawing and uploaded it again. The second
set of prints worked much better (the first were usable but required filing
almost 2mm of metal from the chassis – I’d forgotten to allow for the overhang
on the original drawing!)
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| All Third and Roof as supplied from Shapeways |
Because I had included
seating when I painted the bodies, I also painted the inside. The First Class seats will be red and the
Thirds are green. I also painted
the rest of the interior and put the odd figure in to represent passengers.
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Painted, footboard added and transfers on. Just needing to be glazed - and weathered.
I still haven't touched the white roofs!.
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The numbers on the doors
denoting the class of compartment come from Fox Transfers, and once they were on I sealed them in
with a coat of Dulcoat from Testors. I
have yet to finish the rest of the set in terms of weathering and glazing at
this time.
So having sorted coaches,
my attention turned to having locomotives.
Whilst I had access to the aforementioned chassis, I also had a chassis
which didn’t fit under the whitemetal kits – in fact, between David and I, we
had two. Both 2-6-0 steam locos of the
8803 family. David was interested in
having a 2-6-2T and I a 0-6-0 so it was quick work to see if the pony truck
from one of the chassis would become a trailing truck on the other –
fortunately it fitted fine and the swap became permanent.
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| Number 1 "Amity" and three of the four coaches pulling into the restored station on Celyn Glanfa |
Again the inspiration of
the Talyllyn and Ffestiniog came to the rescue – in this case TR No 4 “Edward
Thomas”, a Kerr Stuart 0-4-2 saddle tank and the Ffestiniog No 2 “Prince”, a
George England 0-4-0. The result was a
basic design for cab, smokebox and running plate with variations between the
two surrounding the water tank design.
The 2-6-2 was drawn with side tanks – inspired in part by the Standard
Gauge Adams Radial 4-4-2T built by the London South Western Railway (one being
preserved at the Bluebell Railway in the south of England) – and the 0-6-0
ended up with a saddle tank in line with the two original inspirations.
Again the locos were
drawn up in Autodesk Inventor and the resulting STL files sent to
Shapeways. The initial prints showed up
a number of issues when attempting to mate to the chassis – the 2-6-2 was
broadly ok on the chassis but was overly long at the bunker end and the 0-6-0
was a bit long at the front end, as well as sitting a little high. Again the drawings were tweaked and sent
back.
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The numbers are from when I sent the pictures to someone to explain the issues.
1 is the Mk 1 - to long and not sitting square.
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The Mk 2 print - much better in length but still not sitting properly.
With a bit of filing it probably could be made to fit. The issue is above the cylinders.
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| The final print - this is the print which appears in all its glory in the photo above. |
The second print showed
the length issue had been corrected but there were still a problem with the
body not sitting well on the chassis. So
a further tweak to the drawing and another print order, this time with fingers
crossed that all would be well as by this stage we had a layout booked for a
show (more about the layout anon). Fortunately the MkIII 0-6-0 was
excellent in all respects and, despite the lightness of the FUD print, still
managed to haul the four coaches we had available – although we ended up
deciding that three had a better balance when it came to presentation.
The MkIII print was
finished in LNER Apple Green – the same shade of paint that 4472 “Flying
Scotsman” is most famous for running in (albeit not currently – it is presently
in its 1960 BR Dark Green paint scheme).
A search through my decal collection gave rise to builder’s plates,
number plates (No 1) and a name plate – Amity, in honour of my long suffering
wife.
As I had a spare 88051
chassis, and didn’t really like the white metal kit of the Glyn Valley Tram, I
decided to draw my own and get this printed too. This ended up fitting on the first try
although I needed to modify the chassis a bit more than I had planned. Didn’t stop it from working so quite happy,
although I have modified the drawing for future prints with a larger diameter
chimney and dome as I felt the originals were a bit small. I also enlarged the cab area a bit to make
the fitting of the chassis smoother.
This loco David has kindly fitted a small DCC chip to – no room for sound
however! In keeping with the LNER theme
of the coaches and No 1, this was painted in LNER Garter Blue – the same shade
the 4468 “Mallard” is painted in. As
David had asked for his steam loco to be No 3, and I have plans for a second
0-6-0ST to be No 2, this loco ended up being No 4 and will, in the fullness of
time, be named “Nigel” after Sir Nigel Gresley.
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| No 1 "Amity" - I really should work out a way to disguise the motor! |
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| An early photo of what became No 4 "Nigel" on the unfinished Celyn Glanfa |
