Hudson Hacking - The Sequel

Many years ago I built a model of the Sherwood Forest Railway's Hudson-framed open wagon, using a Roy Link Scale skip frame and a very butchered Peco wagon chassis. The whys and wherefores were documented here at the time: Hudson Hacking, but it always looked a bit perched on undersized wheels and eventually gained a proper KB Scale replacement frame regauged to 9mm gauge. It then did a long shift on 'To The End...' as a static wagon. Just before Narrow Gauge Now I thought it would make a useful extra wagon for 'Odsock Corner' and very nearly added a set of couplings. But I then stopped and had a think... 

The real wagon chassis is about as butchered as my model ways, when regauged to 15" by a previous owner, rather than move the wheels on the axles, the axles were shortened and the axleboxes were moved in from the sides of the frame and mounted on angle-iron welded to the frame. My original model had reflected this, but the rebuild hadn't.

I decided that I would now try and build a new frame that not only had recessed axleboxes, but also the correct size wheelsets. Luckily two things were in my favour - I had the original frame and had intended to use it as a scenic item, and I had a spare set of Greenwich 8mm diameter wheels. 

So I set out and made a sub-frame with a 14mm wheelbase, Dundas bearings and the scratchbuilt Hudson axleboxes that had briefly featured on my generator flat wagon. 40 thou styrene was used throughout for strength, and I added several crossmembers to make a rigid frame. I was pleased that the result was square and ran true, so it was mounted into the skip frame, with two lengths of 40 x 60 styrene across the top of the frame, to support the body. This was the same size section as those under the existing body and I intended to re-use the centre support.

It was at this stage that I had a look back at the pictures of the original model and the prototype. Oh dear... even my Peco-based version didn't have a chunky section between the sub-frame across the end. The real wagon appears quite airy there and I had blocked the view of the wheels. In addition to that my 40x60 body support beams were laid flat and the originals are upright. Some changes were effected, removing both the support beams and then the offending section. I thought this might do but it became a lot less rigid so after some thought new flat beams were added, tapered on the lower outer edge to be out of sight between the sub-frames and further support fitted between the wheelsets. 

That pink post-it is my original sketch of the sub-frame sides, I made these over-long and paired then temporarily for drilling the axle holes etc, before cutting to length. The completed underframe is seen here with the current version of the wagon for comparison, the intention is to paint up the frame and then add the body back into place. 

I may have another look at the remains of the moulded couplings as they don't match the real wagon, in model terms the holes from my original MicroTrains fitting have been filled and arrangements made for Greenwich couplers with cut-down shanks to be used.

More soon...

Colin