Wickham trolley - done

ON and off, I've been carrying on with the Wickham Trolley last mentioned here an embarrassingly long time ago. 

Most of the effort has gone into painting the model. A bit of a challenge because it's a bit of a weird choice of prototype. I'd originally thought it would be running on Ramsay pier, but then realised that the floor is covered with rather nice detail, all of which shouldn't be there if it's carrying tourists from a ship. 

So, now I think it was running on the pier, hence the fancy paint, but has since returned to the MER where the crews have been dumping stuff under the seats. 

Yes I know this is contrived, I'm doing my best. 

After painting, glazing with Bayer Extrudierte Copolyesterplatten fixed with Deluxe glue'n'glaze. The Bayer stuff is incredibly clear, far better than perpex but without the issues of glass. 

So, job done. A bit of a silk purse from a sows ear if I'm honest but the finished model looks OK. Now all I need to do is built a 7mm scale Isle of Man to go with it!

Wooden seats

 

If it's O gauge, wooden bits can be made of close-grained wood. In this case I've used (I think) basswood, or as we call it, lime.

At 1mm thick, it's easy to work with a sharp knife, being careful when cutting across the grain. A light sand and the bits are ready to superglue in place. The only tricky one was the backs for the middle seats. After much faffing, I glued one end in place and then pushed the other where it should be (the wood fits between the poles) before the glue fully set and still had a little flexibility. 

The lengths of balsa signify that the wooden bogie's guage has been reduced to 21mm for the 3ft track that I don't own. I've a few ideas about this but they can wait for a bit.

Brass roof soldered to whitemetal sides

 

Finally, some free time to carry on with the Wickham trolley.  

The obvious next job was to fit the roof. This involves soldering brass to whitmetal. When I fitted the handrails, I had to tin them with normal solder before attaching with low-melt. This time I've bought some more 100 degree, to replace the pack I've mislaid, from C&L. 

For a while, the roof has been kicking around but when I come to fit it, it's disappeared. Probably to the same place as the old solder. 

Not to worry, a new rectangle of thin brass was carefully cut out and then curved in the rollers. 

Then a few blobs of Powerflow flux and a bit of soldering iron work and it's in place. I use the normal iron for this although the low temp one will work. If you are quick, the brass acts as enough of a heat sink to avoid damaging the whitemetal bits, and these are big enough to survie a bit of heat. 

While I was at it, the front bumper bar (if this was a Volkswagem we'd call it a "nerf" bar) was made from some nickel silver strip and brass rod. It's done by eye but looks OK to me and is an essential feature of a Wickham.

Narrow gauge Wickhams on the Isle of Man

If I can't fit a standard gauge chassis under the Wickham, then I need a narrow gauge prototype. On this blog, when we say narrow gauge, thoughts turn to the Isle of Man.

Luckily, the island is stuffed full of Wickhams and my first idea was to use the 3ft gauge Ramsey Pier railway as a prototype. As you can see above, they had a Wickham for taking people back and forth along the 2241 foot length. Originally man powered (pushed by staff), in the 1937, a Planet loco joined the fleet.

1950 saw the Wickham added along with a spur of track so both trains could operate. The design is quite a bit different from my model with four rows of front (the backs flipped over for the return trip so you always face front as you can see here) facing seats. Interesting, but not much use to me unless I scratchbuild. One for another day.

The Manx Electric Railway also has at least one Wickham and this photo shows it to me much closer to the design I have on the workbench. It also has wasp stripes on the front, and these are about as fun to paint as being stung by the aforementioned insect is.

However, stock moved around the island. What would happen if the pier trolley broke down and they borrowed the MER one for a length of time? Assuming we are looking at the late 60s, then the number of passengers using the service from ships would be tiny. The main market would be people just enjoying a jaunt up and down the pier. People like me.

Then the lower capacity wouldn't be a problem, but they would probably paint the trolley in the pier livery, waving goodbye to those wasp stripes.

So, a 3ft gauge railcar it is. 

Fake SPUD reveals problems...

 

One day, I dream of having a workshop where my pillar drill can live set up and ready to go at all times. That would mean jobs like this would take a few seconds instead of quarter of an hour or more. 

Anyway, the trolley is supposed to be powered with a SPUD, there's space under the floor for it. I'm building it unpowered, so needed to make a replacement, or fake SPUD. A bit of wood with holes drilled through seemed to be the answer and construction took a couple of minutes. 

Axles were cut to length and wheels pressed on in the vice. They are all the same diameter, despite being obviously different makes. This won't show behind the foot boards and I don't have any spare 10.5mm wheels to have at the moment anyway.

Testing the unit under the trolley, reveals a problem:

 

This might be an O gauge kit, but set the wheels to sit on 32mm track and they won't fit underneath. Hmmm. More thinking required...

 

Replacement Wickham seats

 

 This isn't the greatest kit for a Wickham trolley as a few compromises have been made along the way. The most obvious being the seats. 

To my eye, they look like park benches. If I were a cynical person, I'd think that the manufacturer had casting for these in the range already and decided to use them in the trolley rather than doing the job properly. Unless anyone can prove otherwise, this looks a bit rubbish. 

So, out with some fat brass wire along with the couple of lengths of 0.7mm and during an old episode of Bergerac, I drew up a diagram on a bit of plywood and soldered up more accurate replacements. It helps that I had another trolley to measure as the copy of RM with the plan in has already gone back to the railway club. 

The job wasn't helped by me losing my stock of 100 degree solder so the brass to whitemetal joins had to be made in the traditional way by tinning the yellow metal before using low melt for the join. 

The result looks OK. Those back seat supports don't lean in as much as the photo suggests but now I've seen this, they will get another prod from a hot iron anyway. Seats will be plasticard or even thin wood as I feel a bit more thickness is required then sheet brass can provide, and of course the old seats don't fit anymore. Does anyone need a 7mm scale park bench?

Soldered Wickham body

 

Since the mystery Wickham kit is made of great big lumps of whitemetal, work starts with some low-melt soldering. Even for a beginner, this would be the best choice, those lumps are to big to melt without serious effort. Since there isn't much in the way of positive location aids, being able to tack bits together, have a look and then move then is a real boon.

Without instructions, assembly is guesswork, although mainly as far as the running boards go. Even I can work out the end to floor relationship!

Apart from shortening the top bars holding the canvas, everything seemed to fit OK and it's all pretty square thanks to a little fettling with the file. I haven't had to fettle a kit in this way for a while and I'd forgotten how much fun it is. When it works.

Mystery Wickham kit

Earl King is one of the people responsible for me being involved in railway modelling. His enthusiasm pointed young Phil at the hobby so it's partly his fault. 

Anyway, a few days ago, he drops in. Having seen my pieces in BRM, in his pocket is a mystery 7mm scale Wickham trolley kit. It's obviously a very early multi-media model but there are no makers marks or other details to identify the manufacturer.

The floor is nicely moulded and complete with some interesting "junk" detail. Underneath there is a rectangular indentation to accommodate a SPUD for motorisation. That places it late 1980s at the earliest.

So, can anyone suggest a manufacturer? I'm going to build the model anyway but it would be nice to know.