A conversion of Lilliput 4 wheeled carriage rolling stock to bogies.

My Glen Ogle layout is basically an area of Scotland that I find very attractive, that happens to have an abandoned railway line, with a very scenic viaduct running through it, which I decided to model as a working diorama, and that’s about as much pre planning as I put into it, because I like making things and modelling.

I am not a fastidious or rivet counting modeller, and I work on the premise that if it looks all right to me, it’ll do, so I run whatever I like as far as loco’s and rolling stock goes, so long as it fits in with the 009 scale ratio. So most of my stock is of the ready to run, off the shelf variety, with the exceptions of one or two locos in Brass or of the three D printed variety, that will accept a Kato chassis under them.

All my current carriage stock is from the excellent Lilliput range, a lot of which I purchased over 35 years ago, when I used my four year old at the time daughter, to build a rabbit layout, as a light relief from my large EM gauge layout of Balquider junction I was building in my loft.  This little layout incidentally, was successfully exhibited at the York Model Railway show.

So, Glen Ogle has a lot of the four wheeled Lilliput carriages, several of which have been converted as Lipo battery carriers to feed the radio controlled loco’s at their head, and it is these carriages that I decided I would convert to bogie carriages using the excellent Kato bogies. The following epistle describes how I butchered these carriages to serve the Glen Ogle layout, any purists should look away now.



Click on the picture to see a short video of the layout, it may be slow to load so please have patience, I'm still learning.

I purchased sufficient sets of the Kato 11-099 N gauge bogies, which come with integral N gauge, ELC couplings from an Ebay supplier, along with a sheet of 40 thou black plasticard.  Gathered a selection of my tools which included, razor saw, scriber, assorted drills and pin chucks, steel rule, plasticard scrawker, craft and Stanley knives, superglue and plastic solvent, assorted files and abrasive paper and a cutting mat, to save our dining room table and ensure I would live to tell you all the tale.





Having thus set out my stall, I proceeded to remove the two single wheels from each carriage, the two couplings by prising out the circular plastic rivet which hold them in place, which you should carefully store for future use, and using the razor saw, cut off the springs and other appendages from below the carriage sole bars. The denuded sole bar was then rubbed against a course flat  anding surface to ensure it was completely flat and true.

I measured this area of the sole bars at 83 x 18mm, and cut out sufficient pieces of the 40thou plasticard to cover the bases of all the carriages I was converting, I scribed a line down the centre of the 18mm for the bogie pivot holes.  The new 83 x 18mm bases were them super glued to the sole bars of each carriage in turn, and set aside to harden.  At 15mm from each end, on the pre-scribed centreline, I had centre-popped a mark for the bogie pivot pins, I now drilled two 1.5mm holes to suit the previously removed coupling assembly rivets, these holes were continued through the new floor, and into and through the original carriage floor below, because the plastic rivet is too long for its new job of pivoting the bogie on the new 40thou floor.



The 15mm scribed line pivot hole, puts the ELC N gauge coupling, so that it protrudes beyond the ends of the Lilliput carriage, when the bogies are pivoted on the bogie pivot point designed for the Kato carriage.

The Kato bogie pivot point has two protruding plastic pins, which are designed to spring clip into a hole in the carriage base on the Kato carriage for which it is designed, for our use, these clip pins have to be removed and the hole it produces, enlarged to 1.5mm and biased a little way toward the end of the bogie, away from the coupling, by inserting a round needle file and removing a little of the bogie plastic. This is to move the overlarge plastic rivet head we are going to use from the Lilliput coupling, slightly away from the axle where it would otherwise rub.





With the bogie pivot holes cleared and slightly enlarged, I test fitted the new bogies in place and checked the new couplings protruded enough from the ends of the coach balconies to couple to another.  I then put a smear of superglue into the pivot hole and on the end of the plastic rivet, then brought the two together to fix each bogie in place, and completes the conversion as the pictures show.



There is no attempt at brake gear or truss rods etc. below the sole-bars, and there is unlikely to be in the future.  I cannot see the detail so I am not bothered.  I applaud those modellers who do super detail their rolling stock, but it is not for me.  As long as my stock runs smoothly along the track, I am happy.






I hope you find some of my detail of some use.


BrianT

Don't know what you posted this in Brian, but I'm just getting loads of formatting (font) commands all around the text.

Ed

Yes I know Ed, I don't know what I have done to be honest, when you get to my age, the computer never fails to baffle me on occasions, I'll leave it up for a little while and see if one of the moderators can sort it, if not, I will attempt to delete it and start again.


Regards,


BrianT.

What browser are you using Brian, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome ?

It's been found this forum works best with Firefox.


Ed

Stand by.  I'll have a go at it.

I am using internet explorer, but don't ask me to change to any other, I get confused enough as it is.


I think I forgot I had gone into the preview mode, forgot, and started to do some alterations to the text or picture, and this has something to do with it.

I rarely use the preview options in any of the forums, but on this occasion, because I am the new boy on the block so to speak, I wanted to check everything was OK.


Sorry folks, hopefully some one will be along in a while to sort me out, I shudder to think what I will do to the site if I attempt to delete it.

Regards,



BrianT.

Hi Brian

This thread deals with spacing using Internet Explorer and explains how to make IE use Compatibility View.

It might also fix your formatting problem.

http://yourmodelrailway.net/view_topic.php?id=11637&forum_id=32


Ed

Hi Brian

It looks like the garbage you get when you copy and paste from another place.

I've been through it and fixed it (including the spelling errors), but it was quite a long job.

Could I ask that you find out what you did so you don't do it next time.

Cheers

[user=1741]gtmspyder[/user] wrote:

I am using internet explorer, but don't ask me to change to any other, I get confused enough as it is.


I think I forgot I had gone into the preview mode, forgot, and started to do some alterations to the text or picture, and this has something to do with it.

I rarely use the preview options in any of the forums, but on this occasion, because I am the new boy on the block so to speak, I wanted to check everything was OK.


Sorry folks, hopefully some one will be along in a while to sort me out, I shudder to think what I will do to the site if I attempt to delete it.

Regards,

BrianT.

Hi Brian

I suggest that you download Firefox.  IE will only give you grief.

Download Firefox for Desktop — from Mozilla

It's free and virtually downloads itself.

If you have an trouble, just put your hand up.

Cheers

Hi again Brian

Back to your original post, I think they look really good and who needs brakes anyway :thumbs


Ed

Addendum to the above post.
( Since I wrote this little epistle, I was contacted by Ted Polet, pointing out that I might have fixed the bogie pivot points a little too far in from the coach ends. Acknowledging Ted's expertise, I did another test of the coupled coaches, and found that on the straight, which is where I had tested them at first, the supplied and fixed ELC couplings will couple together ok, but on a bend, especially the 9" Set track curves I had used for the return loops at each end of the layout, the roof overhang on the square ended carriages touched and derailed the carriages, the carriages that have the rounded corners do pass one another, but it is close.
So I would recommend that anyone doing this conversion, reduces the length of pivot hole to new floor end from 15 to 14mm, and a more certain way to make sure the ELC couplings give sufficient distance between coaches, is to use the distance between the old coupling pivot holes, (69mm) as the centres for the new bogies, this way, the new floor and existing floor holes will align and the plastic rivet will pass through both .
Sorry if anyone has all ready had a go and found this is a problem.)
As a matter of interest, for anyone thinking of using these bogies and would like the relevant dimensions they are:-
Diameter of the wheels is 4mm.
The axle box centres are at 11mm.
Regards,
BrianT