Coach Couplings

During construction of the coach I have been looking for suitable buffers/couplings for it. It was my intention to find items that were reminiscent of tramway couplings. The search turned out to be rather difficult and in the end I decided to fit standard Roundhouse scale couplings. Despite them being rather large the design wasn't too far from what I was looking for. I could see them work with my other types of couplings and they could be mounted under the coach without too much fuss.

The couplings are bought separately and delivered with two different types of coupling attactments. I will be using a home made chain for coupling.

I bought the couplings on the Swift Sixteen-website in the section for 'builders parts'.  Once received, I could separate the coupler castings from the casting tree and test fit the couplings on the coach. They are rather big for the small coach, so I suspect I will have to keep looking for an appropriately sized pair of couplings. Until that happens the coach will be fitted with the Roundhouse couplings.

I fitted the supplied 3 mm bolts on the coach's underside and added an assortment of washers to adjust the couplers' height. A nut keeps everything in place. The coupler can swing and the amount of deflection is regulated by a brass bracket glued to the coach's bottom. 

Testing the Roundhouse couplings on the Line Side Hut Corris coach.

 

The almost finished coach with couplings fitted. They will probably be less prominent once painted and weathered.

I'm currently fixing home made end frame pieces (strangely absent in the kit) and looking for markings in my collection of left over transfers. Last thing to be fitted will be the platform end boards and grab rails.

Loading Ramp #1

With the basic landscape formations on my layout planned and in progress, I'm now planning how to construct and integrate the loading ramp for lorries om module 2. 

With the limited space available, I have been carefully selecting a prototype and worked on how best to preserve its characteristics in the setting I could offer it. I chose a prototype loading ramp from a clay pit located in a idyllic wooded area close to Dæmpegaard north of Copenhagen. The railway carried clay from the pit to a loading ramp for lorries, taking the clay to the brickworks in Bloustrød a few kilometers away. 

Bloustrød loco no 4 (a 1930's Pedershaab ) with skips at the loading ramp for lorries 1958. Photo: Erik V. Pedersen.

The loading ramp at Dæmpegaard was short and held only 3 skips. The ramp seems to have been built from a heap of readily available materials with not too many dimensions in common. It looks charmingly hapharzardly thrown together and it would probably not be welcomed today by authorities or by anyone having to work on or near it. Good that we have progressed and even better that I have a chance to recreate the mess in model. My model will be a mirrored representation and not a scale model of the real thing. But I hope to encompas most of its characteristics.

The image above is one of many very interesting industrial narrow gauge images captured by Erik V Pedersen, an early pioneering Danish railway enthusiast. Enjoy more images from the Bloustrød brick works here at Erik's elaborate and informative website (in Danish).