So, why railcars?

Simple really, money!  The lack of it actually.  Living in Japan means a trip to see Mum and Dad back in Blighty costs rather a lot, so economising is important.  The initial outlay of track, track ballast, rolling stock, locos, buildings and all the other little bits does come at a cost (just look at the ads in GardenRail). 

I wanted to lay a full circuit of track in the garden ( about 26 metres).  About £170 for the track as long as I get it myself, then the ballasting and sub-base.  Not mush economising there.  So I thought about the rolling stock and locos.  Oh yes, I'd love a real steam loco one day...one day.  Diesel you say?  That too I'd love to have, but not just now.  You see, I want to set my railway in 1930s rural Japan.  At that time steam was the main driving force, however, there were some early petrol-driven railcars providing passenger transportation in a few places.  That's it then.  If I build some railcars I won't need much to start off with.

This is the basis for the first railcar:

And here is the carriage for the railcar:

This carriage is based on the Hanihu105 series dated as far back as 1928.

Made from 2.3mm plywood stuck on to cardboard, the first Takasaki Light railway railcar is born.

I made the roof from cardboard, scored with a knife to enable me to bend it to fit the curvature of the end tops.  It also makes it look like planking.

Having made one already it is much easier to build another.  The construction process was virtually the same, which will be described below.  Motive power takes more thought, but not too much more.  This railcar will be slightly different as it is based loosely on the Kiha201, which was a 1932, 30 seat powered car, capable of low to medium speeds.

A petrol driven engine means that the underside of the railcar will be rather simplistic.  Fantastic, I can cope with that.  I had read one rail enthusiast had used the motor and radio control bits from a toy car.  I knew for a fact that under the stairs was a rarely played with toy car, bought for about £8, with an under-powered motor but a useable RC unit.  The motor would probably be okay for rails (it failed miserably on the lawn, even with the over-sized SUV tyres).  But it would propel a railcar around a track with Mag-Lev speed.  Some kind of cunning worm gear would be in order.  So one Saturday afternoon I set off to the local model shop with a photocopy of a worm gear, just in case I failed to explain what I was looking for.  No luck.  However, I did find a motor and gearbox set from Tamiya for about £3.  It had a worm gear with multiple settings.  After assembly it looked a bit small, but worth giving a try.  I super-glued wheels from a coopercraft wagon running gear set onto the axel and it looked good. 

This is the said motor and gearbox.

Construction

This railcar was made using virtually the same process as the first.  Thin cardboard templates were made using dimensions from a great book I found on early petrol railcars.  Sorry, this book is in Japanese and only available her in Japan.

You can see all the windows and doors cut out of these side templates.  The plywood panels will be stuck on to these.

The plywood panels were cut to fit the templates, an upper and lower one for each side.  They were stuck on with that white wood glue which, if you get it on your fingers when dry peals off like skin.  The paneling was made with a plexiglass cutter.  Dragging the cutter a few times over the ply gives a good simulation of planks.

The ends were made from the 2.3mm plywood with windows cut using a sharp knife.  They then received detailing before being assembled.  I use superglue for the main side assembly.  The sides are stuck to the 5mm ply base first. 

Next comes the detailing.  For this I was fortunate to find varying sizes of wood struts, ranging from 2mm by 2mm up in size.  You can see from the pics how they cover the joints and give a much more finished look.

You can also see the curved roof, fashioned from corrugated card, scored to aid bending, which also gives the appearance of planking.  Windows are 2mm plexiglass.  The lamp is from Brandbright.

This one has the driver's window open and a number of windows open to a degree.  This was to give me more room for detail and also to allow the odd passenger to stick their head out or wave.  I shouldn't call the passengers odd though.

The engine wasn't as easy as I'd imagined.  First, I cut pieces of thick card with a sharp knife.  The top curves weren't even so I scrapped them.  Next I tries to cut plywood.  Three 2.3mm pieces were cut, two with the radiator grill area cut out.  One of the cut out pieces was stuck onto the back piece.  This was painted black, as was the remaining piece.  I found some great metal grill from one of the many 100yen shops and cut a piece to fit.  This was sandwiched between the two pieces of ply and 'Formo' clay used to fill the holes on the sides and top.  It was given another coat of black paint and a radiator cap added using the top of a wooden tooth pick painted gold.

So, there you have it, a simple and cheap railcar & carriage to potter about collecting passengers.  So far, it works as well as it did on the maiden-voyage.  Simple - has another advantage, being that it is far less likely to go wrong!