By Ed Ives

I’ve always had an interest in trains, cherished my trains as a child and at the age of 30-something time came to graduate to ‘Model Trains’, or so I thought. My interests lay with UK trains, the ones I grew up with and not those here. Sorry about that.

The options were to either scratch build with the use of machine tools like a lathe etc. which I do not have or kit build in O gauge or OO gauge. O gauge kits and bits were few and far between whereas OO parts were readily available and affordable, so OO kit build as a starter it was. 

OO gauge is a bit of a compromise, 4 mm/ft for the structure running on HO track which is 3.5 mm/ft, so OO gauge trains are kind of narrow gauge. Perfection is needed, so I thought, true 4 mm/ft, hand built track and of course re-gauged stock. At that time in the UK there were three standards for true scale models; P4 and S4 competing standards using a track gauge of 18.83 mm and an older standard of EM gauge of 18 mm/ft. Hum, what to choose? Well 50 years ago both the P4 and S4 societies were in their formative years and maketed their own parts none of which matched what I wanted to build, LMS stock. I settled on EM gauge for the time being.

I chose to start with building some simple kits, passenger cars and choose the track standard later. I started with something really simple, or so I thought (are you getting the drift here?), a Graham Farrish kit of a LMS commuter passenger car, three of them. The kits could not have been simpler, a plastic molded body, four sides and a base as one piece, a metal channel as an frame to take the trucks and the framework between and lastly a metal curved roof, a shake the box and they are all assembled. I purchased separately sprung buffers to replace the molded ones, ventilators for the roof and lastly a book of drawings of LMS passenger cars.

A start was made on assembling the kits and using the reference drawing from the book as a guide. 

  • Oops, the trucks lack the foot boards that came in two different versions. No problem I can make foot boards out of thin plywood and attach to the trucks with epoxy cement. Job done. 
  • Oh dear the truss rod under frame was too short and made as a one piece white metal casting. Hum, do I throw them away and make new out of brass? I decided to save that for later. 
  • Oh, again the drawing shows all the other stuff that hangs below the floor; dynamo, battery pack, vacuum cylinders and so forth not included in the kit. I go off and make these parts as best I can. 
  • Door handles; grab handles and handrails were not included in the shell molding. I make these out of piano wire. The door handles were a real pain as there are so many of them about sixteen per car.
  • Ah, the roof does not fit correctly with gaps at the ends of each car and resists being reformed. I get this bright idea to mold the replacement roofs out of styrene sheet. A plaster mold was made and the first production drape formed roof made. Disaster! The styrene sheet shrinks when gently heated in the oven as well as curls up something like an oversize fortune cookie. My wife is concerned that I’ll ruin the kitchen oven and calls a stop to this effort. Go back to basics and fashion roofs from thin sheet metal which become quite effective. It shows that I developed skills repairing the bodywork on my first car while at college. Rain strips made out of piano wire again, is used and soldered to the roof. Holes drilled and the ventilators added. Now we’re getting somewhere I feel. 
  • Oh, I wish for high frequency passenger car lighting. I build a high frequency power generator out of an old TV set and experiment with Plexiglas strips, grain of wheat bulbs and diodes to find a workable solution that fit nicely within the car. Someone suggested that I needed a license for the generator, license, what license, hum?
  • The molded buffers are cut off the car bodies and the replacement sprung buffers are added. I re-gauge the wheels for EM and mount in the trucks as a test. All complete less painting and interior, I put the assembled cars on a piece of track and they look great. The nagging issue is they each weigh a ton, feel like they are made out of solid material, way too heavy for the appropriate locomotive to pull. And it only took me THREE years to do and I still have that bum under frame to deal with. 

Conclusion – Life is too short to build me a scale Model Railway.

Ed Ives
The Confessions of a Hi-Railer