Scrubber Car No 15 in "O" scale part 5

I have been finishing off what will be the visible interior details on the car. That is the items that go in the two motorman's cabs. They are ready except for painting and in the photo they are from top left, the built in tool box and built in clothes locker which are at one end of the car and in the next row the air compressor and air tanks that are at the other end. Between them are the two controllers and in the bottom row are the goose neck handbrakes, air valves to control the grinders, the valves to turn on the water and finally the air brake valves. Everything is made out of styrene except for the goose necks. As per my usual way of doing things these are only a representation of the real thing. As everything inside the cabs is painted in drab brown none of the items are going to stand out and they should look ok.


The photo in part 1 of this thread was taken in 1965. When you tell people you are building a particular model additional information often turns up unexpectedly and this was the case here. Four photos turned up showing it's transportation to the Tramway Museum in 1968 and the photo below shows No 15 being unloaded at the museum . Here the Coke Cola ad is different from the 1965 photo. Obviously soft drink started to appear in cans sometime after 1965 but before 1968. In Australia at least.


This seemed a more interesting ad for my model so I have been working on the new signage and the result is in the last two photos. One for the sides and the smaller one for the ends. I leave the ads this size and do the final sizing in Paint Shop Pro when I print them.


I really can't do any more on this car and No 71 until I at least get the side frames back from the caster. Hopefully my next post will be back building my layout. I hope!

Advertising Car No 71 in "O" scale part 2

Time for another progress report. The pieces all went together without too many problems. The photos show the progress so far. Now I'm at about the same stage as I am with No 15. I'm waiting on the side frames and the trucks before I can go on with either model. These are great little trams to build as there is a minimum of interior detail so construction goes quite quickly. And not much to go wrong. There is still some work I can do in finishing off especially around the headlights.

The photo in part 1 shows a different ad on the car from the one I intend to use. As the trams were operated by the Brisbane City Council, I thought it appropriate to use a City Council Loan ad. Al Brisbane trams had flag holders above the motorman's door and when a Brisbane City Loan was open the cars flew flags which said just that. The flag photo started off as a photo from an existing one at the museum and like the ad for the car side it has been heavily worked on with Paint Shop Pro.

Advertising Car No 71 in "O" scale part 1

My scrubber car has come to a halt at the moment as I can't finish the body until the power units and side frames arrive. And as I have only sent the Brill side frames off to the caster this morning it could be awhile yet.

I'm still not well enough to get back onto the layout for awhile and as I have ordered two power units I have decided another 4 wheeler is in order. Looking for something that ran in the 1960s and a little different as well I chose to start building Advertising Car No 71 as seen in the first photo. This photo was taken in the mid 1960s.

No 71 started life in 1915 as a "Standard 10 Bench" car No 71 as per the drawings below and was converted to an advertising car in 1954. I have been unable to find any drawings for this car in the museum archives but I have a number of photos of 71 and a set of drawings for the original 10 bench cars. It's obvious that as much as possible of the original car was used in the conversion. The original roof was reused along with the two motorman's bulkheads. The chassis was unchanged and I suspect the central eight seats were left in place as well. The front and rear seats had the horizontal part removed but the backs are still clearly visible attached to the bulkheads in the photos. The frames for the signs were stood out from the original sides, obviously to clear the edge of the roof.

I have developed out all the parts by reference to the photos and using the 10 bench dimensions. If I'm not correct no one is going to be able to prove me wrong.




So now to cut out the pieces and start gluing them together.