Tuesday 20 September 2016

Wiggle Room

No it's not a radical new design of carriage - although it's an interesting idea - it is in fact the chassis of our latest Superbarn 117 on test.


The purpose of the test run is because we've discovered that these carriages, fitted with my own design of proper-sized FR bogies, do not have sufficient swing to traverse the tightest curves on Dduallt.

Previously, when we have run superbarns on the layout, they have all been fitted with Parkside Dundas Vale of Rheidol bogies dressed up to look (not a lot) like FR carriage bogies.

Although the new FR bogies were fitted to carriage 119 it had only run on Bron Hebog, where the geometry of the curves is more generous.

The root of the problem is the way the frames are inset below the doors at either end - a consequence of the designer attempting to squeeze the absolute maximum amount of carriage into a loading gauge designed for horses and slate waggons!

Himself has been hacking away at the underneath of the chassis to give the bogies a little more wiggle room.

He sent me this picture, but now I think about it I realise that he didn't actually say whether or not it was a success....

1 comment:

  1. History repeats it self, I recall some grinding on the IOM frames after some fun at Port! If you check reports on clapham crash it seems the 4 REPS had a similar "unoffical" mod weakening chassis and with rusitng had aided to the collapse of the cabs, hopefully not an issue on the models!
    robert

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