The Equestria Railroad - My Daughter's OO9 scale "My Little Pony" Railroad.

[armyairforce]

A model railway is something I've talked about with my 6 year old daughter for a while now as she loves making things. She's enjoyed building several Airfix aircraft kits already, a Red Arrows Hawk ( which she started at 3 years 11 months ), Spitfire diorama, Snoopy Verses the Red Baron and a Sherman diorama.

With the school summer holidays only a few weeks away, we decided a small model railway would be a good holiday project involving lots of skills. However, for a 6 year old girl, I didn't think a normal railway model was interesting enough to capture her imagination. My wife suggested a more fantasy railroad with fairy castles etc., but I still didn't have a good feeling about heading in that direction.

Then, a couple of days ago, my daughter and I were watching recorded episodes of "My Little Pony" on TV, and the particular episode featured the railroad that runs through 'Equestria', the land of "My Little Ponies". Hmmmm! the gears in my brain began to grind around and suddenly made a connection!!

Kinder Surprise chocolate eggs have recently featured small toy "My Little Ponies" that were about an inch and a bit long. These would make ideal characters for a small "My Little Pony" themed railroad. My daughter was over the Moon with the idea; so that's what we are doing. The layout will be about 36 x 22 inches which will fit in the top of her wardrobe when not being used. It will be a simple oval with one switch leading up a small track to a station. There will be a dividing backscene through the middle of the layout which will create two different areas of interest.

To work on a small baseboard with tight radius curves, but have more manageable detail size, I'm using the UK's OO9 scale narrow gauge track. A new loco body will be scratch built along the lines of the loco from the show, using an existing 0-4-0 chassis. Some existing wagons will probably be used until custom units can be made to match those on the TV program. The buildings will also have to be scratch built, using screen captures from the show to get a feel for the look of the place. The scale chosen is about right for the Kinder Egg "MLP's" to ride in the wagons. Several duplicates of the ponies will also be customised to create additional characters for playing on the layout!

Yesterday, I got a running-in loop out so my daughter could have a play, and I could get a feel as to how well she could handle OO9 scale locos and wagons. The school holidays is still about four weeks away, but I'm going to get the baseboard made over the next few days, so I can work out track quantities and other details before a trip to the model shop for materials.

So if you want to follow the adventures of Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle, and the construction of Ponyville, Cloudsdale and the Crystall Empire, tune in here over the coming weeks!

 

[santafewillie]

Pretty neat. Looking forward to your results. If anything like the "Somewhere in England", it will be fantastic.
Willie

 

[tootnkumin]

I predict a family heirloom in the making.

 

[Sirfoldalot]

Anticipating your progress!

 

[armyairforce]

To add interactivity to what is a simple layout, we were talking last night about adding lighting effects. The houses will be internally lit and individually be able to be switched on/off for when ponies leave home and return. We'll have a flickering LED camp fire near the woods and the Crystal Empire Palace I hope to make from polished clear acrylic, with LED's shining up through the legs to make it glow.

 

[armyairforce]

For a layout that hasn't officially been started yet, we've made quite a bit of progress in two days! Yesterday afternoon was rather dull and began to rain later in the afternoon. So instead of going out somewhere, we took a trip to the hardware store and came back with some wood and glue. The MDF base was a 48 x 24 inch 1/4 inch sheet off the shelf, but being a Sunday, the wood cutting section wasn't open. That wasn't a major concern as I had a circular saw that would cut the board down.

Before any cutting, we marked out the new board size and then the track positions, keeping my daughter as involved as possible from the start. Once it was drawn on, we squeezed the test track to conform with the track plan on the board, and test ran the loco and a couple of wagons.

 

[armyairforce]

While this isn't the usual type of railroad I'd build, I've found that even at this early stage, I'm very interested in the project, the research and what we can achieve. I've built well researched models before, based on prototypes, and I've built more fictional layouts based on preservation lines etc, but all have used prototypical rolling stock, buildings and scenery. This fictional fantasy layout is a leap in a new direction and will hopefully lead to some interesting new challenges and some unique models.

Today was a critical, high stress shopping day. I'd spotted some additional Kinder My Little Pony toys on Ebay, and in all, there were ten ponies for a £1.50 starting price. Kinder only made four different ponies in their set, and Ebay has provided parents with the ability to buy spares to make a complete set, as you never knew what you would get inside the Kinder egg. We had wanted some additional ponies to modify and repaint to make other characters, so ten for a very low starting price was a chance that couldn't be missed.

I placed one early bid at the starting price a few days ago, so I'd get an email reminder if I forgot about the auction. It finished today, and there were no other bids this morning. With about 6 minutes to go, another bid appeared! But how much was their maximum?? I could feel the stress as I didn't want to disappoint my daughter by missing them. I didn't want to push the price up with a late bidding war, so I waited until the last 10 seconds of the auction and placed a £33.00 bid, hopefully leaving no time for any counter bids ( it was only £3.00 per pony ). I won with my last second bid, and got the ten ponies for £4.21 plus post, making a grand total of £7.01.

With my heart rate now dropping back from 120bpm, I could focus on which ponies out of the original four, could be adapted and repainted to other ponies from the series. This will involve removal of some of the pegasi wings or unicorn horns, repaints and possibly dying some of the tails. We looked for ponies that had similar style hair and colours to try and minimise the amount of effort needed for each conversion. These are the planned conversions.....

 

[armyairforce]

While my daughter was at school today, I got the baseboard cut and the framework attached. The timber frame is only about 1 1/2 x 3/4inches, but as the board is so small anyway, it doesn't need a heavy duty frame.

 

[armyairforce]

This evening, I almost just sat in front of the laptop browsing forums, but pushed myself to go out to the workshop and have a look at the loco. The loco I want to use is an 0-4-0 saddle tank, painted in the World War 1 Light Railway Operating Division markings of a layout that was built back in the late 1970's/early 80's ( I can't recall for sure ). As can be seen from the attached pictures, the two locos I've seen in the series are 4-4-0's in an early US railroad style. I want to try and capture the look of Ponyville as accurately as I can, but also don't want to spend a fortune on new rolling stock, just to butcher it. This is a semi-toy after all, not a every last nut and bolt copy of an original railroad. I hoped I could add a leading set of wheels to the 0-4-0 tank, and scratch build a new body.

I found a truck from an N scale boxcar in the spares box, and decided to see what could be done with it. Now while the locos in the picture have the leading wheels exposed, I don't have any trucks like that. I may yet scratch build a truck to carry the wheels, but for now, just wanted to do some testing. I cut the front chassis down on the loco, where the coupler was moulded, then drilled it for a bolt. A small brass bar formed the arm that the truck would articulate from, and another bolt helt that in place. A test run around the running-in track showed it worked, but it did stick forwards from the driving wheels a long way.

 

[armyairforce]

The next step was to cut the front of the chassis off altogether, and redrill the chassis closer to the pistons. This brought the articulating bar further back, pulling the leading wheels back too. While not perfect, I think it is the best compromise I'm going to get with this chassis, and once a new body is built, the overall effect will hopefully be pleasing. The new shorter chassis was then test run again, down to about a 6 inch radius, much smaller than the smallest curve on the layout. The track was then reformed to the inner station line which has the tightest curves, and the loco run again. The sideways movement of the leading wheels isn't too bad, and the new character style body should be wide enough to allow enough movement.

 

[armyairforce]

The last couple of shots show the loco with the original body back on while sitting on the tightest curve on the layout. The front pivot bolt is still within the width of the original body and the new boiler can be built to accomodate the necessary movement. That's all to report until we get some track, hopefully later this week, but for now, we're feeling really good about the project so far.

 

[armyairforce]

The motor in the loco wasn't the best so today I swapped it for one from an identical loco. That loco seems to have square wheels, as it shakes about a lot, so I've put the better motor into the first chassis.

While I was pulling things to bits, I also removed the wheels and cleaned the pickups, wheels and greased the gears.

 

[armyairforce]

The wheels had a good layer of dirt built up on them. This loco last ran around 1981, and then has been sitting in a box unused ever since.

Today was sports day at school, and after that was done, the kids were allowed home a little early. We took that apportunity to go to the local model shop for some bits and pieces. They didn't have any OO9 track in stock, apart from one 'Y' turnout, so that has been ordered in for us. We also got a little paint, track pins, a new track rubber and this set of dogs, to represent the "Timber Wolves" and "Diamond Dogs" characters from the show. The Diamond Dogs hoard diamonds and other gems in holes and tunnels underground, so we now are planning a small scene with some of these dogs guarding gems in holes in the baseboard; the gems represented by flickering LED's.

 

[armyairforce]

This evening, I began work on the loco body. I found some plastic pipe which was cut for the boiler, with a brass tube glued in for the smoke stack. Before it was glue in, a block of modelling resin board was drilled and glued on, then turned in the lathe for the spark arrestor.

The cab is being made in a couple of stages. The first box seen here is really just a foundation to build the cab onto. This locates the cab securely over the motor/gearbox, to stop any movement. The front face is the start of the next layer which will form the cab shape ( once trimmed ). These parts will be solid sheet styrene. The last layer will have window openings cut in, and once glued on, will form the outer face of the cab. The recessed openings will be painted for the windows.

Because of the way the parts fit over the chassis and motor, the body will remain in two parts. The boiler needs to slide forwards for removal, while the cab lifts vertically.

 

[armyairforce]

Today I started marking out the baseboard in more detail to check on sizes of features and space available. From past experience, a 2D plan or 3D rendering always look different to real life. The layout board is tiny at 3 x 2 feet, so I wanted a better feel of how the features would fit together.

The loco and some wagons were used to gauge the station platform size, which then dictated the station building size and location. That then positioned the Oak Library, the road and other buildings.

 

[armyairforce]

Going a step further, some mock buildings were cut from some scrap wood to work out heights and how they would work together. A board and some styrene were used to define the backscene position.

The same process was repeated for the other side of the layout, plotting out the Crystal Empire, Everfree Forest, river, and Froggy Bottom Bog.

 

[armyairforce]

On the loco, the boiler had a little more structure added which with other components will help blend the new body into the original chassis.

 

[armyairforce]

The cab had some styrene added to the bottom to help locate it and provide a fixing location for the coupler. The first styrene box around the motor is a tight fit to help keep the damaged 1980's pickups in place on the motor contacts. This isn't square, so the next step was the lower part of the inner cab walls, now drying.

The upper part of the cab will be wider at the roof to match the show loco. The outer cab structure with windows can then be added.

 

[KB02]

This is just awesome. I will be watching this with anticipation!

 

[armyairforce]

A little more progress on the loco before I went away for the weekend.

Just before we went away, the postman brought the Ebay auction Kinder ponies. Not sure how soon it will be before we start repainting them. There's still plenty of school work to do, and we've got lots of 1940's events to attend over the next few weeks. While it is meant to be a school holiday project, there's no pressure to have it all done by the end of the holidays.