Some time ago I bought a brake van body because i could see a certain resemblance to 'Toby the Tram' hence the title of this blog. I did some research on steam trams, gathering together a collection of images and articles on the subject. here's a photo of what I broadly wanted to achieve

I don't have a photo of the original body but here's one soon after I started mucking around with it some time last year

I fitted some half panels to the doors, filled in the place where the duckets would have been fitted, added some 0.25 clear plexiglass for the glazing and cut away the underside to create an aperture for the motor seen here

I then started making up the chassis by cutting out the side frames which I clamped together and drilled out 4mm holes for the 1.5mm brass shouldered bearings and fixed those in with superglue, using a length of 1.5mm rod for alignment. It was my intention to use 12mm romford bogie wheels on 1.5mm axles. Next came fitting the frame spacers, again using 2mm plastic card similar to the frames.

I intended to use a spare can motor from an RTR Hornby 0-4-0. I bushed the cog down with some plastic tube inserted the axle through the bearings and cog using carfully filed down bearings as spacers and super glued the cog to the axle with bated breath in case the glue ran into the spacers/bearings. Thankfully I got away with it, although the assembly ran a little tight due to me allowing insufficient end float, but I suspect that will ease itself with running in. I didn't take pictures of the initial stages of construction but here is the chassis with the running plate fitted and the can motor retainer in place.

Later on I'll show you the next stages of the project.