A Photo Shoot and a Bit More Progress

Entry posted by KH1 in Up the Line June 25, 2021

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Feeling quite proud of myself with progress so far I decided on a full glamour photo shoot which also catches up with a few extra details added since the last blog such as the drivers control unit and brake, various hand rails, lamps and the buffer.

I have also managed to meet up with Trevor and have taken delivery delivery of the first two prototype drive units for testing. I have set up a rather ingenious test track but more of this and the chassis next time.

The other big advance although I am a bit short of pictures is that I now have a roof courtesy of my Ender 3d printer and much toil over CAD which does not come naturally to me but got there in the end. It does now also have a trolley plank and various experiments to get a trolley pole working but not with any degree of success as yet. Again, I will get there eventually. Building upon what I have learned from the two tram builds so far I have also been hard at work on CAD drawings for two other classes and am almost ready to commit myself to shelling out for some etchings. These will be composite structures making use of 3d prints, etches and good old scratch building as to my mind no one method can cover everything. Progress with these has been slightly hampered by lack of access to what few real cars that exist. A rather fruitless trip to the Black County Museum yesterday found the place in the grips of a major rebuilding program which has (temporarily I presume), severed the tracks to the tram depot which was locked up tight with it's treasures inside. The double decker was spotted at the very back of the bus shed but there was no one about to try and talk my way in. Still, the ticket allows unlimited reentry for a year so all is not lost! Am planning a trip to the Tramway Museum at Critch tomorrow and although there are no actual Dudley cars there , there are some interesting models and plenty of other cars to get some ideas from.