The C&W Dept. is banging away at the winter works programme! Here's the three new flat wagons under construction. Standard Peco underframes and couplings (no comments please! ;D) with 20 thou styrene bed, 40 thou styrene buffer beams, 2.5mm square solid brass solebars (as you saw a few days ago) and 1.2mm angle edging to the flatbed. The brass angle was cut using the same method as in my note on the T sections for the coal wagons and all the lengths were mitred for fitting to the bed. Brake handles are spares from my rakes of Penrhyn slate wagons because only a percentage of those had them fitted. (I built the slate wagons 23 years ago and I knew the handles would come in useful one day!) The hangers for them are cut from yet more handles from the same source. These wagons have two handbrakes, each acting on one wheelset. You can always spot if a wagon has had one brake left on accidentally at some time because it emits that familiar donk-donk-donk-donk-donk sound. An acquaintance of mine once did that in the yard at Acton Works on a tube train which had just been overhauled...
Quote from: Tigger on January 08, 2012, 20:08
..... You can always spot if a wagon has had one brake left on accidentally at some time because it emits that familiar donk-donk-donk-donk-donk sound. An acquaintance of mine once did that in the yard at Acton Works on a tube train which had just been overhauled...
Over here they claim it's on account of wet leaves on the track, causing flats on the wheel tread of the EMUs after a brake application. At one time they had a large percentage of trains out of service due to the problem. That's what they claimed anyway! ;D
Nice flat wagons by the way. The brake handles look good on them. I use Colin Ashby handles left over from a large number of sprues.
Quote from: tedp on January 08, 2012, 23:19
Over here they claim it's on account of wet leaves on the track, causing flats on the wheel tread of the EMUs after a brake application. At one time they had a large percentage of trains out of service due to the problem. That's what they claimed anyway! ;D
Nice flat wagons by the way. The brake handles look good on them. I use Colin Ashby handles left over from a large number of sprues.
Thanks Ted; I'm pleased with them! We've found that disc-braked wheelsets are awful in the leaf-fall season. The traditional tread-brakes have the distinct advantage of cleaning the leaf deposits off the wheels on every brake application. (Still doesn't stop us getting flats on our 50-year-old A Stock on the Metropolitan though...)
Yes, it must be the disc brakes causing the trouble, and the lack of sanding gear on MU trains. Even back in the 1960s when they ran 1940s (!) disc braked stock over here, they always ran with flats on the wheels.
Very nice, David. I'll have to bear this thread in mind when I want to build some flat wagons, they look very neat.
Thank you Tom. When it comes to working the brass angle, careful stroking with a needle file is the key. That and good vision (or close glasses as I have to do nowadays!). And a bit of care and patience, of course!
Duly noted ;D
Incidentally, these flat wagons are only 26mm wide and 55mm long (plus couplings) so they're not all that big - something which came home to me last night when I put them on the rails for the first time! (and with all that brass they don't half roll nicely! I've found a few more unintended gradients on my 'flat' railway! Now I need to fit working handbrakes...)
Of course, except for the cattle vans which match the existing long vans exactly, at the moment all the new rolling stock is looking unusual and slightly 'foreign' and the coal and sheep wagons look distinctly weird because although they're based on my standard Peco 10ft underframe, there's nothing on the railway which matches their dimensions! I'll get used to then once they've been in service for a few months. I have yet to finish them all anyway!
As the new rolling stock construction programme comes to a close, here's the L&TR Works photo of one of the new flat wagons, all ready loaded with some logs.
The three wagons only need some weathering and then they'll go into service.
So far, for loads I already have a tarpaulined 'something', a pair of new farm wagon wheels, a new field gate and these logs.
The logs were 'glued' together with matt varnish which is almost un-noticable.
And thanks to Ted for other suggestions!