More reefer progress

TRCs have been primed & base coated by Roy H:

The basic silver makes a big difference. Now just need to dig out the decals for Roy. That's it for now.

Reefer progress

Another two weeks gone, and a bit of progress to report.
MRC -

Added missing angle to underframe.

Buffers fitted. The holes had been drilled out way too big, so they had to be filled & redrilled.

Bogie bolsters fabricated & centre-marked.

Handbrake brackets, spiders & rod fitted. The brackets were bent into a Z shape to get more gluing surface. The handbrake spiders actually turn at this stage - hopefully the paint won't gum them up! Might have to fit a chain to the brake cylinder ...

Progress Score: Me 1, Technology 0

Defeated the Dumbphone and managed to send pics from it to laptop via Bluetooth, having misplaced the lead. It's probably on my desk at work.

The basic body, which I had assembled 20-odd years ago, and given a thin coat of Testor's white enamel to try to reduce the tackiness of the resin. 

 

One "platform" was a casualty sometime in the past.

The other had a chunk knocked off it, so I removed the rest.

Coupler pockets were sawn down the sides VERY SLOWLY, then snapped off with a pair of pliers against a block of timber. Holes for buffers drilled out.

Floor fabricated from 0.060" styrene, using slow-type CA to adhere.

Replacement platform from 0.040" styrene, using the CA with accelerator type glue. The original crap ladders will stay, as I feel it would be tempting fate to drill too many more holes - and I've yet to do those for the lamp irons.

On the "workbench" at Ingleburn RSL Pipes & Drums last Thursday evening, with the TRCs. Both my kids are pipers.

Bogie centres drilled, couplers drilled & tapped, centre beam fabricated from two pieces of channel.

Air tank and brake cylinder / triple valve assembly fitted. Holes ere drilled in the floor for the casting sprue, then slow-acting CA applied from inside the van.

More refrigeration

Thought I'd better post before a whole month went by.
The TRCs are ready to go to the paint shop, so I started on an old Friedmont MRC. All I had was the body and my box of bits. Will see how far I get for $0.
Dumbphone won't let me upload pics - check my Facebook page.
Cheers,
Lindsay

Lamp irons & brake releases

After a couple of hours at Spencer Street to get the coverage of N & P class action (and hoping forlornly for an A) I spent another evening in the hotel working on the brake release valves, the angle iron frame for the handbrake chain pulley, and the lamp brackets.

 

Brake release valves from 0.5mm enamelled copper wire and 0.020" styrene, 1.5mm wide. Need to make sure the holes for the wire are just clear of the "fishbelly" of the underframe.

 

 

Lamp brackets from staples. Pre-drilled 0.6mm in the reinforcing ribs in the ends. Note that the prototype TRC3235 featured in AMRM Vol 4 #2 & Vol 10 #3 has the side lamp irons mounted on the second rib from the top. Other TRCs featured in Vol 10 #3 and TRC31299 stored at Broadmeadow - as featured on LC1073's flickr site - have them on the rib below i.e. third from the top, with evidence that they were relocated at some point in time.

 

 

Added the holes (presumably for lifting) at the ends of the solebars.

 

Need to research whether there was a builder's plate at the LH end on both sides, or only one, and determine how to make the brackets for the uncoupling lever, and that might have to do.

Cum Romae esse uti facere Romanos

Had to travel to Mexico for a Standards meeting, so thought I'd take a leaf out of Rod Stewart's book and put the evening in the hotel room to good use. Just hope that Housekeeping doesn't mind some styrene dust and off-cuts on the carpet!
The TRC project continues, with underfloor detailing:

 

 

From the bits box, I've added Kerroby brake cylinder / triple valve assemblies & air tanks.

 

 

Door bumpers from 0.010" styrene added to sides.

 

 

 

Additional cross-members fabricated from 0.040" web and 0.010" flanges.

 

 

And more from 0.010" strip. Note also the drain pipes for the melted ice, made from 1.3mm diameter enamelled copper wire.

 

Brass handbrake bracket / spider. A piece of 0.5mm enamelled copper wire suffices for the rod linking the handbrake spiders. A similar arrangement is needed for the brake release valve.

 

Might be able to add lamp brackets tonight.

Track Plan

Drafting of the Weddin track plan is finally underway again. The station / yard is based on the arrangements at Canowindra as published in an SRA of NSW Track Diagram Book circa 1982. I have added a dock road for the branch railmotor, and the junction arrangements. These provide for a train to depart either from the dock or the main to take the branch line. I left out the R. A Brown siding on the (prototype) Eugowra end (i.e. the Cootamundra end as modelled), and compressed everything else to the space available.

Both Parkes and Coota have three roads of storage. There is a continuous run through the middle, and a head-shunt is provided for both sets of staging. Two roads at each have run-around facilities.
The timber trestle will be located on the straight beyond the Cootamundra end of Weddin. The branch will need about a 1 in 30 grade to gain sufficient height at the terminus (not shown) above Parkes.
I intend to rotate everything anticlockwise a few degrees so that the straight tracks are not parallel to the edge of the benchwork (at least in the scenicked areas).
That's it for now.

More TRC detailing

Reviewing images of THNSW's TRC31299 stored at Broadmeadow which I found on LC1073's flickr site, I decided to add some meat to the underframes. The structural members running from the solebar to the bogie bolsters were an obvious candidate. Webs were made from 0.040" styrene, then plated over with 0.020". In retrospect, I should have had a pair of webs each side of the 0.020: so I could then drill the necessary hole.

The webs added. In frustration with bogies repeatedly falling off one TRC, I had put "just a drop" of cement on the pins. There was no way the joint would subsequently let go when I wanted to remove the bogies, resulting in the pin failing instead! Oh well, nothing a drill won't fix...

Adding the flat plate. These will need a little filing at the bolster end to get everything nice and flat again. Pencil writing indicates position of brake cylinder & air tank, and orientation of cylinder. Similar marks on the sides were made to position hand brake, door bumpers, waybill clip and lamp irons.

Pads for mounting the brake cylinder. These are laminated from 0.020" & 0.010" to get the surface just proud of the solebar.

The next task will be pieces of channel for the air tanks, then drill the holes for mounting the cylinders and tanks. Not sure how keen I am prepared to get with pipework. Copper wire will be too flexible for the long unsupported runs, will have to see what I have in the way of brass or phosphor-bronze. I have drilled all the lamp iron & brake hose holes, but not much point trying to post a pic of 0.5mm holes in white plastic!

Cooling off

A bit of work on some TRC kits to add detail. Roy Howarth suggested bumpers for the ice hatches, as he had already added to his TRC31183 & ABC31320. He also pointed out the handles for opening the hatches, to be fabricated from 0.5mm diameter enamelled copper wire. Roy has a great supply of this (and other sizes), which he uses for hand rails etc. Some may think that copper is more easily bent out of shape than brass - which is true, but of course it can also be more easily corrected!

Drilling the ends of the TRCs for grab irons .

Hatches marked out by eye for the handle positions.

One set of hatch bumpers installed, the other has positions marked out by reference to Roy's ABC31320

Fitting bumpers.

The 0.5mm diameter holes have been drilled for hatch handles and roof grab irons.

First lot of roof grab irons installed.

Buffers fitted. Will probably need to change the Kadee #5s into #26s

First one "finished".

 

The next step will be to fill gaps in the corners, as well as a couple of sink marks in the sides. I suspect I bought these kits as "seconds", as the mouldings have a number of defects, including the sink marks. The roofs appear to be short-shots as they are quite thin, especially at the ends.

The ladders need some work to extend the stiles diagonally onto the car ends. After that, I'll see what can be done to the underfloor area.

Trestle bridge

A survey of the damage sustained in the "bike accident". It could've been a lot worse. Only a couple of small pieces of the refuge island, and one of the strips of capping off a wing wall are currently "missing", expected to be found on the floor of the garage once I can clear enough stuff to search for them.

 

 

 

 

 

The upside of this is that another problem has been solved for me. As built, all locos and rollingstock in the collection would traverse the bridge OK with the exception of deep-flanged Lima stuff (expected, since I had used rail stripped from a piece of N scale flex track) and my Trax Z.13. The Z.13 would drop inside the gauge at one point, so the tyres must be fairly narrow compared with everything else. Presumably, the use of a Kadee coupler gauge for setting the track gauge had caused a degree of inconsistency along the length of the bridge. The difficulty lay in removing the rails, which had been secured with a drop of araldite on EVERY transom. Well, both rails were loosened sufficiently at one end (four transoms) by the bike impact for me to be able to work my way carefully along and prise them off. Only two more transoms came adrift in this process.
Rectification work will include finding / replacing the missing bits of timber, scraping off the araldite from rails & transoms, then relaying the rails. Any ideas for a cheap, easily made gauge would be welcomed. Finally, the wing wall assemblies will be re-attached.
Once re-assembled, I'll work on some sort of concrete base for the bents.
That's it for tonight.

 

Tinplate

Not exactly making progress with Weddin, but having been inspired by the current display of tinplate at the Powerhouse Museum yesterday, this afternoon I broke out the old suitcase containing the "family heirlooms". The Hornby type M1 0-4-0 reversing locomotive (LNER colours) is not the original for the collection. The couplings are different from those on the two passenger cars, "Marjorie" and "Aurelia". The clockwork stuff belonged to maternal uncles, and the truss bridge, side-tippler, station and scissors cross-over were made by my grandfather circa late 1940s. I'm told the bridge and station were based on structures at / near Telopea on the Carlingford line, where the family lived.

 

The kids then talked me into digging out the Ferris three-rail Sydney single deck set, having walked through F1 while on display at Sydney Terminal yesterday. This had belonged to my dad's late brother. The marker lights came on, we got some very halting movement from the mech, and a fair bit of arcing, so I assume the motor is not actually burned out, but in need of a lot of TLC. Not sure that the original transformer would pass a "test & tag" inspection, though! The power car definitely needs an application of "bullfrog snot" to repair perished tyres.

 

Turning, turning

The minor damage to the 60' turntable was rectified today, and it now just needs the paint touched up.
The handrails were bent when a bicycle fell off its hook on the garage wall, the handlebars coming to rest on them. One stanchion was split.

The handrails were eased back into a better line, and the split stanchion closed up again.

3501 (Bergs) & a D.50 (also Bergs, but a lot older) pose for the camera.

Oops, didn't notice the front bogie leading axle was derailed!

The remaining slight bend in the handrails is adjudged to be "prototypical".

 

That's all for now. Might get a chance to work on the trestle repairs soon.