Its one of those skill that one really needs to develop. The one that says "sod off, little voices at the back of my head, the damn thing is finished!" Indeed its the law of diminishing returns where the effort required to continue adding details is offset by the fact that you are now really getting into the realms of nit picking (My departed friend Jack Watsons reply was "well, when you build your model of this I guess it will be perfect won't it"). Tonight I attached the dummy couplers (unlike the real thing, mine won't break down between stations). The kit has a large gap for the couplers to swivel, Which in real life was not there. I filled the hole from behine with a piece of plastic, and cut the coupler head of and just glued in onto the front with araldite. I also added the Mu cables to the front, and in a fit of pseudo finescaleness, made the tap handles at the top from 5 amp fuse wire soldered on the ends. I must have been sober at the time, and I won't let that happen again at the modeling bench. I also added a pipe under the car that shows clearly in photographs (though it took a while to find a decent one of what I wanted to see). Finally, the headlights were drilled out so it at least looked like something might shine out of it, even if I'm not going to fit headlights (they are just one more thing to go wrong I find)so thats it, I think its done. Its taken 5 weeks and its only been so short I think because I've had a fair idea about how i was going to solve any wee problems that might come up.
So, now I guess its review/comments time. Its been a mostly trouble free build compared to some things I've seen over the years. the 'Instructions' are an interesting assistant rather than a blueprint. I think the best thing is that it does look good while you are building it, which I find is one of the big hurdles to kit completion. No matter how good the actual kit is, if it looks like a dog while its going together then it tends to stay in the box longer, rather than sit out on the workbench, daring you to just do one little bit more. Its not a simple kit to put together, and I would definitely not recommend it to a beginner, but for those of you with a reasonable/moderate amount of skill, or if you are a member of a club and can get assistance from others, it is achievable, and it builds into a pleasing replica of the prototype. I've also seen rumors that the new owners of the Trackside range are thinking about doing another batch of kits. I'll ask The owners to post some details to me. I think I promised to help upgrade the instructions as well. I suppose I'll live to regret that.
I guess the biggest complement is that I'd buy another one, if I didn't have so many projects that were 1/2 finished, and I didn't need 2.
I'm now interested to have a go at some of the other kits in the range.
11 comments:
Well done that man !
I could imagine you've got less hair now than when you started the damn thing. Looks good, I especially like the added bogie details, but it could do with populating. Just imagine how fast you could do a second one !
I'm sure the Trackgang Products crew would be eternally grateful if you could translate the instructions into english - don't envy you though.
Any other kit in the old Trackside range you could do blindfolded after one of these !
Impressive model of an impressive prototype.
I hope Trackside produce more and if they do, that people support them by buying one. Especially as you don't need a big layout to run railcars... a 2 foot circle would do it!
That looks good. Have a beer on me to celebrate.
How does it run? When you got the chassis moving you wrote that you though the performance would change once you got the body on.
And on Wednesday, August 27, 2008 rab wrote that a loco with only one powered bogie isn't any good for pulling anything (but of course the railcar is only pulling its own trailer).
The reason I'm so curious is that I'm thinking of building some motive power and was wondering if I could get away with one powered bogie, or whether I should look elsewhere for a donor chassis - but I would have to adjust the distance between bogies and customise the driveshafts.
I think it goes without saying that each bogie should have power pickup.
Well, Its not pulling anything, is it. I think locomotive with one powered bogie would be a complete waste of time, as you would not be able to pull any decent sized trains. It actually runs OK, but thats due to the atlas GP35 bogies that i used more than anything. I think with the bogies as supplied it might sstruggle a bit.
I think with most wagons in the future being anything other than lightweight plastic a single power bogie would be ill-advised. Then again, it could be horses for courses; If you were looking to model a flat canterbury branch line with small trains and no grades, you could possibly get away with it.
An excellent model !
I would like to see working lights as the finishing touch. They can be made reliable by careful selection and voltage adjustment.
There are some suitable sizes (0.7 to 3 mm) available on TradeMe.
I and others obviously would like to see the "translated" instructions for this excellent kit appear sooner rather than later to assist with the number of assemblies that must be pending!
Once again, congrats on a fine model.
Concur with all comments. Well done, and I am impressed by the speed of assembly, inspiration for us all!!!!
I'm not overly keen on working headlights. It would involve drilling a long way through the metal, and a bit more wiring to sort out. plus I would have to go back and retrofit the Das with t as well, which involves drilling through a large block of lead. I just tend to try to keep things as simple as possible as there is less to go wrong.
Wonderfull model, well done.
Having never seen one in the flesh that I can recall, mother assures me we used to ride the "blue streak" between our residence in New Plymouth and Hawera to visit my Grandmother pre 1980....
Yet another piece of "old NZR" I missed out on..
Regards
Drew
As Drew said it is the parents who remember riding in this.As a teenager I went with my mother a few times from Dunedin to stay with relatives in Greymouth. This meant two rides. The railcar left Dunedin at 6pm.we would arrive in Chch to be picked up by an Uncle,taken home and entertained for a few hours until the west coast railcar left the old Chch station at sometime after 2am. We would hurtle through the dark, or on one spectacular trip through freshly fallen snow in brilliant moonlight,watching the shadow, hundreds of feet below, of the railcar crossing the bridges over those deep ravines to arrive in Greymouth around 6am.Relatives would meet us and we would walk over the old footbridge dragging suitcases up Chapel Street to a welcome breakfast.Those were the days !!
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