Hi Tim,
Looks like the short-bus is rolling along on shed-ule. 🚋.🚃🚃 Really like the attention you’ve given to the lower curved panel. ... Funny, I was just thinking Chinese food last night! 🥡🥢 😂

Cheers!🍺
—mike

Thanks guys, just wrestling with the cabs right now but I’ll get some seats done for y’all asap, now I’ve got a better idea of how they were arranged…not the same as the Driver trams...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv4-m-cIZf4

I just love scratchbuilding!
Just wish I could do it as well as you Tim!

Cheers
Dave

Hi Tim,

Found some interesting pictures of Trams in Prague and some from the city Brno.
Prague


Brno




They come from this site:
https://www.modelforum.cz/viewtopic.php?f=79&t=8080&start=840

German surrender and beginning of the Prague Rising.
Very nice reference for cars, people, buildings and streets.
Loads of of pictures. Language is Czech (damn)

Hope it is of some use,

Robert Jan

Thanks Dave & thanks RJ for the images - 1st & 2nd are of the same section of street, leading tram’s the same model driver as mine. Chilly judging by the German motorbike combo, presumably 15th March 1939, one of Prague’s darkest days. Nasty tram-prangs, they seem to become silently invisible for pedestrians & vehicles the world over.

This week’s fix for scratchofiles: I installed slimmed-down cab steps, but then problems. I didn’t want to glue the cabs to the compartment yet because (from driver-trams experience) I need to handle them a lot while making the windows – unwieldy if attached - & it would also make any ahem measurement errors more difficult to rectify. So dummy doors & cab taped in place to ensure the forward door-posts were perpendicular thru both axes, because everything forward of them depends on it (the left-hand post obviously not aligned yet)…



…not forgetting exact height too…



Now the front panel…



…glued in place…





& reinforced with interior fascia…



I was dreading this part, the retaining window frames using angle-Evergreen yet again seen here from the back ready for taping…



Central frame glued dead centre, then the side windows can be positioned/glued round the curve symmetrically, and of course perpendicular thru both axes…



The next couple of hours edited out to protect the innocent, cut to the result:







For a sweet moment I imagined I’d finished that #%!**! of a job…

Lovely work again, I see a lot to learn from every time I take a look at your progress. And guess what, I linked this building blog to a friend of mine in England, he was very impressed. He builds & designs H0, H0e for production, brass and 3D Printing(Shapeways). All are Dutch Steam Trams, "Kasten Loks".
He was pretty impressed by your work. I was one of the first to buy his first release, a H0 Tram, Shapeways quality from 2013 I guess, but how that improved over the last 5 years, is unbelievable. Still have that one, it became a relic to me. Finished 2 others, running with micro motors, but finally sold them when I moved to Thailand.
Simply love to see this build goes the right direction now.

Have a great weekend,

Robert Jan

Still following,still brilliant!
J

🚇... lovin’ it!🤩

Lookin' good Tim, keep it coming man!

Cheers
Dave

Thanks as always for your stalwart support guys, it really keeps me going in those darker hours!

RJ – funny thing, early on I did dream of having these trams motorised for the final photo-shoot, but once I got the MiniArt kits it became clear there’s no room for motors if I wanted passengers. Also these trams are surprisingly heavy so micro-motors probably couldn’t handle the weight, especially up a slope with a trailer in tow.

This is some insane scratch-building Tim - love it!!!

Thanks Dudley, insane is indeed the operative word & I feel the need to apologise again for this seemingly interminable tram-fest, but the final Terminus is now just visible on the horizon. Through the magic of the interweb – shazam! - the other cab’s done & both test-fitted in position…



Looking down the list of sequential assembly the cabs had to be glued on now, the only residual concern being painting access but the interior’s going to be all brushwork & those windows allow plenty. So, first & last chance to make sure the cabs stay dead horizontal & don’t droop while the glue dries…







Just to be sure I visited the kit-box scrapyard & salvaged/modified some chassis members to provide more support & also serve to anchor the coupling arm, adding a simple scratched swing-hinge...



The 1:1 trailer’s coupling arm was bent up to meet the driver’s because the latter sits higher (bigger wheels), happily the kit part’s soft plastic allowed it…





Other coupling elements…





Meanwhile Alistair’s 3D printer came up with this trial compartment frame…



My complaints that the gap between his frame & my retaining frame was at least 2 microns fell on deaf ears so he printed & mailed the other five…



…I guess I’m just stuck with them…



Actually one of the six is slightly short but that’s my error in the retaining frame, easily fixed. Need to dig up some of that Tram-iner Riesling for when I next visit him, what a champ

Impressive amazing work here man,as usual.
J

Just keeps getting better, better, and better! 🚃🚃🚋

Cheers!🍺
—mike

Once again amazing , beautiful scratchification !!!
Looking good and looking real .

Thanks guys I’m trying to get some seats for y’all but I’m still short on confirmation of the interior layout, so currently exploring Czech diplomatic back-channels to get the information, while retaining my cover as an International Man of Mystery…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbA7q3AVYyQ

LOL

Greetings from a rainy, thanks god of rain, Thailand,

Robert Jan

Hi Tim

Could it be similar to the apparent layout of this one (#628)?


Full size

1 long bench seat on one side and rows of double seats on the other as seen in tram #240 as well...



H.P.

Many thanks HP – that 2nd image (part of my archive for a while) is showing what I call (one of) the Ringhoffer seating arrangements, I’d also found views of some of their railway cars of similar vintage with the same plan. It’s taken inside a driver-tram (see clerestory windows overhead) of an earlier model, as is the trailer in the 1st image - strangely it’s numbered 628 when the later type (maybe 10 years later) I’m after at the Museum is 624. Trailer 624 is identical to the Reconstruction photos type, possibly built by CDK in Czechoslovakia after they stopped buying German Ringhoffers sometime between the wars, so I’m wary of just assuming they kept the old seating plan.

That said, footage from a tourist video on YouTube taken from the driver tram looking back past 628 in tow suggests (through endless window reflections) that you’re right HP, the Ringhoffer trailer did have the same layout as that (contemporaneous Ringhoffer) driver tram.

But I’m even more uncertain about what happened at each end, since finding evidence that (some?) Trailers could function independently. The “CDK” trailers seem to have short power(?) arms folded down at both ends of their roof, and I’ve seen some footage of one in motion on its own. I’d assumed there were just more passenger seats in a semi-circle at both ends but now I’m nervous, having already cannibalised some kit parts relating to the driving cabs/consoles for other things. Oops, funny how mindlessly using a word like “Trailer” closes the mind to other possibilities. Hopefully my unorthodox attempt to infiltrate the source of knowledge will settle that matter soon.

Here's a better view of #240 interior (but you probably know it already ):



and another #624 view that seems to match the interior picture above :



A period picture (1939) of #630 :



H.P.

Thanks again HP, I thought I’d exhausted all image refs & there you go with that 1st photo I’ve never seen before. Got the 2nd, but again not the 3rd - what’s your technique…ESP?! That might stand for Extra Search Proficiency.

Anyhow 630’s identical to 624 (excellent image btw for my purposes) - I don’t know how many were in that 6xx series batch but who knows, 630 might have been the actual trailer present at the scene. I’m very tempted to say so if only because I won’t have to deal with all the usual lettering on the side panels! The hatless bystander’s suit suggests this is mid-late 1930’s, wartime or maybe even post-1945 although the 1909 driver-tram would be well past its use-by if so.

I forgot to mention the other mystery about the trailer interior – did it have bulkheads with sliding doors like the driver trams? Logic suggests they must have, to reduce the wintery blast whenever the outer doors were opened. But peering through window reflections, if there were any they must have been minimalist, and in every shot I’ve ever seen (probably 40 or 50 by now including these latest) any bulkhead doors were always, always open! Highly unlikely...maybe the tickets were cheaper if you took the trailer?!

Here you'll find the listing for the 6xx series :

http://www.prag-straba.de/01_fahrzeuge_strab/01_ringhoffer/02_beiwagen/0623-0692_serie623-692/serie623-692_0623-0650.html

H.P.

Whaaaaat how did you find that link HP?? Thanks so much, interesting – looks like all of that series of trailers survived WW2 so (assuming the crime-scene reconstruction accurately mimicked the actual scene) one of those trailers was at the scene & obviously a different one for the replay although I can’t read its number.

It was after midnight when I wrote that complete rubbish in my last post, here are corrections & more likely facts based on yet another trawl of the web:

Mr Ringhoffer was an Austrian & his factory always was in Smichov, Prague and not in Germany. My confusion over the production dates of trams/trailers (e.g. in HP’s link above it says 624 and all other similar trailers are “1909”) is somewhat reduced by further digging, I now believe this refers to their original design date and not necessarily construction date. For example driver tram 2294 is also called a “1909” but was made by Ringhoffer in 1932. It seems some or most of the old rolling stock was “modernised” in the 1930’s “…with platform doors, redesigned seats & new electrics”. Note the middle item.

Also, CKD (not CDK as I wrote last night) is, of course, SKODA. Between the wars they built the motors/chassis and Ringhoffer built the bodies until 1939. Post war production mainly by Tatra.

And trailers didn’t have lettering on their side panels – duh - only their numbers.

Chasing a tangent search provoked by HP’s latest post I came across a clip today (via Wikimedia Commons, which probably explains why it didn’t come up in any YouTube search) showing 624 under tow. Can you see any bulkheads/internal doors?

Looking at the last two pics you've posted, I don't see any...

Same in this front view :




H.P.