Flat-car conversions followed by another "Day out"

It's spring and the season for more outdoor activities is about to begin again. -Like running trains in the garden, and preparing rolling stock for the coming season.

Flatcar 1

A fellow garden railway modeller was recently downsizing his collection, and I know he has a lot of hand-built items and scratchbuilt rolling stock. Among the items in his collection he was getting rid off there was a flatcar built after a Norwegian prototype from the Aurskog Høland Railway. I've always liked this flatcar, and he made me an offer I couldn't resist:

There was only one challenge; He's been running trains on 32mm gauge, while I run my garden railway on 45mm gauge. I didn't think this was a problem as I could just change bogies, so while at Modellbau Schleswig Holstein I bought a couple of LGB bogies (in 45mm gauge) to replace his 32mm bogies. 

But, when finally trying to fit my new bogies on the flatcar I saw that it wasn't so simple as I'd imagined as my new LGB bogies were too large and long and came in contact wit the truss bars on the underside of the wagon, making it impossibel to fit or turn:

The original 32mm gauge to the left, and the new LGB 45mm gauge bogie to the right

Since I was eager to bring this new wagon to our next running section I actually didn't have time to order any new and smaller bogies from UK. I found a free file on Thingiverse for a 'bogie kit' I could 3D-print. My metal wheels were larger than the kit was made for, so some adjustments were necessary: 

Finally fitted the bogies to the flat-wagon. I think the result turned out just ok.

Flatcar 2 and 3

I got a couple of LGB G-scale flatcars built to 32mm gauge really cheap last year. These were LGB originals, so here I could just replace their bogies with LGB ones. I've been running them occasionally behind my War Department live steam locomotive, but I wasn't too happy with them as they were in a American and civil livery:

First of all, they were missing buffers, so I found a couple of free files on Thingivere again which I could 3D-print:

The new buffers were assembled and superglued to the wagons. I wanted them to look both more generic and military so I could run them behind both my British W^D locomotive or my German Heeresfeldbahn. I painted them in 2 different grey shades, and made one look a little 'older' than the other. The light grey one was fitted with spooked wheels and older buffers, while the darker one got more 'modern' buffers and disc wheels. The old one got a deck of aged wood, while the newer one got a newer one. I also made them ready for3-link couplings:

Time to take the new flatcars for a Day out

Heine invited to another running session in his garden. So to haul my new flatcars I brought my Roundhouse W^D Billy livesteam locomotive, with the new driver:

I assembled my rake in the fiddleyard. First the hand built flatcar with the new 3D-printet bogies:

Then the 'new' flatcar:

And the the 'old' one loaded with a Jeep for the occasion:

The rest of the member making their trains ready in the fiddleyard:

And then it was finally time to take it out for a ride:

There is a large variation of trains and scales among our members, ranging from German...

...Swiss...

...American...

An American Shay

...German(s) again...

This is actually a German military Heeresfeldbahn locomotive in civilian postwar livery 

...And finally another British. Whats particular with this model is that it's a Gauge 1/ 1:32 scale model (which again is the same as 54mm figure scale). As it's a Standard Gauge model, it will run on the very same 45mm gauge tracks that the G-scale narrow gauge model runs:

A Gauge 1 Terrier:

The Terrier is a small steam locomotive, but side by side my 16mm/ 1:19 scale narrow gauge locomotive it becomes tiny despite being Standard Gauge. The scale is different, and they only share the same gauge of 45mm:

Another peculiar detail of Gauge 1 and 'G-scale', is that below there are 2 Standard Gauge models which are both made to run on 45mm gauge track. -So in theory these should both be to same scale. It's obvious that's only in the theory though, as the locomotive is a true Standard Gauge model, but the Thomas-coach is a G-scale model made as 'standard gauge' and somewhat too large for a 'standard gauge' model, but at the same time too small for a G-scale model.

During our break. Heine is is a very caring host, and kicked off the BBQ-season.

Note the 'Terrier' ON the dining table. At home we usually have a 'Terrier' UNDER the dining table (during meals):

Linus

Thank you for the invitation and your hospitality Heine!
Great photo he captured too:

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Blog PostScript

By the time at posting this, there seems to "be a thing" at Facebook where everyone is using ChatGPT to generate images of "toy action figures" of them selves or their fields of interests. I wanted to try it as well, and "there is a prototype for every thing". It would be cool to see it in production though:

A quick and easy military figure conversion followed by a 'Day out'

 

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':

The Lance Corporal to the right needed to be stretched all directions but the height to make him partially hollow and fit on the lubricator cap

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!

This is a LGB-model of a Heeresfeldbahn steam locomotive HF110C, and is closer to 1:19 scale than the more usual 1:22,5 for LGB models, and belongs to a friend. The livery is civilian postwar though:

Here are some impressions of other trains from other companies operating the line last sunday:

It's not too obvious on this photo, but the 2 flatcars are still civilian in an American livery, so I'll guess they will be 'militarized' as future workbench project.

Thank you for the invitation and your hospitality Heine!

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Attachments to replies to friends in the comment-section 

Michael: 

I love to paint and weather my rollingstock, but I follow the suit and our club and run them whenever I can, despite time of year, temperatures or weather. This rollingstock is really sturdy and take rough weather well: