Scalefour Forum

Hi All. This is a add on from my thread on Brake Rigging in the 'Members Lounge'. I'm finishing off a 3 car rake of Bullied coaches which i started some time back. I'm using Pendlenton/Mitchell bogies, which work fine but look a bit basic, so I wanted to upgrade them a bit hence my thread for brake rigging. But as I've just finished up grading the brake gear on a CCT I realised that the bogie will have a similar type of brake gear as the CCT, in which I mean SR/BR didn't use the normal type of yolk linking the brake hangers together rather than a long oval{ish} shape flat piece of metal. Does anyone have any images of a stream bogie inner working they could let me have please.

Dave

I know you should ‘never’ copy a model, but I would have a look at the Hornby version and that will give you a very good idea of one indeed. There are only two improvements, apart from obvious P4 things like widening the brakes etc.: firstly, to remove the flat section tie bars between the axleguards and replace with wire, and secondly, remove the extra moulding at the outer end of the bogie frame which provides a location for the close coupling. Otherwise it’s perfect.

Philip

Southern bogies had the pull rod from the vacuum cylinder cross shaft attached to the lower end of the levers between the yokes. This meant that the yokes were inclined upwards to clear the axle.

There is a photo of a bogie in A Illustrated History of Southern Coaches by Mike King.

Hi Guys. Thanks for your help.

Phillip. Alas I don't have access to a Hornby coach. My models are based on the Bachmann versions, so I had a look at an untouched one. These were not much help. They don't have any tie bars but they do show a lot of the pull rods and cams etc but as they are but buried deep all this detail is not visible at any angle unless you get run over by them. LOL. I don't understand why reproduce that type of detail but not show the more visible items like the tie bars?

Bill. You've confirmed what I was thinking that on their clasps type brake rigging they used a similar system that was on their four wheeled vehicles as on their bogies. I searched for a copy of that book but it's like 50 quid. Ouch!

I've now made up the tie bars using 2mm thick flat n/s. Next job is to make up some safety chains and solder a small length of brass wire to represent the pull rods. That will be my limit to detailing within the bogie as I want to turn my attention to the centre casting {not sure what it is or called} the original MJT casting is basic. Originally I did play around with it to make it look better but was not really too happy with it. They got slightly dented when I removed them so now's a good chance to have another go with them. Also will take a look the the bottom of the spring dampers and see if they can be improved, and finally will replace the bar that goes between the W irons. There's a safety loop on the back of the bogie but I can't see any others. I'll post an image when I get this work done.

Dave

Dave,

Sorry, taken me a couple of days to track them down, but I knew I could lay hands on a couple of photographs I took of an SR 8' 0" bogie frame on the Bluebell Railway some years ago. I've scanned them from my contact print sheet and, since they were taken on FP4 film, they enlarge quite nicely to reveal some of the detail.

Anyway, here they are; hope they are of some use:

Edited to add that you can tell that the second photograph shows the inboard end of the bogie from the fact that there is a cut-out in the end crosspiece to accommodate the belt drive to the dynamo.

Thanks John for the cracking pictures of the bogie fame. I've just about finished rebuilding one of my bogies but have put in the opening for the dynamo belt. It's a shame the the AJ couple hole wasn't on the same side as I could have incorporated that as the cutout. I will now have to fill that in. Hope to have this finished tonight and will post an image.

Dave

Finished rebuilding of the first bogie. It's a bit Frankensteinish and probably look a better from about a mile away. LOL. I'm cracking on finishing off it's sister for the other end of the coach. The other two sets of bogies for the other two coaches in the set are fresh ones which will be easier to modify before they are put together. I did change the way the wheels are sprung. The kit has all the wheels with their own spring but anchoring the spring wire onto the brake hangers made the bearing plate sit skew-whiff. So I just have the one spring wire per side anchored at each end of the frames. All the rest of the modifications are cosmetic.



Dave
P.S. Please note that the blue-tack does conform to P4 Standards.