DMU set (was IP motor bogie - any experiences?)

[Marquis DeCarabas]

Conversely, could you alter the rightmost window to be another door and leave the two existing doors as they are?

[hussra]

I think the rearrange layout better.Have you thought of leaving the door at the rear and moving the over door?

Ah, more like this:



This I quite like - space between rear doors and passenger saloon to be Guard's compartment on one car, and toilet on the other?

Not convinced I can add an extra door in a sufficiently convincing way that will match IP's laser cutting.

[invicta280]

Interesting this. I've been looking at various IP and Brandbright kits
including the observation car to do a similar 'cut and shut' job to make a  railbus. What seemed a good possibility was as per your first proposed alteration- cutting off the back door and transplanting to the front but additionally cutting out a section forward of the 'new ' front door to make the angled first window more of a quarterlight and
adding bulkheads to create a drivers cabin. Thus the whole thing would be shortened with the bogies closer together

However this kit would make a good DMU but its an edwardian style railbus i have in mind. Bit like this.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyrfaOwN ... re=related


i've got a meccano clockwork motor on standby!

Have you considered a pair of Observation cars with a powered motor van between them?

[hussra]

The MPDs had a two stage gearbox which allowed them to run either in what might loosely be call a 'goods setting' where the top speed was around 40 mph, but they could pull 200 tons, or a 'passenger setting' where the max speed was 75mph (honest, gov!) but the trailing load was only about 65 tons.  I seem to remember seeing a pic of a pair of them coupled back to back hauling a long line of CIE steel 'covereds' somewhere around Antrim City in the late-1960s..

There's a photo of three MPDs leaving Coleraine on a rare daytime goods in "Diesel Dawn" by Colm Flanagan, page 174.

My memories of earlier stuff than the 80-class units (of recent memory) are very hazy - I can recall some much older and tattier units that must have been either the 70 class or else MPDs, but cannot recall any more detail. I was 10 when the very last MPD was withdrawn.

[hussra]

Interesting this. I've been looking at various IP and Brandbright kits including the observation car to do a similar 'cut and shut' job to make a  railbus. What seemed a good possibility was as per your first proposed alteration- cutting off the back door and transplanting to the front but additionally cutting out a section forward of the 'new ' front door to make the angled first window more of a quarterlight and adding bulkheads to create a drivers cabin. Thus the whole thing would be shortened with the bogies closer together

Hmmm, another possibility - will have a look at cab size. Want to avoid too much slicing! The clockwork mechanism sounds fun (so long as you can arrange a suitable orifice for refuelling.)

Have you considered a pair of Observation cars with a powered motor van between them?

That sounds fun for another time - I did think of that. Could perhaps be a little reminiscent of GNR(I) railcars D and E - see http://www.flickr.com/photos/garfieldsg ... hotostream and http://www.flickr.com/photos/garfieldsg ... hotostream - basically a bit like a Donegal railcar but with a six-coupled power bogie and two passenger cars.

[invicta280]

Or like one of these.
These people have done various powervan DMU's including an aluminium airstream style example.

edit They seem to be blocking images, or maybe i'm not doing it right





Anyway view County Gate Locomotives

[Narrow Minded]

I think your fears are unfounded Richard, especially while you're still working with the kit in component parts.
I bought a very rough (build & paint) "Atlantic" buffet coach and successfully cut out a centre section to shorten it to a four-wheeler.

I've yet to shorten the obsevation coach I got at the same time - I just haven't decided how short yet

Whichever layout you chose I reckon you can tackle the surgery without too much worry.  ;)

[Marquis DeCarabas]

Whichever layout you chose I reckon you can tackle the surgery without too much worry.  ;)

.....suggestions.....

A good, sharp scalpel - or a crummy old stanley knife to break the grain and finish off with a razor blade?

Use 2 strips of scotch tape separated by your cut width to stop the edges whiskering?

Fill using high-build spray primer, rather than that stuff off the Marian in Jolly Jelly? (Milliput). Lots of rubbing with 600 grade?

Sounds easy, but might be awkward. I think I'd sneeze at the wrong moment!

[GTB]

Hmmm, musing on the door-rearrangement idea.

These things have always reminded me of the VR 280hp Walkers, which had two coaches articulated to a 4 wheel power car. Somewhat like the GNRI ones, but more modern looking with streamlined ends and no outside cranks. They lasted until the '80s here and at least one is restored and running in preservation.

http://www.victorianrailways.net/motive ... lk280.html

The cab at each end took up half the body width and there was an external cab door on that side, with an internal door into the saloon on the other. The motor man had to lean over the passengers to change the staff if the platform was on the wrong side, as it was half the time. There was a double seat on the other side with a great view forward through the other half of the windscreen, which we knew as the railfan seat.

Rather than monkey around moving doors, I'd just add a thick pillar in the side window opening on the drivers side and scribe a suitable door opening. On the passenger side just add a narrow piece to the window opening to make a quarter light.

I've easily scribed in doors and boards on decent quality ply (like IP use) by using a fine tooth Exacto saw blade to cut a narrow groove. Most Exacto saws have the teeth pointing towards the handle, so you just angle it so the last couple of teeth cut the groove. Clamp a steel rule to the car side as a cutting guide and draw the blade towards you, so it is in tension and remains straight. Only cut through the top ply by about half the thickness, any deeper is wasted effort. A coat of sanding sealer (or model aeroplane dope, or shellac) to bind the wood surface and it will look like Ivan cut it with the laser once it's painted.

Any gaps in seams where you glue the wood together can be filled with model aeroplane filler (I use Squadron White Putty, which doesn't dry in the tube before you use it) and sanded flush before sealing the wood for painting. If you use a block of wood with sandpaper glued to it to square up the mating edges, the joints will be close fitting in any case. I've found there is plenty of extra ply left in an IP kit, so the thickness and texture of additions will match the rest of the body.

The simplest way of making vestibule connections between the saloons is to find some very soft black foam rubber, glue a sheet of plasticard to the face as a rubbing plate and have them almost, but not quite, touching on straight track. If you use R1 curves, forget the connections as they'll cause more trouble than they are worth, but on medium or better curves, the problems will be controlled by mounting the rear bogies as close to the back of the car as possible, so relative side movement is minimised. The trick is to have just a little clearance between the running plates. From most angles you won't see it, but they won't hang up on crossovers or S bends if they aren't under tension.

If you want something a little more prototype in appearance, fold some heavy black paper into concertinas, make the rubbing plates wider than the foam block and glue the concertinas to the rubbing plates and the car ends, but not the rubber. For the canvas used on the top of a lot of vestibule connections, glue a piece of thin black fabric to the top of the rubbing plate and a piece of plasticard on the car end. Don't glue it to the concertina or the foam. Try to use black paper and fabric. If you paint it, it will lose flexibility and cause you grief sooner or later.

Incidentally, the power bogie came up well. Nice neat engineering.

Consider enclosing the metal gears in a light casing. 10 thou brass is plenty thick enough. Gears are down low near the dirt in garden railways and if they aren't enclosed, the lube oil or grease picks up dust blowing around and turns into something akin to lapping compound.

Regards,
Graeme

[hussra]

Yes, a cover over the working gubbins is planned - the bogie is workable but not yet complete. (It could also do with some means of attaching it to the vehicle, really!)

Good to have a range of ideas for what to do with the bodywork - time to do some thinking and to suck my pencil a bit. I am still sort-of minded to move the doors one way or another. Another idea would be to do that, plus swap the rear portion between sides (assuming I can cut the two sides in the same places), ending up with a door at either end of the passenger saloon:



(Clearly the camera wasn't quite square on when I took the photo.)

The idea would be for a half-width driver's compartment as you describe, opening into the passenger compartment, with the bonus seat with the great view next to it. Time to consider, then get chopping.

[hussra]

Ah, no, that's no good - you end up with the two doors on each side hinged different ways. (The two sides are lasered as exact mirror images.) Will continue to consider option 2.

[GTB]

Ah, no, that's no good - you end up with the two doors on each side hinged different ways. (The two sides are lasered as exact mirror images.) Will continue to consider option 2.

That's normal on saloon carriages with doors at each end of the saloon. The doors are hinged against the end wall/toilet wall/partition wall, whatever.....

It's usually only dogbox compartment stock where the doors all open the same way.

Graeme

[hussra]

Interestingly, that seems to be quite a recent phenomenon here (since the BR Mk 2B design, I think?) though the CIE Park Royals of the mid 50s also have this arrangement. I guess, though, that if this is a freelance modification of a freelance vehicle, I can do whatever I like really.

[IrishPeter]

Interestingly, that seems to be quite a recent phenomenon here (since the BR Mk 2B design, I think?) though the CIE Park Royals of the mid 50s also have this arrangement. I guess, though, that if this is a freelance modification of a freelance vehicle, I can do whatever I like really.

The Isle of Man Railway saloons have their doors hung hinges to the left.  I think the West Clare tourist saloons followed the same convention. However, at least some of the T&DLR all-thirds had their handles inboard. However on the brake-thirds the end passenger door and the guards door are hung on the left.

No bawdy comments please!

Peter in AZ

[GTB]

Interestingly, that seems to be quite a recent phenomenon here (since the BR Mk 2B design, I think?) though the CIE Park Royals of the mid 50s also have this arrangement.

British railway engineers always were slow learners....

With inward opening doors you can make carriages wider for a given loading gauge, as there is no danger of open doors hitting another train on double track.

Aust. railways started using end vestibules with inward opening doors around 1900 and sliding doors for suburbans around the same time. Copied from the Canadians, who had copied US practice. We also expected people to open doors themselves, so there were door handles on both sides.

As Irish Pete points out, Tralee and Dingle carriages had the same arrangement, with end vestibules and inward opening doors in the passenger saloon. It would be interesting to know where they picked that up, as it certainly wasn't UK practice in the 1890s.

I guess, though, that if this is a freelance modification of a freelance vehicle, I can do whatever I like really.

As the man said, it's your railway.

... and as another man said, there's a prototype for everything.

... even tartan locos

Graeme

[IrishPeter]

Sorry, mate, but the doors opened outwards on West Clare and T&DLR stock.  I remember reading *somewhere* that it was BOT regulations that carriage doors had to either opened outwards or slide in case of fire. This was a very real concern in the days of oil or gas lighting and wooden stock.  Even if it was not BOT regs, it was certainly Industry Practice so far as the UK was concerned.

The reason the Quintinshill disaster of 1915 had so high a death toll was that, being a troop train, it was not operating under the rules for carrying fare paying passengers and the doors were locked.  For a regular passenger train this would have been contrary to regulations in the UK.    As it was, when the train caught fire, a lot of the poor buggers could not get out of the windows fast enough were roasted.  Mind you, any of their mates who made it to France or the Dardanelles probably ended up thinking they were the lucky ones!  The death toll was well over a hundred - a precise figure has never been arrived at as the army did not have a precise list of who was on board, only of which units, and there may have been quite a few from other units hitching a ride back off leave.  

Inward opening doors in a fire situation may as well be locked as panicked punters tend to pile up against them, which is why new public buildings - at least in the USA and UK - are expected to have outward pening doors. As a result the only inward opening doors I can think of on a GB and Ire., rolling stock were on a solitary Skull and Skibbereen vehicle where they controlled access from the balcony into the passenger saloon, and that may have been a result of its home brewed rebuild. West Cork folk and regulations do not usually have more than a passing acquaintence with one another! That said, there were probably a few others.

Last I heard (2001) UK railway regulations still do not permit inward opening doors in regular mainline service.  Even power operated sliding doors are suject to special regswhich require, among other things, an emergency door release by every exit.  

There are a few foreign vehicles kicking around on preserved lines which have inward opening doors, but I would imagine only operate under strict rules regarding vercrowding, etc..

Peter in AZ

[TonyW]

Most standard gauge Pullman cars have inward opening doors:


as does the WHR's Pullman...

[IrishPeter]

Less of a safety issue there I would imagine given the presence of attendants and the assigned, extra fare, seating - and Pullmans were weird anyway.  :)

At least that puts the matter of inward opening doors firmly into the realms of "tradition' rather than the BOT, but it does not alter the fact that British (and Irish) railway companies were very resistent to inward opening doors due to tribal memory of the problems caused by inward opening doors in a fire. Oddly, they were far less concerned about drunks, idiots and the terminally unlucky falling out!

Peter in AZ

[TonyW]

Just thought.... all the Festiniog "tin cars" and all the full-size WHR stock have inward opening doors too.

[hussra]

Rough lash-up underframe to test clearances and things. Lump of ali box section just to give some weight. A few trips round the circuit outside, seemed to work nicely. More testing needed.