Down_Under

Hi All, I am starting to model some of the standard gauge ironstone railways around the midlands and oxfordshire (in 4mm scale) over in Australia. I have a collection of iron ore tipplers, 16t mineral wagons and hoppers that I am working on (will post when they are a little more complete). However, I wanted to model something a little different.On browsing through a couple of Eric Tonks' books for insperation, I spy a fleet of "American Dump Car Wagons". I see that some have made it into preservations at Rutland; http://www.rocks-by-rail.org/exhibit/dumpcar-wagons/ From 'Industrial Wagons - An Introduction' they have the basic dimensions (p.36) - Length 11ft6in, Height 7ft6in, Wheelbase 6ft6in - pretty basic stuff, but no wheel diameter, width etc. They seem to have been made by the Glouster Wagon Works. Currently that is all the information that I have. Does anyone know of any kits of these wagons, or have any scale drawings that could be used to scratch build? Would be gratefull of any information received. I do note that Bachmann do make a Ho03 (?) scale model of dump car - Not sure if the chassis would be a starting point (there are some slight differences) - but I cannot seem to figure out if they are the approximate correct scale (chassis only). Many thanks in advance, James

Many thanks to PGH for the info on the loco drawings. omega - I have not. Thanks for the heads up. I had not realised that there was a NGRm forum (still feeling my way about). Will post up pictures etc as I build up the model - possibly MIT migrate it into the scratch building section. James

Hi All, I have recently started to get back into the hobby after a break of 15 years or so. I have decided that I would like to model some of the ironstone railways of the midlands. I have some fond memories of stumbing over the remnents of the Oxfordshire Ironstone Railways as a small child. I also have memories of watching short documentary on the ironstone railways (BBC "Lines of Industry" - Trains Now Departing). To cut a long story short, I now live in Australia (working in the mining industry) and stumbled across this doco on BBC i player ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p011v86f/the-train-now-departing-5-lines-of-industry). With much footage of "SCALDWELL", and discoverying that she made it into preservation I thought it would make a good prototype to model. I have done as much research as I can online - I have acquired several books by Eric Tonks on the ironstone railways and had a look at all the bits I might need (boy have things changed since I was about 15!). My plan was to attempt to build to 4mm scale a 3ft Ironstone railway. My basic outline was this: SCALDWELL 2'9" driving wheels 10 x 14" Cylinders This is all I know. I have contacted Amberly Steam Museum - but I have heard nothing yet back on some basic dimensions (width between frames, width, length etc). At the moment I have been "guesstimating" based upon sleeper sizes and people in video and photos. I plan to kit bash the saddle tank of a Dapol pug, and pretty much scratch build the rest. I can get wheels from Alan Gibson, and cut down some axles to suit. Valve gear - I am a little stuck, probably at this stage end up modify some Alan gibson or Markits generic double slide cross heads. 3ft Gauge track I have had a look at the 3mm society web page and see that I can get code 60 bullhead rail and sleepers, and chairs. This seems like a good place to start for scale track. So I guess, as a newbie, any help or information that people might have would be much appreciated. I will post up some of the drawings I make as I do them. James As a starting point, what thickness brass would one build a chassis out off? J