Starting the Tram Loco

I decided the mounts that came with the chassis could be used, I selected those intended for the Billard as being the most suitable. Soldering them on was a little tricky, this would be easier before fitting the running gear to the chassis. The motor end bracket needed trimming to clear the rubber band drive.

 

The tram body etch is typical of Worsley Works, neat but basic and without instructions! I still find getting four sides square and aligned and soldered together a big challenge, but after an evening of fiddling I've got it as good as I am going to. Hopefully any remaining gaps can be filled and any misalignment put down to "character".

 

As yet I haven't fitted the roof, I need to find a suitable chimney first, and it might be better to leave fitting it until after sorting out the floor and interior. The etch includes multiple pieces to make up the distinctive U-shape buffer-beams of the Wantage Tramway prototype, however:
1) I can't make out how they are supposed to go together, and
2) being rather wide to suit the standard gauge prototype's buffers, I don't think they will suit a narrow gauge loco.
I think I will make up buffer-beams and side skirts from plasticard, the Wantage loco spent most of its life without side skirts but I will need them to hide the small wheels.

 

If you didn't know this was supposed to be a standard gauge loco you would never guess, it is tiny! At 27mm wide it is admittedly slightly wider than most 009 stock, but well within the variations of narrow gauge and as seen here, it looks at home with my Parkside "GVT style" coaches. I've bent the chassis mounts so the height looks about right, though I have yet to find a way to attach the chassis to the body.

 

So far a promising start, though it might be a while before it progresses much further, due to the impending house move!

The plan for the new layout

Southon Yard has been sitting on the bureau, in the alcove next to the fireplace in our dining room for the last 3 years. This has been great as I can play trains at any time, and it is good to show off my loco's. However it struck me that it wasn't fully utilising the space there, and the limitation of Southon Yard is that you can't really run trains, just move loco's about.

So I decided to build a layout to fill the alcove, which gave me 3 foot 6 inches by about 13 inches deep, but also restricted to 12 inches tall at the backscene due to shelves above. I seem to have collected some tramway style loco's, with skirts fitted, and also some coaches that would look good on a tramway style layout, but how do you capture the feel of a roadside tramway in such a small space? I also wanted good shunting potential. I thought a train length of 12 inches, plus loco (up to about 4 inches) was sufficient. That means 2 bogie coaches plus brake van, or 3 4-wheel coaches, or about 5 wagons.

So I came up with this plan, you may recognise elements from Wantage - particularly in the Station with overall roof and the goods shed behind. I also have a goods yard, and a factory, so 4 sidings to shunt. I even got an engine shed in! Low relief buildings and the factory will give an urban back-streets feel. The line runs onto a removable "fiddle Yard" which will use the cassette system I designed for Pen-Y-Bryn Quarry, as that worked well. The fiddle yard will sit over the mantle piece, but will only be fitted when the layout is slid forward about 6 inches, so I plan to mount the layout on drawer runners into the alcove!

I have started building the baseboard - but more of that later. However I have not come up with a name for the layout yet, so suggestions gratefully received!