Groudle Glen Railway in 4mm & 7mm

[Vanguard 5374]

As luck would have it, I want to model narrow gauge and miniature lines that are more obscure to those producing kits, where a huge emphasis is put upon the likes of the Talyllyn, Ffestiniog, Welsh Highland, Snailbech and other such railways. I have wanted to have decent models of the Groudle Glen stock for a while now, and as such have decided to produce the items in house. Locomotives will have 3D printed skeleton frames, with etched and die cut sheets to add details and bodywork to the models. So far, I've decided to go for the battery locomotives as a first model, due to ease of design and build. The fact that the stock is so small means that where items are offered for 009 and 0-14/0-16.5, I can offer them for OOn6.5 and 09 too!

I've built a rough skeleton frame of the loco body, which is still going to be altered and changed further. Some smaller details have been left out at the moment, however I will be adding them to the model.

 

 

 

There is still some revision work to do, however the body is largely complete. The bufferbeams will be a seperate part, and the OO9 version (the first to come out) will include both a open beam and one fitted with a standard BEMO style coupling.

 

 

Just for fun, I have done some basic work on the etches, and have overlaid them on the 3D model. Some texture work later gave me this result:



Looking forward to getting the first prototype to build up, pending chassis choice.

[Dava]

Sadly I can't view the photos on my iPad. I'd like to, because I built a 7mm scale layout based on the Groudle Glen Railway in the mid-1980s using 012 scale. The 12mm gauge permitted use of BerlinerBahn TT gauge mechanisms and fine scale TT wheels. 14mm gauge was unheard of then and 12mm suited the narrow prototypes well. 

 

I built 'Sea Lion', 'Polar Bear', 'Excelsior', a Hunslet quarry saddle tank and the Ramsey Pier Tramway loco and railcar. The layout was quite widely exhibited, including at Greenwich in about 1989, before it was sold in 1997. I have analog photos and it appeared in the 7m NGA magazine of the time. I can dig out and digitize some photos if anyone is interested.  Happy days!

 

Dava

[barking mad]

I am certainly interested in seeing your photos. Thanks in anticipation.

Andrew