Gosh, Cliffie, you’re becoming a regular railroad maggot!
Sounds like a step up to me, do I get a cookie? 
I’m finally at the chassis assembly phase, the first step being about 1,036 cosmetic fasteners to be installed.
I really need to remember to program my phone to wake up with my little fingers, because the rest will be caked with CA for awhile I think.
Cool …so the doors will operate then!
Only in my imagination, unfortunately. The handle turns though…
That’s not acceptable.
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The faux fasteners are complete. I’d miscounted before; the total for these is 1,148 for 14 cars.
Next is couplers, journals & wheelsets.
This morning I installed the couplers,
…and this afternoon the journal guides, both with #1 hex lag screws.
The guides needed CA as well to keep everything flat against the beam.
BTW, I’m having to redrill pretty much every hole in the frames, because either the stain made the holes close up slightly, or the lag screws needed larger pilots to not snap their heads off, or weathered & clear-coated fasteners got slightly bigger ---- a variety of reasons. But at least the pre-drilled holes marked all the positions, so it’s gone quickly.
Next is journal boxes, wheels, and the straps that hold all those to the guides with #0 screws & nuts. This will get tricky, and I predict there will be some swearing involved. 
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I started on the set of wheels this morning, beginning with CA’ing 8 00-90 screws in place. I could only get longish ones, and they will need cutting down.
I learned that I should have blackened them and their nuts after assembly, because the Jax left a thin film which is enough to interfere with spinning the nuts on. And my nut driver could only take the nuts down a bit at a time. So after an hour and a half of fiddling, the first set of wheels is on.
This will take a few afternoons to complete the other 13.
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Thanks for all the likes, guys!
The journals & wheels went more quickly than I expected, so those are done.
Next comes the toughest subassembly: brakes.
Well hells bells time to get started on the 1:1 cars now that you know all the parts and have the masters already made 
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If I had the time & money Hollywood, I’d love to make a full re-creation of one for the NV museum, since it’s the “signature” car of the V&T. And to your point, when you make a detailed model, especially in a larger scale, you do have to figure out all the bits. You can’t wing it like HO, and just suggest shapes… 
[edit: no offense to anyone into HO!!]
Here’s where all those bits go.
I was stumped on what to pre-assemble and install first, so I just finished a first article to figure that out.
Looks kinda half-assed but it’s gotta be good enough. For example, I should have gotten smaller OD wheel spacer tubes, instead of reusing Bachmann’s. And now they’re scrubbing the linkage a little.
But I need to remember the old modeling fact I learned many moons ago: in two weeks I won’t remember the issue, let alone care about it.
As you can see, there’ll be lots of re-blackening to do on bits I scraped or cut or filed during assembly.
Cheers,
Cliff
Cliff;
After studying the brake gear assembly, is it safe to say the cars had hand brakes only? One must imagine that brakes had to be set to a certain tension at the top of a grade before descending. Probably similar to English goods trains before powered braking became common.
Regards, David Meashey
Dave,
Yes indeed, no air brakes.
As I understand it, the loaded ore train was generally going downhill.
The brakemen riding the cars were able to run over the ore from car to car.
At certain and very predictable startings of slope, they applied the brakes on each car as needed.
Thanks for asking this, I need to verify with my V&T betters.
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Fantastic build Cliff, thanks for posting - this is always one of my first clicks for an update.
I can’t wait for the build log for numbers 14 - 94… 
Btw - I assume you’ve done / doing a parts count for ALL of the bits on all 14 cars?? 
Cheers
N
Thanks Neil! Yeah, I have a parts list, but haven’t done a grand total… I’ll probably work that up for the stats on the project, which will go into the little talk I do at the V&T conference in October. Can’t do it yet, because I’m still discovering parts that don’t exist yet, like some nut/washer prints to go on the ends of the brake rods.
Cliff;
All I can type concerning walking over ore loads is “UGH!” I had to crawl over the coach roofs on the Dry Gulch RR train once. It was stopped, but it was on the trestle. No ambition for a repeat performance.
Regards, David Meashey
I hear ya Dave! And I’m not sure if they did on-the-fly braking on the ore cars at all. The brakemen may have walked along the footboards, vs. over the ore. Or the loco’s may have done all the braking, I’ve heard the V&T let cylinder compression handle braking (by throwing the johnson bar partially in reverse?). I’ll post if I hear anything from a couple V&T historians.
The Ffestiniog in the UK has a “Gravity Train” which does the same. They sell seats to visitors!
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