My OcTRAINber - Now with MOCs

[ivanlan9]

Oh, good job, @Hod Carrier That honey bucket is one to steal!

I like both the honey bucket and the Guinness wagon.

Nice to see both of these; they are quite charming.

[Feuer Zug]

It's a crappy job, but somebody's got to do it. Nice design on the port-o-castle.

[zephyr1934]

You just keep knocking great little MOCs! And so quick with them too.

[Asper]

22 hours ago, Hod Carrier said:

There are a few rail companies in the world that seem to use these rail-mounted conveniences, but it appears that Union Pacific use more than most. In fact, they seem to operate quite a large fleet of them. My design is based around theirs.

 

Never seen something like this - wonderful choice as a prototype! :-)

[Hod Carrier]

On 10/31/2021 at 5:44 PM, Ts__ said:

The toilet provided a laugh ;-)

I don't expect to be in contention for any prizes this year, so I'm going to have some fun. I'm glad the Honey Bucket made you laugh. 

6 hours ago, Feuer Zug said:

It's a crappy job, but somebody's got to do it. Nice design on the port-o-castle.

It sure is. Thanks for the positive feedback. 

On 10/31/2021 at 7:59 PM, ivanlan9 said:

Oh, good job, @Hod Carrier That honey bucket is one to steal!

I like both the honey bucket and the Guinness wagon.

Nice to see both of these; they are quite charming.

 

4 hours ago, Asper said:

Never seen something like this - wonderful choice as a prototype! :-)

Thanks guys. I'm pleased that you like my choices. I always try to do something a little bit unusual and pick things that might not be very well known.

5 hours ago, zephyr1934 said:

You just keep knocking great little MOCs! And so quick with them too.

I've got a team of designers locked away in a secret location turning out designs in sweatshop conditions. If they keep coming up with the goods I might consider letting them have half a day off this Christmas. 

I have to be completely honest and say that this year's contest is right up my alley. You may recall that it was building 4-wide scale models that got me back into LEGO, so building little things is fairly natural to me. That said, I did have a bit of a creative wobble earlier this year when I worried that I might have lost the gift. There's a few thing that I've got on my mind to build but I just couldn't seem to make a start on anything. Hopefully the blockage is starting to clear now.

Now that I've got entries for four out of the six main categories I have set myself a target to come up with something for the other two (although I may have to accept that I won't be able to motorise anything so won't be in that category).

[XG BC]

1 hour ago, Hod Carrier said:

I've got a team of designers locked away in a secret location turning out designs in sweatshop conditions. If they keep coming up with the goods I might consider letting them have half a day off this Christmas. 

dont be too kind. they may take this as a sign of weakness and rebell against you 😉. jokes aside your models never cease to amaze me! they are always very cute and polished.

 

[Hod Carrier]

4 hours ago, XG BC said:

dont be too kind. they may take this as a sign of weakness and rebell against you 😉. jokes aside your models never cease to amaze me! they are always very cute and polished.

 

I'll make sure I crack the whip and keep them hard at work. 

I did threaten that I would be aiming to have entries for the last two remaining categories, and here they are.

I wasn't sure that I was going to find a suitable prototype for the Bobber Caboose category. Part of the reason for this is that in the UK all standard gauge brake vans (cabooses) are bobbers already, as we don't have any tradition of building the vast rolling gin palaces that appear elsewhere in the world. (Well, except perhaps for the Southern Railway's 25 ton "Queen Mary" brake vans, which were so named by their crews after the large luxurious liner of the same name, or the equally massive "Dance Hall" vans which picked up their name because, ...well you can work it out I'm sure.) So it took quite a lot of researching and looking at photos before I found anything suitable. Building a small caboose was no good to me if it was still as big as (or bigger than) a standard garden variety British brake van.

In the end I found out about logging cabooses, which tended to be smaller than their mainline brethren due to the shorter nature of the trips that they were expected to take. However, even these tended to dwarf a British brake van. But then, while following a thread onto a railway modelling forum, I came across this.

Apparently this model is from Japan but I have no idea if it is based on a real caboose or just someone's flight of fancy. Either way, this looks like being the bobberest of all bobber cabooses, so I thought I'd have a stab at recreating it.

I have added some steps up to the porch and had to reduce the side windows from two to one, but apart from that I think it's pretty close to the original model.

So that's the Bobber Caboose category taken care of, which just leaves the Internal Combustion category.

Well, as I mentioned before, I was finding that not many of the potential prototypes were really talking to me. I didn't really want to tackle a mainline shunter/switcher but a lot of the industrial locos didn't have much in the way of charisma or charm. I looked at a LOT of locos, but I decided after all to settle on this particular ugly duckling.

It's a converted Massey Ferguson 135 tractor used in various locations by Bord na Mona in Ireland. Converted to run on 3 foot gauge lines, these rail tractors carry out line maintenance and other tasks.

These wee beasties were never likely to win any beauty contests, but they have a rustic charm. My design carries oxy-acetylene welding gear, a mobile generator and tools for carrying out maintenance.

Thoughts and feedback is welcome as always.

[XG BC]

4 hours ago, Hod Carrier said:

I'll make sure I crack the whip and keep them hard at work. 

I did threaten that I would be aiming to have entries for the last two remaining categories, and here they are.

I wasn't sure that I was going to find a suitable prototype for the Bobber Caboose category. Part of the reason for this is that in the UK all standard gauge brake vans (cabooses) are bobbers already, as we don't have any tradition of building the vast rolling gin palaces that appear elsewhere in the world. (Well, except perhaps for the Southern Railway's 25 ton "Queen Mary" brake vans, which were so named by their crews after the large luxurious liner of the same name, or the equally massive "Dance Hall" vans which picked up their name because, ...well you can work it out I'm sure.) So it took quite a lot of researching and looking at photos before I found anything suitable. Building a small caboose was no good to me if it was still as big as (or bigger than) a standard garden variety British brake van.

In the end I found out about logging cabooses, which tended to be smaller than their mainline brethren due to the shorter nature of the trips that they were expected to take. However, even these tended to dwarf a British brake van. But then, while following a thread onto a railway modelling forum, I came across this.

Apparently this model is from Japan but I have no idea if it is based on a real caboose or just someone's flight of fancy. Either way, this looks like being the bobberest of all bobber cabooses, so I thought I'd have a stab at recreating it.

I have added some steps up to the porch and had to reduce the side windows from two to one, but apart from that I think it's pretty close to the original model.

So that's the Bobber Caboose category taken care of, which just leaves the Internal Combustion category.

Well, as I mentioned before, I was finding that not many of the potential prototypes were really talking to me. I didn't really want to tackle a mainline shunter/switcher but a lot of the industrial locos didn't have much in the way of charisma or charm. I looked at a LOT of locos, but I decided after all to settle on this particular ugly duckling.

It's a converted Massey Ferguson 135 tractor used in various locations by Bord na Mona in Ireland. Converted to run on 3 foot gauge lines, these rail tractors carry out line maintenance and other tasks.

These wee beasties were never likely to win any beauty contests, but they have a rustic charm. My design carries oxy-acetylene welding gear, a mobile generator and tools for carrying out maintenance.

Thoughts and feedback is welcome as always.

the small caboose looks pretty good. it is alwass amazing to see how you manage to incorporate such detail into such a small model. the tractor also looks nice with all the little details to it

[zephyr1934]

That caboose is SOOOOO cute, and the tractor is insanely detailed for such a small package

[Paperinik77pk]

That small caboose seems the KISO forest railway one (the locomotive in background is very similar to the KATO 7ton). I know this railroad since there are a lot of "Critters" I was looking at for my G-scale garden railway.

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/image/10346819/70/2

The caboose is a great choice, since it's small, cute, nice, lovely....and so on 

The Massey Ferguson tractor converted to rail operation it's pure genious, but let me say that the blue toilet on wheels is on another planet!!! 

[Feuer Zug]

Love the choice for caboose. I can't see how one would build one smaller.

I immediately knew what the trackmobile was built from when I saw it. It appears they grafted the tractor to the top of a flat car and rigged up the drive system to the wheels on the rail. Ingenious, if ugly.

[ivanlan9]

That tractor is *seriously* ugly.  Love it!

Bobber is cute as can be.

[Hod Carrier]

8 hours ago, Paperinik77pk said:

That small caboose seems the KISO forest railway one (the locomotive in background is very similar to the KATO 7ton). I know this railroad since there are a lot of "Critters" I was looking at for my G-scale garden railway.

Brilliant detective work!! Well done, that man. 

I'm glad that it's a real thing and not just something that someone dreamed up.

Thanks for all the wonderful feedback.

@Feuer Zug I think that probably is about as small as you can realistically go with a caboose. I certainly haven't seen anything smaller online, even on other narrow gauge systems.

@zephyr1934 Do you think I've over-greebled the tractor? Looking at the renders it's a bit hard to even see that there's a tractor hiding in amongst it all. Part of that is due to LEGO parts being oversized (e.g. the exhaust), but I do feel as though I've thrown the kitchen sink at it. Maybe I'll rein it in a bit when I come to assemble the model. Part of the issue is that I've yet to find any photos of the rear of any of these Bord na Mona, erm, locos.

[zephyr1934]

On 11/2/2021 at 7:54 PM, Hod Carrier said:

@zephyr1934 Do you think I've over-greebled the tractor? Looking at the renders it's a bit hard to even see that there's a tractor hiding in amongst it all. Part of that is due to LEGO parts being oversized (e.g. the exhaust), but I do feel as though I've thrown the kitchen sink at it. Maybe I'll rein it in a bit when I come to assemble the model. Part of the issue is that I've yet to find any photos of the rear of any of these Bord na Mona, erm, locos.

Oh no, the tractor looks great too, it is an insane prototype and you captured it wonderfully. If you play spot the difference with the original there might be a few points of departure but if they are, they are not apparent to the casual observation, you definitely captured the essence.

 

[Hod Carrier]

11 hours ago, zephyr1934 said:

Oh no, the tractor looks great too, it is an insane prototype and you captured it wonderfully. If you play spot the difference with the original there might be a few points of departure but if they are, they are not apparent to the casual observation, you definitely captured the essence.

 

Thanks for the encouragement.

The tractor I've designed is a bit of an amalgam of various different examples, none of which are entirely the same. The photo I linked was not the one I was working from primarily and shows a very "clean" design without extras, used presumably primarily for haulage rather than any additional duties.

[XG BC]

i think these where modded anyways from tractor to tractor so beeing 100% accurate is impossible anyways but you really captured the look of it quite well!

[Asper]

The tractor is very "interesting" ;-)

No, seriously, these are great models! And the contest is not about beauty.

I learned a lot about very special rail vehicles during the last weeks - great contest!

[XG BC]

5 hours ago, Asper said:

The tractor is very "interesting" ;-)

No, seriously, these are great models! And the contest is not about beauty.

I learned a lot about very special rail vehicles during the last weeks - great contest!

beauty is only in the eye of the viewer anyways hence why something like the fiat multipla exists

[Ts__]

You really dig out special vehicles and implement them well. I learn a lot through this competition and partly can not get out of the amazement.

Thomas

[Hod Carrier]

Things are about to get a bit busy on this thread as the deadline approaches. There was a bit of a delay due to an incomplete order, but I've had the last of my Bricklink orders arrive and I'm ready now to tackle the Great OcTRAINber Polybag Challenge.

Four bags - four builds. Which one should I tackle first?

[Hod Carrier]

Construction of the Guinness tipper wagon has started. The first place to start, as with many builds, is the chassis. This needs to be as flat as possible so that the tipper body doesn't sit too high and smooth enough so that there are no obstructions to it tipping.

The underside of the chassis is reinforced to deal with the weight of the tipper body being carried on the handrails, which are in turn attached to the chassis sides.

With the handrails now attached it's clear to see why the reinforcement is needed.

The tipper body coming together well. The ends and sides are quite sturdily built. One half of the support structure for the lid is also shown here.

The completed tipper body awaiting lid and small details.

I did wonder whether or not to make the lid hinged but I decided against it on the basis that I am unsure whether or not the original wagons had hinged lids. I decided that they probably didn't because there are photos showing wagons running without lids, which made construction of the model a bit easier.

The completed tipper body with lid ready for mating to the chassis.

Ah. Oops!!

I seem to have got my design wrong. The geometry of the mounting isn't right, which is something that I failed to spot when designing the wagon. I think it's time for a speedy redesign. I just hope that the additional parts I shall need won't take too long to arrive.

Next up: Well, wait and see. 

Edited November 10, 2021 by Hod Carrier

[Hod Carrier]

Next up is a lot of people's favourite. The bobber caboose.

The very basic chassis for the Kiso Forest Railway logging caboose. Jumper plates are used on top to give the offset for the cabin which keeps the whole model nice and short.

The chassis is built up with the base for the cabin, the chassis sides and steps.

Not all the components for the cabin can be fixed in the conventional stud-to-stud manner. These side pieces have to slot in between the central sections and be held in place by the rest of the construction. The two halves have plates with lamp holders and are joined using a 1x2 tile before slotting into place.

Quite a pretty face, don't you think? The profile bricks give a hint of wood panelling.

I was unsure which colour to use as, like many defunct prototypes, there are few if any colour photos. These cabooses are frequently modelled in various scales by narrow gauge enthusiasts who generally paint them in a shade similar to reddish brown, but I wanted something a little more classy and, having checked availability of parts, opted for dark red.

Roof on and handrails added, and the tiny bobber caboose is just about done.

This particular build has been an absolute joy and I'm thrilled with the model I have ended up with. There was a minor amount of head-scratching needed during the design process to make sure that everything looked as it should, but it actually turned out to be a very straightforward process in the end which lead to a simple and satisfying build.

So that's two down, two left to go.

[Hod Carrier]

Time at last for the design that probably got the biggest reaction on Flickr.

A very simple plates and tiles chassis for the Honey Bucket. These rolling out-houses are very lightly constructed as they don't have to carry much weight (usually), so it was important to keep the chassis as slim as possible. The trans-clear plates in the middle are the attachment point for the Honey Bucket itself, as there is often a clear gap between the chassis and the base which needed to be replicated.

The interior of the Honey Bucket has not been forgotten. All mod-cons have been included. There's a nice comfy seat with a lid, a dispenser for hand sanitiser and even a loo brush for, erm, debugging the system.

The completed cubicle on it's chassis. Plates with door rails were used at the corners to hide the gaps between the plates and to give some continuity to the external shape.

This design is actually v1.1. The original version stood on a 4x4 plate with sides 8 studs high, but it quickly became apparent that this was going to be way too large to scale correctly. The answer was to make it 3/4 size on a 3x3 plate with sides 6 studs high. This seems to work a lot better.

No prizes for spotting the mistake at this stage of the build. Yup, I put the cubicle on the chassis the wrong way round so that the door was at the opposite side to the step. Doh!!

Step now on the correct side and the cage built up.

The cage is not there for any safety reasons but to provide a lifting point so that the vehicle can be attached to a crane and lifted. Presumably these conveniences are taken to the worksite access point on the back of a truck along with any other road-rail equipment and then hauled to the worksite itself by some other piece of self-propelled MOW equipment.

The reverse side of the cage. Not sure what the orange cone is for, but they all seem to have one. Any ideas...?

This has been a really fun build which I enjoyed immensely. I didn't want to build anything too serious, and this suited that brief perfectly.

[Hod Carrier]

Lastly but not leastly, it's the turn of the rail tractor.

As with the other builds, I started with the chassis and build upwards. It's a fairly vanilla concoction of plates and tiles as usual.

Building up from the chassis there is a layer of jumper plates to give an offset for the cab and bonnet. There's also a wooden deck at the back for work equipment.

Just to prove that there actually is a tractor underneath everything, a quick shot or two before the detailing and other greebles go on.

From the opposite side. It does show how basic the conversion was for these rail tractors that so much of it's former identity is still on show.

And now with greebles. An enclosed chain drive takes power from the tractor's existing gearbox and rear axle down to the rail chassis.

Plenty of work equipment stowed on the back for when the need arises as well as a tool chest up at the front.

The design of the tractor took a bit of tweaking to get right. There were aspects like the position of the axles and the height at which the body needed to be mounted that took a while to nail down before arriving at this design. However, a lot of the other aspects of the design were dictated simply by the parts available to me. Once I'd got the cab sorted out everything else had to scale to that.

[zephyr1934]

22 hours ago, Hod Carrier said:

I seem to have got my design wrong. The geometry of the mounting isn't right, which is something that I failed to spot when designing the wagon. I think it's time for a speedy redesign. I just hope that the additional parts I shall need won't take too long to arrive.

Great parts usage with the droid leg.

 

20 hours ago, Hod Carrier said:

Bucket has not been forgotten. All mod-cons have been included. There's a nice comfy seat with a lid, a dispenser for hand sanitiser and even a loo brush for, erm, debugging the system.

That interior is over the top, great touch.

They all look great, but the Trevithick locomotive is probably still my favorite of the lot.

So for an encore will you string all of your narrow gauge builds from this competition together for an anachronistic scene?