Yes, we have a new format here at Poolside Rails. Yes, it’s taken us a long time to get our act together in reworking the website. Yes, it’s taken me a long time to get another post together. Quit your whining, rub some dirt in it and get back in the game!

Actually, I do apologize for the delay in getting you an update on what’s going on in the garden: trying to get a book published is a major, major time taker!

So, here we are, revisiting the locomotive yet again. I tried to drill out those windows, I swear I did. I got the first window pretty oval-shaped. The problem was that second one, behind the first. I used the same template and everything. But cutting through that plastic was tough, and, as the saying goes, there’s many a slip between the cup and the Lipton’s.

After many efforts and much cutting, I invited my sister the artist to see if she could draft out rounder, better looking ovals, as she was sitting there drinking my tea and doing nothing. She sketched pretty cool looking ovals, but they took up the whole side of the cab.

“You know,” my brother in law said, “if you make big windows like that the engineer’s going to hanging out in the breeze. You really should have smaller windows, maybe three of them, only in the upper half of the cab.”

Three Window Option: Rolling Pawnshop

Well, I’m an open-minded guy. And, as you know, I’m a wizard with those popsicle sticks. My plan was to panel the upper half of the window area with those coffee stir sticks and then cut three windows in that that. But I have to be honest.  Take a look at that “artist’s rendering.”  Yes, it looks early industrial-revolution, but it looks pawn-shoppish to me. Plus, I had so much trouble cutting just two windows, I can’t imagine tackling six! So, three windows are out.
My little girl is seven years old and a kick in the pants. She likes to wake daddy up early on Saturday morning and watch cartoons in bed between him and mommy. Mommy likes to read while daddy likes to snore through the cartoons.

But last Saturday my wife got sick of the commercial drivel (my favorite part, of course) and switched over to PBS just in time for Thomas the Tank Engine. Well, I will always cease snoring for Thomas.

Henry, the big, powerful engine, has tanks on either side of the boiler but rectangular windows on the side of the cab. Thomas has no side windows whatsoever, sporting instead a tall opening between the cab and an aft mounted coal bunker. None of the other locomotives, James, Emily, Scarlowee, had any windows at all. Toby, let’s just say he’s square.

So, enter Plan III, the No-Window Not-So-Big Hauler. I like it. I really do. I can cut that cool curve, I can protect the driver, and I can get it DONE!

Groovy Schwoopie Cab - easier to cut!

There’s a bit of a Catch-22 relative to the tanks to be mounted onto the boiler. I like the idea of using a massive hunka hunka wooden wood to bulk out the tank…I’ll sheath it in sheet plastic to give it a detailable surface. But the upper locomotive is held to the chassis by just two screws, and they are dead center above the two remaining drivers.  Fitting the tanks will occlude the screws, denying access to the engineering staff planning to take the thing apart.

Wireframe shape of the tank

I imagine I’ll have to drill a tunnel in the bottom of the tank to provide access to the screw.  It will just have to show up out there in the open air, for all to see…this cool looking tank with a square little notch out of the bottom of it. Have to work on that one.

Next on the agenda for the locomotive, once the new Windowless Version is complete and the tanks are fitted, is to come up with a remote control mechanism.  I read in the Tips and Tricks for Garden Railways flyer from Kalmbach that cheapo remote contol cars can provide excellent electronics…and you get to choose between 29 and 47 megahertz!

Look, ma, TWO locomotives!