Next Railway Model: Rail Crane

Saving some money with a quick kit-bashed wagon!

Customising my KATO Pocket Line Freight Set

I almost couldn't be happier with the purchase of my budget KATO Pocket Line loco and wagon set. In fact, this little N Gauge starter set is universally raved about all over the online model railway community.

It's a great way to get you into model railways without spending some of the ridiculous sums that *certain* model train manufacturers are asking these days. I nearly fainted when I first looked into the price of British N Gauge locos and this KATO set is one of the main reasons that I decided to - instead - chose a Japanese themed layout. (I'll pre-empt a rant right here! Enough said.) 😖

Above: KATO produce it's Steeple Loco in a variety of
colours so you can 'fit it in' to your desired railroad.

Anyway, so my Pocket Line loco is amazing, runs so smoothly and the wagons it came with are enough to give you something substantial enough to keep you occupied through those early days of building your collection.

But, is this set still relevant once you finally do - as I have - start to acquire more specific or authentic rolling stock designed to match your intended theme?

Above: KATO have also released their Steeple Loco is a few 'faux' liveries.
Here you see a 'British Rail' version, but there is also a North American
version and also a German DB version.

The Pocket Line Steeple Loco is - after all - a generic design of shunter, only loosely based on real existing railway locomotives. This is how KATO is able to market this design in a whole host of international liveries (including British Rail). It's also why some *serious* model railway enthusiasts avoid this loco, even though is an amazing bargain and a brilliant runner... They say 'it's not real'! 😑

[..>Sorry, slipped into another near rant!]

Edit: In fact, while 'researching' this post (Googling) I noticed how the Kato Steeple Loco is often referred to as the (quote) 'Chibi Electric Locomotive'. In case you don't know, 'Chibi' is a style of caricature originating in Japan and common in anime and manga where characters - or objects - are drawn in an exaggerated way. So, basically, Kato's Steeple Loco is a 'caricature' of 'a' shunter.

Fitting In and Remaining Relevant

This is an issue that I didn't expect to be thinking about so early in my model railway journey. After all, I've only been at this about six months.

To some, whether the KATO Steeple Loco is 'real' or not is an irrelevance, especially if you are what is termed a 'freelancer' (a model railway freelance refers to a model railroader who creates original designs that are not based on existing livery). Or, some, who are more budget minded, just chose to overlook any problems with authenticity (I come under this category).

That said, I have been formulating a plan to update or customise my original Pocket Line set to make it just a little more appropriate along side my growing collection of 'real' Japanese rolling stock... Honestly, though, I'm NOT that bothered, but it's an interesting model making project!

For the Steeple Cab shunter, this might mean my scratch building a new body to replace KATO's generic one. My incentive for doing so has more to do with the fact that I want my layout to be 'all diesel' and the Kato loco is an electric one. Here's a pic of a Japanese diesel shunter design that would be easy to make (I think) and is the right size for a replacement body...

Above: Shimizu Unsou KK) 0-4-0 diesel locomotive. Source: Rlkitterman

And here's a 3D printed model - made by the nice chaps at Budget Model Railways - which is specifically designed as direct replacement for the Kato shunter body...

Which Brings Us to Why I Want a Crane Wagon!

To go along side an update for the Pocket Line set loco, I thought it would be interesting to give the accompanying wagons a bit of a make-over as well.

This is a great opportunity for me to have my very first g at weathering some wagons. They look OK pristine, out the box, but they do look a little too clean for what are supposed to be working rolling stock.

Since I first looked at the wagons in this set I have also always wondered about the choice of the types included in the box. Along side a shunter loco, you get a basic 'flat bed' (Actually, low sided) general cargo wagon and a funny little brake wagon or caboose (as our Colonial cousins call it).

To me, right off the bat - and even though Kato call it a 'freight set' - it looked like some sort of railway maintenance train. I could imagine this hauling round a railway working team, off to make some sort of repairs to apart of the railway of hauling spare parts to the rail yard!

...The only thing that was missing - I though to myself - was a crane wagon. 😏

Which - finally - brings us to the point of this post.

I have looked around - well, Googled - to see what railroad wagon based cranes there are in N Gauge and there are a few by different manufacturers. The problem is that they are - here we go again - quite pricey. So, I thought, 'how hard would it be for me to scratch build a wagon crane (or crane wagon or whatever it's called)?

I knew that PECO make a range of very cheap N Gauge wagon chassis kits, and just like that I purchase one to see if the idea of kit-bashing what I wanted was feasible...

Above: The completed PECO Brake Wagon chassis kit.

Having determined that it was indeed 'do-able', I then searched for a crane design that I could 'Frankenstein' onto the PECO chassis and came up with this design (based on a Fleishman model)...

So I'm currently busy taking measurements from photo sources and translating them into proportions that fit the PECO wagon. Then I started some pencil sketches trying to work out the various dimensions of the parts and trying to decide how best to put this crane together using plasticard.

Superficially it looks reasonably simple, but the tricky bit might be making a working crane - that elevates and rotates - using flimsy plasticard. I have a feeling any small working parts I try and make might be very fragile and I foresee breakages in use.

Maybe the actual working crane arm and supports need to be in metal (I have some brass rods). Hhhhmmm..... I'll video the process.