The Takasaki Light Railway

This is where you can see what rolls along the Daruma Line from time to time.  So far we have...

 Freelance Coal Wagon

A Bogie Guards Van.

3rd class Carriage

2nd class 2-compartment carriage

First class can carriage

 A guards van.

A covered van.

Brewery Covered Van

Brewery coal wagon

A plate layers tool wagon.

A Low Loader

A small truck (3 plank wagon).

 Sound unit truck

More trucks.

Three Binnie tipper wagon kits came home with me from the 16mil show at Stoneleigh in the UK.  These are ABS kits with steel axles and plastic wheels.  I used acrylic paints to give them a well worn rusty look.  I squashed clay under the central chassis support to add weight.  The rust is talcum powder (baby powder) sprinkled onto to wet paint and dry-brushed with different mixes of iron oxide, raw sienna, ochre brun and black.

Pretty soon I will put up a video of these rust buckets trundling round the line.

In Japan railways or tramways were often originally powered by us humans.  People pushed carriages or trucks up and down the railway tracks until steam locomotives were available.  On my railway, the management have aquired a number of these relics of time gone by.  In due course these carriages will be refurbished and a new fleet of very small carriages will enter service.

A Christmas pressy from my brother, this Imp freelance coal wagon kit is full of heavy white metal castings.  It weighs in at 300g.

The coal load is small pieces of cork, guled together with diluted wood glue and spray painted with semi-gloss black paint.

Recently I realised that I don't run my low loader with vintage car load all that often as it doesn't clear some sections of track.  So, I decided to use the bogies and make another wagon.  This would be a combination guards van and covered wagon.

I used a wood stain gel as it was very cheap, 115yen per paint pot-size bottle.  The roof is as per the carriages, strips of wood with curved supports, about 6 supports. 

The design is an amalgamation of a couple of Japanese narrow gauge bogie wagons.  I took the bits I liked from both.

The material is the sleeve of an old shirt, well past presentability.  I used wood glue to soak it onto the wooden roof.

It dries surprisingly quickly on a cloudy autumn day.

This is the roof during painting.    Thr grey acrylic paint dries matt and will get a dry-brushing to add some age and depth.

Moving on in leaps and bounds, the body is coming together with guards compartment and ledge (?).  I was going to make the doors slide until I decided it would be more effort and so I will re-channel that effort into other detailing.

Now, the van is almost finished, just needing some lettering:

And from the other end:

The guard's area was great fun to make.  I used more bits cut from the spam can, left over from 'plum', to attach the dummy brake handle (just two bits of metal rod).  Door handle is a fastener from a clothing/craft shop in which I drilled a hole and added a key.  The lamp is perhaps IP Eng. though I'm not sure as I got the from my brother a long time ago.

This is the second in the series of red carriages.  Also built with stripwood it has only one compartment and also only one door.  The door has working hinges that are two pins and some bent strips of a spam can (yes, that can a).

And here is the working door, a very simple affair:

This is how it all went together:

 And with the roof done:

With the running gear on it sits on a siding:

Here is the finished carriage (it's the one in the middle):

As you can see, both carriages share quite similar characteristics and yet are quite distinctive.

This is the latest carriage, scratch-built of course, with teak interior and luggage rack on the roof.

It was so much fun to make I will be building a rake of these, each a little different.  There will be a plush 1st class carriage, a side-bench 3rd with guard and a hot-food carriage complete with staff.

This is how it looked with just the four side finished and interior approaching completion:

The windows have been blanked out prior to undercoat spraying.  After spraying we get:

The red is the same red as the frames of Vincent, 'Italian red' if I remember correctly.  In the next photo the sides have been sprayed except the side stripes, which were masked off with Tamiya masking tape.  The roof was Made from 11 planks of strip wood, laid over formers and side inserts.

Now I will make a couple more carriages, though not yet as I have major relaying of track and points for the station/sidings area to get done first.

This is an unusual project - how to turn a large oval bath salts can into a smart first class carriage.

This is what I started with.  I've sprayed it with primer and made a dirty great hole in one end (the end used to pour the bath salts out.  You can see the door end I made from part of a Frosties packet and strip wood.  As you can tell, this is going to be a budget project with an upper limit of 500 yen (2:50GBP).

Here is the can with some strip wood stuck to the side and a few opaque windows (mainly opaque because the sides of the can are so thick that if I tried to cup out windows I would end up bending the metal out of shape).  The curvature of the roof will be rather extreme, but I think I can (sorry) get away with it.

Now you can see the very basic chassis with steps one end.  Some of the wood has yet to be given the usual vinegar/wire wool treatment.  Painting the wood with acrylics is so time consuming that I've started using the famous wire wool and vinegar solution.  A few washes give a really warn look.

Nex will be the roof, end bits and some details.  Well, I can't let it go without at least one daruma to adorn it!

Yes, i know this picture isn't the clearest.  I'll take some more when the weather lets me.

Not wanting to let the only guard on the line have to ride in with the passengers I've decided that we need a guard's van, possibly one with a stove for keeping warm in the winter.  Trying to get my daughter involved I drew up four possible vans and asked her to choose the best design.  She chose well and so I have something new to make.

Update:  All goes well.  The undercarriage has been built as has the main body.  The roof has, as usual, been made from cardboard (one with a very thin sandwich of corrugation), scored for a plank effect (which also lets me bend it to the curvature of the end tops) and painted cream and weathered a little.

The details have been added now including door handles and a couple of posters.  The buffers were made from small blocks of wood with a cut-off hook screwed into the top and a 'jeans front fastener' added for a buffer.  This was taken on a grey day so the flash kicked in automatically, when conditions allow I will take a better quality snap.

Wheel s and axle boxes are from IP engineering and give the van some needed weight.

This is the first kit I have ever had, sent as a Christmas present from my dear old brother, who lives back in blighty.  It is an IP Engineering kit that comes with good clear instructions and was very easy to build.  I pre-painted all the panels in 'celery Green' acrylic matt paint and dry brushed with a lighter shade of the same paint (ok, I mixed a bit of cream with it).

Assembly is really easy, all I needed was some glue, an angle/set square, knife and a file (for cleaning up the white metal parts).  I did get hold of a 'Tamiya' weathering sponge, which is a miniature sponge like the make up applicator sponges women use on a brush handle.  This I used, that's right, for weathering the wagon as I didn't want to have a new wagon that looks like it is new.

The only times I diverted from the instructions was with the extra strapping on the side and the planked roof (my usual sandwiched corrugated cardboard type cardboard, scored to aid bending and to give a simulated plank effect).  I may add some underneath detail as it looks a tad bare from ground level.  Perhaps some brakes would make it look better.

I plan to build another one, but this time a scratch built version.  Before I started construction I traced round all the panels so I now have templates from which to build my own versions of this lovely wagon.

 Construction photo of a small covered wagon:

Now, with a coat of purple/red paint it stands alongside th e IP van :

The hand-painted signage needs replacing with a proper brewery logo, hence:

Both doors slide open.  Wheels are plastic Cambrian Models spoked and the axle boxes are just wood.  This cost, at most, 5 pounds / 10 dollars / 1000 yen to make. 

This is a small (2 ton) 3 plank wagon used to transport coal to the brewery.  It was modelled on the 2 ton wagons used on the Glyn Valley Tramway.  The brake gear is just bits of plastic card.  The rest is wood with IP Eng. wheel sets and axle boxes.

The rust effect is just iron oxide acrylic paint, dry-brushed on.  Corner strapping is plastic angle with Cambrian Models rivets.

This is an IP Engineering kit that was modified to give the workmen a place to sit and sip their tea.

The tea maknig equipment has its own compartment:

Another pressy, this is the IP Eng. low loader and Austin 7:

As it has a little trouble getting round the railway I will have to raise the height of the horizontal sections above the bogies. 

Here is the latest goods wagon, primarily for fruit and veg. transportation.

Note the new axle boxes.  These are scratch built from plastic card and a couple of mini toothbrush/toothpicks.

Here is the new sound unit truck

It has a Locolines circuit board, speaker and 9volt battery hidden within.  You can't see well from the photo (sorry) but there are mesh doors at the front for the fireman to get at the coal.  These provide a sneaky way for the sound to escape as I've put the speaker up against the mesh doors and they hide the speaker but allow the sound to be heard.  The coal load is made from that cork I get by the bag, mixed with white glue, dried and sprayed black.  It lifts out for access to the battery.  The circuit board is hidden in the flatter section with a simple removable lid.  Controls for volume, speed of chuff and whistle are under the lid.  Wheels are from Cambrian Models with axleboxes made from scratch.  The bracing is plastic card with Cambrian Models' rivets.

Here is the first of a series of simple and cheap trucks.  One more is almost done as well.  It cost 160 yen all in, which can't be bad!