THE CAR

The car is a freelance design, inspired by some of the smaller prototypical funicular railways. The base is 1mm thick styrene sheet and the four sides are made from clear polyester sheet to a similar thickness. Strips of paper-thin styrene were glued to the clear plastic to form the body panels and window frames. The undercarriage box that supports the ‘Z’ gauge wheels was also made from 1mm styrene. The bottom of the undercarriage box should follow the same angle as your inclined trackbed. Slots are required in the bottom of the undercarriage sides to accommodate the two ‘Z’ gauge wheels. The axles are retained by cutting and gluing styrene sheet along the bottom and side edges of the undercarriage sides to form a box. Thin piano wire is cut and bent to form the hook attachment for the nylon winch line and the hook attachment glued to the bottom of the undercarriage using cyanoacrylate. I inserted a small nut to provide stability to the carriage and allow it to freewheel down the track. A 3D-printed ‘N’ gauge scale passenger figure is glued to a false floor, cut from styrene sheet and glued inside the carriage. Finally, I cut and curved the carriage roof from styrene sheet and glued it to the top of the carriage sides, together with styrene webbing supports on each side of the undercarriage to replicate the webbing supports of a real funicular car.