Progress Report 86

 Well, another year nearly over - and what a strange year it has been!

Quite a lot has happened this year on the railway - the most significant being the arrival of a 3D printer and the knock-on effects that has had on my model making. My printer arrived at about the same time as the Covid pandemic. I am pleased to say that not everything that came out of China this year has been bad news - for me certainly!

Since my last progress report, the most significant progress has been the production of a range of new goods rolling stock - all 3D printed. Having spent ages working on the swivelling six-wheel chassis for the Southwold Railway coach, I decided to make a good wagon to accompany it. And after making one goods wagon, why not make a second, and a third and so on. It's now my intention to draw and make every style of wagon and coach which ran on the Southwold Railway. As a long-time enthusiast of the Southwold (I am the 25th member of what was originally the Southwold Railway Society and is now the Southwold Railway Trust), I have followed and am following the the history and development of the railway with great interest. It seems fitting that, having constructed two Southwold locos, I should now construct rolling stock to accompany them.

All my drawings for the 3D printer were produced using TinkerCAD. I cannot praise this marvellous online drawing tool highly enough. Having tried alternatives, I eventually stumbled across TinkerCAD almost by accident. I took to it immediately. It is straightforward to use and has a very shallow, almost intuitive, learning curve. If you have a 3D printer and fancy making your own designs for it, I suggest you give it a try - see How I drew an open wagon in 3D with TinkerCAD.

Southwold Railway Coach

I've made some progress with the coach since my last progress report. I have now painted it and made some improvements to the 6-wheel chassis to help it negotiate the tight curves and the undulations on my railway.

It now handles most of the problematic track on my railway, but there are still some occasional derailments at two locations. I'm trying to decide whether to work further on the chassis or to try ironing out the hump and the dip in my track.

Southwold 4-plank open wagon

This was the second Southwold wagon I tackled after building the short wheelbase van (see How I drew, printed and assembled a Southold van). I made some changes to the chassis for this wagon which I hope are improvements on the van's chassis.

The

I decided to use this wagon as the basis for a blog post on developing drawing skills with TinkerCAD - see How I drew a wagon using TinkerCAD.

 

Southwold 3-plank open wagon

 This seemed the natural successor to the 4-plank wagon - and besides, I've always been fascinated by the curved ends of this type of wagon.

The chassis is almost identical to the 4-plank wagon, which made the drawing of this wagon a relatively straightforward affair.

Southwold two-plank open wagon

Of course, after the 3-plank wagon, it seemed only natural to draw and construct a 2-plank wagon. This will make a really useful addition to the stock on the Peckforton Light Railway as I've not previously had any two-plank wagons.

 

Flat wagon

I actually drew this before the open wagons, but didn't get around to printing it out. Before printing, I tweaked the design slightly. Now I've constructed it, I realise it's not quite accurate when compared with photos in various books on the Southwold. 

I will probably change the design before printing out my next version to more accurately reflect the design I've seen in the photos.

 

Long wheelbase van

Although I started drawing this van well before making any of the other wagons, I wasn't entirely happy with it. So, once I'd made the other wagons, I returned to the drawings of this wagon and made a series of amendments which resulted in the the wagon which is here presented.

 

 

I am presently working on drawings for the 6-wheel open wagons and then will explore the other variations on the basic wagon stock.

 

I might then tackle the later enclosed versions of the balcony coaches although, I must admit, I am not a fan of their design.

 

 

 Permanent Way

Well, considering the weather, there hasn't been a great deal of opportunity for running trains. Over the past week, we had snow which was initially very slushy and wet. This was followed by a hard frost which turned it into something resembling concrete. As a consequence, there has not really been much opportunity to run trains, apart from a couple of test trains to try out the various combinations of 6-wheel Cleminson chassis for the Southwold coach (see above).

A happy New Year to anyone who might take the trouble to read this update. Let us hope that 2021 is less stressful and more relaxing than 2020 - which I think will go down in history as one of out less than successful years - on all sorts of levels.....!!!

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