Monorail Update

June was a modelling write off with many other pleasant activities taking precedence. I wanted to get a surge going over the last few weeks and here are some of the results.

Let's start with some track work:

All MDF with dirt for the road and tea leaves for the ground cover along the edges. More can be done but I could happily put this on the table now. Be sure to prime both sides to prevent warping.

Moving on to the draisine.  This is the same RAFM kit seen in my earlier post; Irr Wb (F): Cyclopean delights with a few modifications.

I plated over the rear wheel well, removed the left drive wheel and added a rail bogie unit.  My first attempt was with a modified diesel loco bogie but it proved too high to sit right with the Cyclops drive wheel. I may use it for a rail Dreadnought later   For my second attempt I hacked apart a couple of Bettendorf trucks  and shimmed them out with styrene to produce the above. A big part of both attempts was remembering that  I was making a wargame piece and not working rolling stock so epoxying wheels solid was a proper solution to the problem.

I went with a World War II inspired camouflage pattern. I am not happy with my painting but that can always be redone later.

I dry brushed the "steam dome" and boiler reinforcing bands which gives it more of a Steampunk than VSF look, again, that can always be changed.

What was important for me was to put aside perfection and just get the project moving again. Background aside, this picture captures the image I have had in my head all along:

On Patrol!

I am very pleased with the results.


Addendum: for a certain aquatic avian, some of my toys.

Guns for Patiala?

I have not had much time recently to work on anything, especially the monorail. This weekend is Father's Day weekend so I will be spending some time working on projects. Last night, I laid down a little more dirt on to the road portions of the rail sections and started thinking about further detailing. I will be using the track and trains mostly for VSF but rather just going with a reddish Martian sandscape, I decided to look at the terrain of the prototype in Patiala. Google brought up a huge number of clothing images - very strange but not much in  the way of landscape shots.  I was a little put out until I found this Wikipedia image. 

Yes it is a British WWI gun on a standard gauge railway and the only thing it has to do with the monorail is that Bhupinder Singh the Maharaja of Patiala, is looking at it. But - I am going to have to build one for the monorail - just maybe not quite so big.