Canals and Curious Carriages

Progress is slowly being made in Tawe_TMD - Bearing in mind that I am on a Student's income so leaps and bounds are not to be expected, at least not initially.  I have decided after many pilot runs uploading models of bunkers to my Shapeways Page, I have decided to get one step closer to my ultimate aim of locomotive kits and begin work on a Railway Carriage in N gauge:

Creo Elements/Direct is like Pro/ENGINEER without a price tag :)

This is a Metropolitan Line 8 Wheel Non-Bogie Carriage, originally working the aforementioned line on the fledgling London Underground until 1909 when they were sold to the Burry Port and Gwendraeth Valley Railway for it's own passenger service.  These had eight wheels with a total wheelbase of 28 feet or 8.53 metres which given the sharp curves of a line built on the route of an old canal (Wales' oldest one, no less) would have presented a problem if it were not for it's chassis; the inner 2 axles were fixed to the frames, but the outer 2 axles were mounted on radial trucks with their pivots above the inner axles, similar to locomotive practice.  Incidentally, these carriages had brakes on the inner wheels only as a direct result of this.

The model is far from complete, with side details missing and a lack of a chassis (this will be a seperate unit to allow fitment of an interior and to allow flexibility for future conversion to 2mm finescale); also the roof is a bit crooked at present so I will need to address that.  Other than that, progress has been good with me picking up Creo nearly effortlessly due to muscle memory and experience with Pro/E and I think we could have a physical model to show off by mid-June, early-July.

Hope you enjoyed that  :)

Sources:

1. The Burry Port and Gwendreath Valley Railway and its Antecedent Canals Volume Two:  The Railway and Dock
2. Wordpress:  The Basilica Fields blog