Tender wheels for GTR 1120

The 3D-printed centres for the tender wheels took two tries, not because the print failed in some way, but because I assumed the drawing, which I worked on months ago, was finished. It wasn’t and the axle holes were about a quarter millimetre oversize. It took minutes over days to get correct centres and a […]

Christmas Post

Among the dwindling count of cards arriving in our mailbox this Christmas, there appeared a plump envelope with a strange foreign stamp. It was from Dave Doe, that stalwart defender of Proto:87, that Englishman living in Holland-now-France, that dear old friend. Along with a card, Dave enclosed some wheels that he has discovered. Astonishingly, the […]

First four tyres

The photo above presents the first four Proto:87 tyres to be found among the chips around my lathe. These are the 30″ pilot wheels, and their brass centres need to have spokes cut in before getting soldered into the tyres. They’re not perfect, but every wheel is better than the last, and I think these […]

Obbekaer featured in Continental Modeller

A few weeks ago, Geraint Hughes responded to my little tantrum about the writing in North American model train magazines. He made the astute observation that people are sheep, and concluded that authors are merely following each others’ styles. Then he got me all excited because apparently his railway was featured in Continental Modeller. Sadly, he […]

Wither Proto:87?

A couple of weeks ago, Chris Mears pointed out a couple of Proto:87 threads and stories about Proto:87. Of course that really perked my ears up, but unfortunately, between work and other things I really haven’t had time to respond. One of the threads that Chris pointed out was on rmweb, and related to the […]

Debugging #10

It seems to be two steps forward, one step back on #10. No sooner had I fixed the quartering issue that had popped up, than I discovered that the engine truck weight was dragging and catching on guard rails. After I resolved that, I triumphantly placed the engine on the track. Where it sat. Silently. […]

The other Proto:87 layout?

This weekend, after soccer, we went down to Great Wolf Lodge for some kid-focused fun. On the way, we stopped in at Rocket Doughnuts in Bellingham and took them to Julian Watson’s house to share with his family. Julian’s is the only other Proto:87 layout that I am aware of in North America. It was […]