A while ago I made some simple toy wagons for my nephew and niece, I thought I’d written it up but I can’t find it! I did mention it when I talked about the lego wagons I printed, because these were the first additions to their Tesco/Caterpillar ‘O’ Gauge trainset, and they can of course run on any garden line.
The concept was to allow them to give their toys a ride, particularly Playmobil. Their mum popped one of them in the post to me for a visit, so that he could act as a model so I could get the dimensions right, and he also supervised the construction.
The idea here was to keep things very simple, so I bought some small wooden boxes from The Works, removed the lids and hinges, and glued in with PVA seats cut from bamboo sold as plant labels. I more or less drew on doors.
I stuck a piece of timber underneath, and (inspired by Colin Binnie) used as bearings cable clips to hold in place axles and wheels bought from Peter Binnie.
The buffer beams were also bamboo. Couplings were cup hooks and eyes, largely out of necessity to find something compatible with the Tesco/Caterpillar coupling system. This was the one thing I’d do differently: they locked on the tight Tesco curves (the supplied wagons had swivelling wheels to fix this). Going for a chain would have been a better option, with a converter to attach to the the Tesco train.
I painted with car primer and then artists acrylic, and also personalised each wagon with the new owner’s name on the side. The result is a simple but robust wagon that can withstand boisterous play but should run well on the garden railway as well as the toy track…
Thank you for sharing this, Simon! My son has the same caterpillar train set and I think he would appreciate some open coaches like this. They look like they could easily be styled to look like the Skarloey Railway coaches to go with some other Thomas-themed stock I’ve built for him. I especially appreciate seeing your ingenious coupler solution!