Eric,
I’m thankful you have traveled the toddler highway ahead of me. Yes the box car is too far along. But I love everything you are saying. I’m used to this being about me. It’s a different perspective thinking about what’s fun for a youngster. I will heed all your advice.
Above all I think making it interactive for him will give him ownership that hopefully will lead to his own enthusiasm. Stay tuned. Love your advice and look forward to seeing where this goes.
Dan its going to be a combination of printed waterside decals and hopefully some channeled Bob Ross inspired paint work. Lol. Stay tuned. And I do like the colors. Considerd a green in place of the blue but you just can’t go wrong with red white and blue. Lol
Im glad I did. That is just impressive. Would not have guessed there was still a modern era circus train. Very cool and would have been fun to watch them load and/or unload it.
The circus train was actually two trains: a red train and a blue train. Each was entirely it’s own circus. Many years ago now when I was working the South Pool from Interbay to Vancouver, WA I got called for the blue circus train. I remember it for two reasons; one after I knocked off the handbrakes on the locomotives and the conductor was taking the hand brakes off the train, I wandered down a few cars and saw an elephant trunk sticking out the side of the car. And the second reason I was given permission to run passenger speed and power brake. I didn’t do a very good job run passenger speed and just basically went 5-10 over freight speed. But it was super fun to power brake.
We had a pretty fast trip down the line ( I want to say sub 8 hours, or maybe even 6?) and handed off the train to the next crew. One of the more unique trains I ever got to run.
Unfortunately both trains are now out of service.
Fear not bill this is about to hit a major land mine. Nothing will be accomplished in the coming week. Wifes birthday was 1/2. As a present we are making a weekend getaway. Leaving Thursday after work and heading to Seattle. Friday spent out and about with a stop at the woodland park zoo. And dinner at the crab shack her favorite restaurant. Sat a bit more out and about then a Seattle Kraken hockey game. Sunday we travel home with a stop in Moses lake Washington for a little 4X4 off road fun in the dunes and mud.
Craig that’s seriously cool. It’s one thing to witness it but it would b3 entirely different to be a part of it even if what might seem like a small way. But being a part of a train where there is an elephant trunk hanging out a window is a memory only a few can share. Pretty cool really.
I have a love hate relationship with the circus. While so much fun in so many ways, it’s not exactly humane to the animals and has a history of being derogatory toward people with special needs. As one who loves animals and has a heart for special needs people I can’t condone it. But on the other hand a circus is a fun experience. One of life’s dualities.
But it would be cool to say you worked a circus train. I’m jealous. I might see a Craig tribute car . . . A stock car with an elephant trunk.
That memory is definitely in the top of the good memories. I don’t even remember why I got called for that train as normally those special trains like that got handled with “kid gloves” and hand picked crews. The only other passenger train besides the Spirit of Washington Dinner Trainz I recall being a part of was when I was working as a conductor on the Stampede Sub and we got called for a track inspection train. Sat in the back of the defect car and the defect crew just let me hang out the entire trip.
Fun memories but glad I’m out of that industry now. 
I am very glad to finally repay you for tall the tips and encouragement over the years! As ever, to CINCHOUSE the credit for her admonishment to me, “It cannot be just your hobby!”
Eric
I am not sure I like Eric after this conversation. LOL Its making me realize I know nothing about making 2 axle cars. I am going to keep going the direction I am going on this car. But future cars are going to take some thought on how to design and make 2 axle cars with fixed hook and loop couplers.
I must say that has got to be the BEST name for any team. I had visions of the visiting players from away waiting to start the game… and James Earl Jones vice booming RELEASE-THE-KRAKEN!
Game over.
On serious side. Would printing a bogie veneer work, but adapt a Lego axle to sit hidden behind and add some child resistant strength to a 2 axle option? The Lego could be glued with acetone I believe.
They are playing the penguins!!! Imagine how frightening it must be for a poor little flightless sea bird to be trapped in the home of THE KRAKEN.
The Krakens are gonna get their ass beat!
I dunno Rooster, I’ve been to a wedding.
Devon,
Below is the underside of an LGB car.
Note how the axles are on a separate plate that swings about 10 to 20 degrees. These help the cars navigate turns without making them hard to re-rail.
Eric
yes.
when i made my own cars, i found out, that cars without these swiveling axles, to be used on R1 curves, should not have a longer distance between axles, than three and a half inches.
if you don’t want them to derail, that is.
Um guess again. 4 -1 sea monster beats flightless sea bird
Eric,
Thanks. That answers a lot. And I love the solution. Basically it has a truck and the side frames are fake. I love this plan for a couple reasons. The side frames could be just an easily rotatable detail part if and when it gets converted to my link and pin trucks. And the bolster for mounting said truck could be used for a simple single axel truck with the hook and loop couplers.
Thanks. This makes it a lot simpler
Well if you are going to give a weekend of MIKing for travel, discovering a small craft distillery might make it worth while.
Copperworks distillery in Seattle WA. I discovered a whiskey that will be on my top shelf for sure.
The wheat oats and barley are locally sourced from Washington. They malt the grains and then dry them using a Scottish Highlands method by smoking them in burning peat. They sourced a peat bog in the Olympic mountains to get their petemoss from.
It’s a decently smooth bourbon with just a hint of smokey to it.
I have to be careful, they DO NOT, label any of their whiskeys as Bourbon. They label them as WHISKEY. The very attractive young lady with purple hair, a few tattoos, and a piercing or two. . . Yes I said attractive and might be giving away some of my deviance, but I digress, was very knowledgeable in the history of whiskey. She was quick to point out that indeed their products were not Bourbon, as Bourbon is required to be made in Kentucky by law. Nor was it strictly a Tennessee sour mash as it was not made with spring water from Tennessee. But instead it was a localy crafted “whiskey”. The peat is a distinctive Scotch thing. So they took elements of all the whiskeys and forged their own path. Peat smoke dried malted grains, aged in new oak charred barrels, and rhen a combination of single barrel, single batch, and true blended profiles.
They have a special event for 195 dollars person where you spend an evening touring the facility, learning the trade craft, sampling the first draws when they open new casks, and then blending your own bottle from the selected casks. They record what you chose, the bill and blend, and then record it, bottle it, and lable it for you.
All lip service to get you to spend money with them but I think dad and I might just have to do this
So getting back to the project at hand. I don’t think I will get this part of it done for the MIK and I have trucks already so will use them for this build. But thanks to Eric’s advice and the picture of how LGB does it I came up with what I hope will work to make this and future cars 2 axle cars with the ability to switch to the link and pin archbar later down the road. Here is my design concept. Built it off the archbar and modified it for a single axle. This keeps the mounting hole the same and will (when designed) put the hook and loop in the same place. This way the same body bolster can be used for both the single axle truck and eventually a dual axle truck. Still need to add the hook and loop. Plan to filament print it hoping the details come out. If not I resin print them and hope for the best. I could do as Craig suggests and filament print the bolster and resin print the sides.
Does this look like a reasonable and feasible way to tackle it and still have it look somewhat decent?
Edit to say that after thinking about this I will go ahead and make it so the bolster is filament and the sides and the little plate on top of the bolster will be resin printed.
