WW1 Crewe Tractor
Finished 🙂
Crewe Tractor in railway mode
Crewe Tractor in road going form, carrying its railway wheels & chassis
Die cast alloy bits... ready for the chop-shop.
Saw off all the mudguards and file up the remaining chassis to straighten it all up.
Flash, so much flash I could maybe save it all and cast another kit from it!
Road version : engine bay taking shape, added some extras for the spark plugs and cables. Swapped screws for bolts at the front axle so it looks a bit more accurate. Also a new steering column tube is in, so it's converted to right hand drive.
Road version : made new bonnet handles from brass wire, the plastic ones were way too bulky. Also the front axle springs die cast has like a bit missing which made the springs look incomplete, so it is filled in with some styrene to 'complete' the spring visually.
Road version : taking shape, flatbed is made of styrene sheet. Still needs some planking lines on it.
Rail version : now the road version chassis is getting along I have been figuring the required changes for the rail version. On this one the engine is cut in half so it only has the bottom bit. The rest of the engine bay is where the electric motor will be.
My photo-etch arrived 🙂 some bits of this are kind of experimental - hopefully it fits together!
Cut out the bits and clean up the edges.....
Hurrah! the chain guards folded up right, took a bit of tinkering to get it all round and soldered, but result looks ok so far.
Chassis parts coming together. Only dry assemblies so far - its going to be a jigsaw to work out what order to put the bits together.
Couplings... bottom left is my existing WW1 narrow gauge light buffer coupling, but the couplings on the Crewe Tractor are different. So I had to hack off the bottom and stem, and solder in a new rectangular piece of 1.2mm brass. Then spend quite a lot of time with the needle files to shape it out.
Road going chassis mostly done and primed, trying the rail chassis on board for road-mode
Dummy drive chain etch ready to bend into a 'pile of chain' and the toolbox & footboards ready to go on
Chassis soldered, footboards going on. The footboards for the road-going are just styrene sheet, but I will use solid brass on the rail runner, to add a bit of weight, as it will help adhesion of the rail wheels.
This is the chassis for the rail runner, a wholly more solid construction as I can permanently fit that front beam, which I can't do on the one being carried by the car. Brass footboards add weight toward the front (driven) axle
Rail runner almost ready for assembling to the car chassis. The motor & gearbox fit in the front, and the battery goes under the seat box & toolbox. A delrin chain is driven from the gearbox down through 2 holes cut in the bottom of the model T 'engine' component, then onto a sprocket on the front axle.
This is kind of where I forgot to take more in progress pics....
This is kind of where I forgot to take more in progress pics....
Rail running Crewe Tractor - 'under the hood' is access to the on/off switch. Can just see the delrin chain driven off the gearbox, which drops out the bottom of the car onto the front rail axle.
Crewe Tractor ready to roll! It is radio controlled and will run about 10mins on a charge as the battey is fairly tiny. Now I search for a driver figure!
Crewe Tractor in road going format
Crewe Tractor in road going format
Engine detail
Dummy drive chain piled up below the drive sprocket. The tommybar thing on the chassis right behind the seat is like an on-board turntable. They could wind it down which laid a beam on the rails, keep winding to lift the car clear of the track, turn it around, lower it and drive off the other way. Then you can use all the gears instead of just reverse, and you don't have to drive looking over your shoulder 🙂
Kommentarer
22 18 April 2022, 10:39
Villiers de VosVery unusual indeed. I am looking forward to following this project
18 April 2022, 11:58
Andy WW1You know it's kit-bashing when job number 1 is to saw off all the mudguards 🙂 road version is taking shape, more bashing to make it right hand drive... adding a few bits and pieces spark plugs, cables with styrene and brass. The last pic today is the one for motorising for rail use, so the engine is sawn in half too as that's where the electric motor will be.
8 May 2022, 15:18
Andy WW1Thanks all, I will have more photos very soon.
@Ben M : it's 32mm gauge which is fairly close to scale as it was a 2 foot narrow gauge railway
1 June 2022, 16:13
Andy WW1New pics added - my photo-etch arrived so I'm getting started on the rail chassis, so lots of soldering before I get back to the plastic bits. It's hard to work out what order to put stuff together 🙂
3 June 2022, 21:58
JvLooking forward to see some more on this build very interesting
I just got 7 of the Gabriel kits myself and can relate to the flash lots of it
But very interesting kits 1975 and 76 very old
22 December 2022, 21:29
Andy WW1Finished at last, it's been on the go over a year 😮 I kind of forgot to keep taking in-progress pics so there is a bit of a jump from raw brass pics to finished paint 🙂 now I seek a suitable driver figure, but 1:20 driver figures in WW1 Brit uniforms seem kinda rare, I wonder why...
13 July 2023, 18:08
Michael KohlGreat subject and impressively clean brass work. I pull my hat for your ability to turn these shapeless bolbs of white metal into an outstanding model.
13 July 2023, 20:17
Erik LeijdensWhat a cool looking machine and a terrific result, you mastered that photoetch very well.
14 July 2023, 06:09
Andy WW1Thanks for the comments, its been one of those builds that sometimes you have to just put aside and do something else for a while 🙂
@wilky I design etch kits as part of making a living, so I did CAD of the chassis then drew out the etch myself
14 July 2023, 12:17
wilkySo, if your intention is to motorise the one on rails.
Does that mean you're going to make bomb wagons?
14 July 2023, 22:46
Andy WW1I will do some artillery shell wagons for it, though they will be smaller ones than the photo in the album. That photo has been considered by minds greater than mine as having been staged for the camera, as that train would weigh far more than a Crewe Tractor could realistically get moving 🙂 there is a laser cut ply kit available of a tiny WW1 tramways wagon, so I will have maybe 3 of those on it.
15 July 2023, 09:54
Andy WW1I would like to see that Dietmar! hopefully in 1/35 you would find more kit parts to use. I saw a resin of it but the design did not look correct to the historical photographs. If you need a drawing of it, there is a set of original plans in this book :
'Railways: A History in Drawings' by Christopher Valkoinen
15 July 2023, 15:04
Album info
British WW1 narrow gauge supply railways had a quirky mode of transport - Model T Ford cars with a conversion kit so they could drive on the road, then in about 1 hour be transformed into a light narrow gauge 'locomotive'. I thought about making one that would actually convert, but as I want to motorise the rail-running one, I am just going to make two : one in road-mode, and one in rail-mode. I will be kit bashing the Model T parts from kits, and make the rest.
Named the Crewe Tractor simply because the rail kit was made at the Crewe locomotive works.
