A early version Drop Centre in "O" scale part 1

My previous model was of a later version drop centre. This time I planned to model a very early version. These were built as handbrake cars from 1925 onwards and many still had not been converted to air brakes when the system closed although all the early ones had the open cabs enclosed. The museum's 231 is in this condition and still has it's diamond frame trucks which are part of another thread.


The main differences between the two versions by the 1960s was the lack of the metal skirt below the cabins and the drivers compartments and no side destination rolls. The drawing shows the general layout of these trams after the drivers cabins has been enclosed and the photo of 196 shows generally what they looked like by the mid 1960s.


All the converted ones had the diamond frame trucks replaced with plate frame trucks. So I will have to be careful that the number tram I choose still had the diamond frames in the 1960s.

Recently, I joined with a local model train club in the purchase of large sheets of polystyrene from a local plastics supplier. Armed with 4 sheets of different thicknesses I decided to try and make this model from styrene instead of my usual cardboard.

The styrene in some ways is not as versatile as card and I needed to spend quite some time on the computer altering and resizing where necessary all the different panels I needed. Where card can be bent when required styrene needs to be two separate pieces with the edges bevelled and then glued together.

I also did some experimenting with sticking printer paper onto styrene and found the best was spray adhesive sprayed onto the back of the printer paper only. When touch dry I pressed it onto the styrene and it stuck well but it could also be removed without too much trouble. So I have reorganised all the panel drawings to fit onto A4 size sheets.

It will be interesting to see how many mistakes I have made. The last photo is one of the sheets ready to be glued onto the styrene. And no, it isn't blue paper. My camera didn't like all the white and decided to make it's own adjustments.