Hi all,
Here’s my next project. The Rio Grande had a bunch of these and they weren’t used to haul anything; rather, they were used to allow standard gauge locomotives to switch narrow gauge cars and vice versa. The Grande had several yards with three rail track and those yards are where these cars lived.
Here’s a pic of a narrow gauge locomotive hauling a standard gauge car with an idler in between:
I have decided to build one in 1:29 scale. Here’s an end view of the car I am modeling, taken at the Colorado Railroad Museum back in October. This pic shows the three-way coupler pocket used on these cars:
My son modeled the coupler pocket for me in 3D and I had a pair 3D printed at Shapeways. Since I don’t intend to actually operate this car I had it printed in plastic - sorry for the fuzzy pic:
I bought a pair of couplers from Burl Rice and fitted them to the pockets:
I wanted this car to have a bit of weight so I bought some Kadee trucks for the project. Here’s one of the #971 A.S.F. Bettendorf metal truck:
I bought some brass C-channel from PM Research for the sides and this morning began to solder the frame together:
I’m done for today and the car now looks like this. The Westinghouse brake cylinder is from Precision Scale:
Until next week.
Cheers,
Matt