The Rise of the Wisbech and Upwell Tramway Down Under

The etches of the rolling stock which was characteristic of the W&U arrived from Darkest Essex (see the blogs I am following) on Thursday and the first of 5 tram locos was built the same evening. As there aren't instructions for this kit, I wrote down what I did - anyone interested in what I did is welcome to get in touch. The loco is actually going to be Isle of Sodor Railway No 7 - better known as Toby the Tram Engine. As such, I wasn't too worried if it didn't end up exactly like the pictures in the books. The buffers currently fitted are standard 2mm FS turned brass ones - Great Eastern Loco buffers are going to be ordered when I get around to sending the order to Shop 3.

I am very pleased with how it looks - and it is going to run (which I haven't tested yet as the Darling Daughters railway is still in the process of its expansion/relocation and hasn't be repowered yet) on a Pro-Hobbies chassis - they have been written up in the NGS journal and I suspect a few 2mm FSA Members have got hold of them.

Next on the list was making Henrietta to go with Toby. This was tonight's project while watching round 1 of the new AFL season (Essendon has done pretty well against 19 of the 22 who won the premiership last year for Geelong, fading in the last term but holding on for quite a while).



The results of the efforts of 3 quarters of football are shown. Still a few bits to go - buffers, coupling hooks, brakes and wheels and I suspect there should be some vents on the roof but I haven't really looked into it. It captures what I want at the present time and again, gave me some insights into the build. There are instructions but I will be adding to them from my experience and sending the notes back to Essex. Given that this etches were the reasons why I joined the Dark Side (and the 2mm FSA) I am very glad I did - and David can take a bow too as they are very nice etches, go together well and even with no instructions, a newbie like me was able to do Toby in under 3 hours (and this included fettling the motor to fit) using the etch and a couple of pictures.

Footy is Back

Footy returned tonight for 2010 with the Bombers travelling to Perth to play the Eagles. Sadly, the Bombers while brilliant in the first term were not so flash after half time and faded to be shut out by 6 or 7 goals (I rarely remember the losing margin - and winning ones aren't relevent 'cause we won!).

What place has this on a Railway Blog? Not much other than I got the iron out and did some modelling in front of the footy. I finished the Prestwin - the valve gear between the tanks isn't that great but it looks the part from NVD so I am not worried. I also continued with the replacement chassis program for my Chivers and Parkside kits - this time building one of the Fencehouses designed Parkside replacements. Went together really well - the only down side being that there are no etched springs nor axleboxes on these kits. I presume - can't find destructions for them - they are designed with the glue one whitemetal axlebox and spring bits in mind. I had a set of four which I used and they look good and run very freely and true - much improved (although the wagons are all in Brisbane so it will be a while before they are fitted) but annoyingly I can only do the one - the 2mm FSA seems to be out of stock of the rest.

While this will set back the Parkside replacements, I still have 4 Tube wagons and 4 LMS kits to build chassis for - all of these etches seem to have all the bits I will need so another 8 games and I should have them all done. By that stage the wagons may have been gotten from Brisbane and then the fitting will commence. The next conundrum is what couplings to fit - these are all basically interchangeable between 2mm and N gauge so putting Rapidos on seems silly but I suspect they will spend more time on N gauge layouts than 2mm ones so... At least changing the couplings might be easy at a later date if I use the right adhesive.

Sorry about the lack of photos - still haven't taken any. Will try to in daylight tomorrow.