Railcar Doodles

It's been a bit of a quiet spell at the workbench of late, but this week I have at least been thinking about doing something, which is a start. I was given a Kato 11-105 bogie chassis for my birthday back in February and have been trying to find a use for it, maybe something a bit novel (for me anyway)... so I started to think about railcars.

Now there aren't many small 15" gauge railcars about, I did consider a 'caricature' version of the Ratty's 'Silver Jubilee' in the style of David Malton's 3D printed 009 models but even that would be pushing it. Then I saw photos on Facebook* that reminded me of a very obscure 15" gauge machine, the Minirail railcar that appeared at the Axe & Lyme railway and went on to Dudley Zoo. These online photos, and one rediscovered in a copy of 'Narrow Gauge Times' that I bought during lockdown, gave enough clues to dimensions, plus I relied on the prior knowledge that most Minirail items are 3ft wide.

As one of my friends said, it does rather look like two 1950s caravans back-to-back! I did put together a drawing but it isn't quite right around the cab side windows and maybe needs a little more overall in length.

There is a minor drawback to this scheme that will only make sense if you see a photo of the real thing (and I cannot share one here for copyright reasons). The Minirail railcar was actually a 4w vehicle, and the Kato chassis has bogies. The wheelbase on the real thing must have been 6-7ft which is a bit longer to scale than the Kato 4w chassis, so the bogie chassis does make a little sense.

But my main issue was that having got over my curiosity about it I wasn't really that bothered about building it. So I started to look for other ideas. I remembered that I had a pair of damaged Avalon line bogie coach sides that Peter Leadley kindly passed on a while ago, so I started to look at what might be feasible with them. One side is complete but the other is quite damaged, however a neat little railcar could result, maybe a battery unit to excuse the lack of engine bay. As a further alternative I part-drew a slightly longer version based on an A1 models chassis frame I have, with a short snout of a bonnet. I am actually less enamoured by that version if I am honest.

Even if the railcar version never gets built I can see a mini coach being built based on that drawing...

Colin

*the photos are in the Narrow Gauge & Miniature Railways of the British Isles group - you may need to be a member to see them.

Skale Tree Surgery - Revisited

I've been tinkering with trees again, not the 'tree two' I referred to in a previous post but certainly a second tree. This was last seen back in April 2021 in Skale Tree Surgery, being a new generation Hornby Skale Scenics tree reworked with new foliage. At the time I was pleased with the outcome but after the success of the half-relief tree I decided to revisit it again as with hindsight it wasn't the result I wanted, now finding that it looked a bit too "straggly".

April 2021 - the first attempt at new foliage

So, I again stripped back the foliage (luckily stuck with water soluble PVA), and started again. I was going to use Woodland Scenics medium green foliage again, but feared my supply was low (I had to restock to complete this tree first time around). Whilst drifting to sleep one evening I remembered that I had an unopened pack of Skale Scenics foliage from the original range, on checking the following day I discovered it was R8833 light green, medium foliage fibre clusters. Having had reservations about using similar material on the half relief tree as it had looked bit too flat, on opening the pack these drifted away and I set to work. 

There are no progress photos, I just dug straight in and got on with it over a series of sessions, this is the result.

Having deployed many of the tricks used on the half-relief tree, such as layering material and stretching it further, I am much happier with the result over last years effort, the foliage is much fuller and has much better shape, even if the other side is definitely the back!

From the top I used a trick in Gordon Gravett's book, spreading a single, teased piece of foliage across all of the top level branches, and trimming it back prior to adding further layers.

I think it is likely that this tree will be retained for a future 4mm scale project rather than 7mm scale, but we shall see...  

Colin