Just after I came home from our tour to the exhibitions at Neumünster and Hamburg, one of the travelling companions invited to a day out and running session on his garden railway the following weekend. It's been a while since I've been running my Roundhouse W^D livesteam locomotive, so I decided to bring it along.
I've felt that this locomotive missed 'something' and decided that I wanted to add crew to it before the running session last weekend. There wasn't much time to arrange something, and when taking a look inside the locomotive's cab not much space for crew either:
It's a military locomotive and I wanted a military crew for it. On Thingiverse I found a couple of free figures (one military and one civilian) I resized to 1:19-ish scale to fit the locomotive which I then 3D-printed:
The locomotive-cab was so cramped by valves, cranks, servoes and tubes that the figures didn't automatically fit. Some cutting and drilling (to make them partially hollow) was necessary to make them fit. Thereafter they were hastily painted olive green mixed with a little brown to make the uniformes resemble British Battledress':
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| The 'original' driver to the right for comparison |
Despite that the 'chopped' figures didn't look so good, they looked much better when fitted inside the locomotive-cab:
I managed to get them just about ready for the day out at my friend's garden railway last weekend. Since operating my Livesteam locomotive takes so much attention, I usually don't get to take any photos of it during operation. This time however Tom Arild Sørli took some great photos of it. -Thanks mate!
I do like your crew. Great outdoors layout photos, really enjoyed seeing them over breakfast today.
ReplyDeleteAlan Tradgardland
Thank you Alan!
DeleteGetting my British crew 'approved' by a Briton really makes me humble and grateful.
Fantastic pictures Roger!
ReplyDeleteThank you! 😊
DeleteVery impressive stuff, Roger. Love the look of your grey engine. Envy you being able to use his garden for hobbies. Mine is too damp to take anything nice outside.
ReplyDeleteMichael (Wargaming with...)
Thank you very much Michael! Last year we arranged 27 running sessions in different gardens belonging to different club-members. Heine hosted the majority of them with at least one running session a month. We run trains all year no matter temperature or weather. Since the comment-section doesn't allow photos or videos, I'll add some at the end of the blogpost above
DeleteHe has started ground works to expand the existing layout, so more blogposts and photos may follow in the future...
DeleteRoger, that was wonderful, could not help but smile to see the two videos. I will show them to a family member. And the snow only enhanced the viewing. You mention outings in Norway no matter the temperature or weather. May I just mention, the Eskimos may have over fifty words for snow, but the English language has at least sixty-eight words for 'damp'. I'm hoping to stage some wargames in the garden this year, but don't bet on it.
DeleteMichael
Feel free to share both videos and photos. I'll add another YouTube-video from the running session in the snow in the end of the blogpost showing both my British and German military trains.
DeleteWe do not have 68 words for 'damp' 😃
-But we were invited to a combined birthday and running session in Heine's garden earlier this year, but it was raining so heavy at low temperatures that we went inside instead, eating pizza, drinking beer and running trains on the dining-table instead...
Taking wargames outside it's nice. I've usually used some sort of plastic army men when doing so, as I imagine that they cope better with changing weather conditions. I've been doing some wargaming a few times outside the last couple of years, so I'm not promising anything but I might just try this year as well.
DeleteEven if it's running trains or wargaming outside It's always better with sunny and hot weather.
Roger, loved the Kinemaster video, with your reindeer, absolutely brilliant. Now I am wary of showing my family for fear they request I start a new hobby, lol
DeleteMichael
Thanks! Those reindeers wasn't quite to scale (actually more like moose) so I 3D-printed one. Photos of this and the other reindeers can be seen in the blogpost from January 17th.
DeleteOne benefit of running live steam locos in cold weather during winter is that it's make more steam, which adds to the visual interests.
Hollowing out the figures was a clever way to get them to fit in the cab and over some of the internal caps and fittings. I do like the out door layout.
ReplyDeleteThank you, but the idea is not mine. A friend had bought a figure to fit the cap on his lubricator from a company in UK, but I didn't have time to order a similar as I wanted to add crew before the day out. Nor am I sure they have a 'military one', so that's why I hastily made one for my self. Maybe I should buy a propper later on, or perhaps just keep this one.
DeleteOne thing about Heine's outdoor layout is his fabulous viaduct. That's a focal point and that's why a lot of photos and video get shot there.
DeleteAs said, clever idea to hollow out the figure - they look very good in the cab. Looks like a fund day.
ReplyDeleteThe closest I get to railway modelling is the 1/32nd Scale Armoured train I made and use for my North West Frontier games.
Thank you Mike. The idea was originally not mine, but I 'copied' it as I needed to add crew fast and cheap. I might buy a propper moulded figure, but right now I'm pretty happy with my own.
DeleteWhen I searched your blog for North Western Frontier hashtags to see your train, there was a lot of broken images in some of those posts. I don't know why that happens in blogger, as I thought images was uploaded to a blogger server.
Is it the same train as you used in in the very neat PW setup at Cavalier?