It took all Summer but there were a lot of life’s interruptions.
Always wanted to represent one of these on the railroad somehow.
This will give you an idea of the huge size of these tower skidders, look how it dwarfs the locomotive and that is not a small loco.
Several months ago I bought a couple of 3D Donkey kits from Mike Williams of this forum, just wanted to see what they were like.
My impressions after building them.
1 they seem to represent generic machines.
2 not highly detailed but great starting point for super detailing.
3 Small parts are very brittle and break easily under old clumsy hands.
4 Great support for replacement parts.
5. Very good value for the price,
What I did with them.
I built a much smaller and very generic version of the Tower Skidder shown above.
My intent was to show it arriving brand new from the factory on it’s cars with all major components.
The donkey engines and boiler mounted on the heavy flat car. when in service the the stabilizers are extended and the car jacked and cribbed and the trucks removed so that the empty log cars can pass under. Everything but the donkeys was scratch built from mostly wood, Styrene, and metal.
The tender car carrying fuel oil and water for the boiler. When in service it would be spotted on a parallel track and the water, fuel and steam lines would be connected. All scratch built from the same materials as above.
The flat car carrying the boom, tower base, tower and crates of small parts. The flat car is a Phil Dipple kit from years ago all other parts are scratch built.
Think of the transportation logistics involved to get this equipment from the factory to the woods.
It was built for a narrow gauge railroad but had to ship on standard gauge lines to the transfer point.
The donkey flat and the tender flat had to be mounted on standard gauge trucks and the narrow gauge trucks shipped on a separate car. The boom and tower equipment had to transfer to a narrow gauge car at the transfer point and the trucks had to be changed under the other two cars.
Now it was ready for the trip into the logging woods where it would take a week to set it up for operation.
The tower and boom in operating positions just for reference.
A couple of close ups of the donkeys.
And that’s it
Thanks for taking a look.