1992 Underground 00 Guage

Richard Insole

Western Thunderer
Well... Where to start. Following a trip to London last year, I have had my love of the 92's and all underground trains/stations, etc rekindled. I will be incorporating this somehow in my layout.

I am sure you are all aware that any form of 00 gauge LT models are just astronomically expensive!

LT museum did a run of the 38's and 62's, which were very nice but have all since been put out of production. Those that you can find out there on the likes of 'Flebay' and small pockets of private sellers, they know that they are a hot and rare commodity and well.. Just no! I fear I don't have enough kidneys to flog just to get my hands on one carriage. (lol)

Additionally, There is/was a chap called 'John Polley' from 'Metro Models', who was making some brass and 3D printed kits but, again, the cost can rack up very fast. I have since found that he is selling his design on a page that creates them still but, at £75 a shell/print. It's still not really an option.

So, What does this mean? It's time to start a scratch-building project... Gulp!

I found some drawings (with the help of Dad) of the 92's with some very useful dimensions.

My brother has a machine that can cut out. It's like a printer that instead of printing with ink, has a blade and can cut like a laser cutter. With a lot of head-scratching and some choice words, I managed to create a scale drawing that could be cut out on his machine. I will say, it is a very rough design and has been cut in card to see where the issues and changes are needed. but, as a first attempt. I am very pleased with myself.

So, this is not a finished design. There are lots of details and corrections to make to move this on. Just think of this a flavour or a dry run of the basic shape and scale.

92 stock - cut plan.PNG

Here you can see there are a few things to look at here. You may have already noticed that there are too many doors. I was trying different cutting paths to see which is cut better and some redundancy. The plan is to have internal supports to hold the shape down the inside of the carriage, so that is why there are a few of the rings. you can also see the front and back end. The plan is to have them sandwiched up (not shown here)to build up the thickness and for ease of joining the various parts.

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Wahey.. It worked! Now, don't get me wrong, it is very rough. I am still learning how to work the software with cut strokes and paths etc to get the best out of it. And, as it is just a card, some of the cuts are not as clean. Hopefully, this will be improved when using Plasticard materials (which is what I am planning on making this out of).

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As I mentioned above, sandwiching the layers to build them up and add strength and recess. How do you make a join like a door. If this was all flat, it would look so wrong. The added benefit of this is to cut the door out, have the layer behind and glue the door back in. Bingo! I think this will work well.

As you can also see, this is against my cutting mat and the squares are centimeters to give you an idea of how small some of the hurdles we have here.
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Those lights are very very small,. Some support tabs will also need to be put into the design. You can see that some of the lines are a bit wavy here.

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I and dad are very excited about this little project and this really is the early stages of the build. There are lots of hurdles and steps that we need to find to make the end product actually work. Hopefully, we will have an end product that can then just be churned out to make a production line and a couple of sets.

Wish us luck :)

Cheers,
Rich
 

Osgood

Western Thunderer
Back in the early 70s(?) one of the magazines ran an article on a tube enthusiast who had build an underground system within the interstitial space of his first floor - twixt ground floor ceiling and upper storey floorboards.
All over there were sections of perspex floorboard - it seemed to go all over in every room.
Quite an astonishing feat - no doubt the structural integrity of the joists was compromised where the line burrowed through them! :eek::D
 

Richard Insole

Western Thunderer
Back in the early 70s(?) one of the magazines ran an article on a tube enthusiast who had build an underground system within the interstitial space of his first floor - twixt ground floor ceiling and upper storey floorboards.
All over there were sections of perspex floorboard - it seemed to go all over in every room.
Quite an astonishing feat - no doubt the structural integrity of the joists was compromised where the line burrowed through them! :eek::D


Haha, brilliant. I think if I was to even try something like that, the wife would have me out quicker than you can say.. "just extending the..."

That said, I live in a flat and the floors are pretty solid, probably concrete. one day, when I don't live in a 1st floor flat and have a garden, some form of weatherproof sun room or shed, is the dream to have a nice loop.

I had thought about the loft but, sadly it's a fairly modern roof. Beams everywhere.
 

Richard Insole

Western Thunderer
Nice - Central Line stock.

Indeed. The future classic of the central line. It's hard to believe that these have been rattling around for almost 30 years. Much the same could be said about me always loved these. Many happy memories of purtching up on the window seat at the end of the car and looking down onto the couplings and track below. I was probably too short to look down through the window
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
The article about the Underground Under the Floorboards was in Railway Modeller and it was an April Fool. I can't give you a reference at the moment but I remember it well.

For enthusiasts such as us it's on the par with a spaghetti tree.:)

Brian
 

Osgood

Western Thunderer
Could that have been the one I am thinking of?
I seem to recall some excellent photographs of a real layout (those were the days you could have faith in a photo....).
Admittedly the close-ups of constructional detail where the lines ran in between and through joists could have easily been fabricated, but in order to create the big views you'd have to have actually built a fair chunk of the layout.

If it was indeed a hoax well all I can say is it certainly fooled me - and I had a lot more brain cells back then.
Makes me worried now about what else I unwittingly fell for at the time........:oops:
 

76043

Western Thunderer
I remember that RM April Fool well, they cut a still of the Farringdon/Ray Street grid iron fly under into a shot of someone's floorboards.

I was fooled though, but also completely inspired.
Tony
 

Richard Insole

Western Thunderer
Central Line Works.PNG 20210120_222800.jpg 20210120_231248.jpg 20210120_231308.jpg I may have gotten in a little trouble with the wife...

I bought a new toy ;);)

I have a massive learning curve to get my head around and I am trialing with some bits and bobs now. A very scruffy first attempt at the front end. Layered up here for added rigidity.

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Keeping you all along for the ride. I am waiting on some more suited cutting blades/tools for the machine and I need to tamper and play around with the cutting setting(s) (amount of passes, pressure, and depth of cuts, etc). Those headlights look like somebody drunk fitted them.

Although, if you look at some photos of these 92's taken apart, they are astonishingly basic in construction. I can imagine that there were some issues with fitment across the fleet :rolleyes:

Cheers,
Rich
 

Tom Insole

Western Thunderer
Now that's some cool stuff! If you do want a few bits cut on the laser cutter/3D printed I can do little bits to help ;) All you've gotta do is ask. I'll have to send you some images of what I'm upto!
 
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