PL 72 - the trailer
My attention then turned to the trailer, PL 72, and while the body and angle iron
chassis were similar to the railmotor, the bogies would need a different
design. The trailer is designed to take three adults, so a strong bogie with two stage suspension and equalization, was called for. Two side bars of 60 x 6 are cut to fit side mounted self aligning bearings. I found that a 010” shim washer between the bearing housing halves, allowed some articulation movement. A tee bar on the inside of the frame provides pivot and angular movement. “Spring inside spring”towers were then welded to the outside of the frames. 32mm SHS, sealed at the bottom, held the heavy outer spring. Inside that was a left handed “empty rated”spring, though which passed a 12mm rod with a domed top. So far there have been no binding problems even with heavy loads. A thin dummy arch bar frame can then be attached to the tower, giving a reasonably prototype look. The second picture shows the bogies finished but without archbar frames, and they still look reasonable.
chassis were similar to the railmotor, the bogies would need a different
design. The trailer is designed to take three adults, so a strong bogie with two stage suspension and equalization, was called for. Two side bars of 60 x 6 are cut to fit side mounted self aligning bearings. I found that a 010” shim washer between the bearing housing halves, allowed some articulation movement. A tee bar on the inside of the frame provides pivot and angular movement. “Spring inside spring”towers were then welded to the outside of the frames. 32mm SHS, sealed at the bottom, held the heavy outer spring. Inside that was a left handed “empty rated”spring, though which passed a 12mm rod with a domed top. So far there have been no binding problems even with heavy loads. A thin dummy arch bar frame can then be attached to the tower, giving a reasonably prototype look. The second picture shows the bogies finished but without archbar frames, and they still look reasonable.
And if you look inside
The model was coming together better than I expected, so I decided to go for some finer detail, and in the end I did a full interior of the trailer, including two passengers and opening windows with correct “don’t bang your head” circles. Scale couplings, a padded vinyl roof and some decals. I was hesitant about exterior fittings that could be damaged by small (and not so small) people, so door handles were compressed to a washer with a piece of brazing rod soldered on, and
superglued to the body so that they would break off with little panel damag and aluminium grab handles. The windows, which do slide, have screws to prevent unwelcome fiddling.
superglued to the body so that they would break off with little panel damag and aluminium grab handles. The windows, which do slide, have screws to prevent unwelcome fiddling.