We took delivery this week of two new 7¼ inch gauge sprung bogies from Miniature Railway Workshop for our three seat miniature railway coach. Many of you will not have see this coach as the unsprung bogies it was built with tend to derail, hence our recent purchase.
The swap-over on our Volunteer Saturday today went quite smoothly but on our initial loaded test run we found the footwell of the coach was bottoming out on the track as the new bogies have less vertical height than the old ones. A good deal of head scratching ensued until we finally decided to reduce the depth of the footwell by 24mm. This work progressed well and the flooring of the coach was back together by lunchtime.
The very observant amongst you may have spotted that one of the bogies is fitted with brake shoes. Following the purchase of Corby, our new steam locomotive which is fitted with a vacuum ejector, we are starting to convert our rolling stock over to vacuum braking or at least through piping. Using equipment collected over recent years, we slowly built up a mechanism that enabled a vacuum actuator to tension a cable which applies the brakes.
With a mounting bracket fabricated and welded by yours truly (yes I do need more welding practice), the contraption was fitted under a seat in the carriage in preparation for running tomorrow (Sunday 2nd July) on our First of the Month open day – 1pm to 4pm
Richard Stone
PS the title isn’t my typo, it’s the exact wording from the courier delivery note and has caused a great deal of hilarity to those involved. A quick internet search has revealed that Boggie is a Hungarian pop star, this clearly has nothing to do with her!