Underframe alternative ?

As you may have guessed from my description of the build, I didn't find the Select-a-car kits to be that easy to assemble. Once I had put them together, although they run well enough, I'm still suspicious of the steel pinpoint axle running in resin bearing. It just doesn't sound like a recipe for the long term use of the wagon on any model railway.

However, someone told me that there was a Bachmann bogie available as a spare that looked very similar to the Backwoods one. After a little bit of digging I tracked these down to the NG Trains website for £8.50 a pair plus postage.

Looking at the photo you can see that superficially the two underframes are very similar - the axleboxes are pretty much identical. The Bachmann one is die-cast and heavier on its own than the complete wagon. It's wheels are 13mm diameter as opposed to 14mm.

The wagon though, has a much lighter look. The tie bar is massive on the bogie and has some decent springing apparent too. Since it's metal, removing all of this to make it less massive will be a challenge. Of course you could just ignore it - I probably will for the moment - but if not it's out with the piercing saw. At the same time the pivot needs to come off as do the pickups for lighting the coach that should be sitting on top.

Mind you, for the money, the bogies are a pretty good thing. As the basis for an otherwise scratchbuilt wagon they allow the modeller to guarantee that whatever the result, it will work.