A New Loco Shed

This years plan (?) is to try finish off a number of projects that languish on , or under, my workbench. The first is the loco facilities for my small 09 (7mm scale on 009 track) miniature railway. The loco shed itself is finished, and I attach a photo of it, plus a picture showing the stages of window production.

 

I also have a water tower and coal heap nearly ready to go beside it.

The second thing on the list is a rather unusual type of little cart. Something I've wanted to portray for a number of years and have searched high and low for a kit, to no avail, so end up making one from scratch. In the film "The Quiet Man" you will see John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara taking a ride (actually 'courting', chaperoned by Barry Fitzgerald) in an Irish jaunting cart, and I wanted to add this little vignette to my scene.

As I said, I cannot find a kit, so had to do some research. There are surviving examples in various museums, who have pictures on line (isn't the internet marvellous in time-saving) and I found a Hobbies design for a model, which didn't have a scale to it, so I asked the Science Museum for a few dimensions of theirs and was able to rescale the drawings.

Most of the pieces could be done with 1mm ply, but the wheels and springs were too fragile for my clumsy attempts. These I had 3d printed for me at a reasonable cost. A couple of attempts at the bodywork hit the bin, but I eventually managed something reasonable.

These parts are now fixed together and I'm working on the driver's seat and steps. I've tracked down some reasonable facsimiles of the figures, from S&D Models along with a suitable horse. While I do the next part of construction I'm painting the figures as close to the film as I can get, and also researchin how to harness the horse into the shafts.

Progress report to follow.