Drovers Caboose

[Rhinochugger]

'Elf & Safety doesn't necessarily mean stopping something happening - it relies on a triage of risk elimination:

1. Eradicate the risk, if not reasonably practicable, then
2. Mitigate the risk, if not reasonably practicable, then
3. Protect against the risk

One has to assume that, with purpose made steps and grab rails, the only rule that needs to be written is that the loco (or wagon) should be stationary before mounting / dismounting ....................................


Yeah

So we're back to our relativism - well, it was almost stationary, yer honour

 

[Tim Brien]

Well, it only took a ten year gestation period, but finally completed. One "positive" of the lengthy build period is that the amount of glue used in the roof modifications caused the coach body to assume a mild bow (sag) in the centre. This was actually quite prototypical for wooden bodied coaches. It is only a minor sag but it is there. The piece of track the car is sitting on is 60 cms in length. Now I need to progress the dozen or so other incomplete models started many years ago.

 

[Tim Brien]

Should anyone wish to use this as a basis for their own model, the end platforms are from an LGB shorty bogie caboose and the cupola from an old MDC/Roundhouse caboose kit. Piko have since released the caboose as a transfer caboose, albeit minus the cupola.

If I was building this again I would make it as an eight/ten window combine with attached cupola. Most standard gauge drovers' cabeese incorporated a combine section for storage. On my model, I assumed that a boxcar would accompany the caboose, storing hay bales, etc.

 

[Tim Brien]

If you think that grabrails and steps are dangerous then perhaps the shunting pole may be totally dangerous. The loco and rolling stock endsills had a shunting socket at each extremity, more like an inverted mushroom. A shunting pole up to twenty feet in length would have one end placed in the socket and a moving locomotive or rolling stock on an adjacent track would provide shunting power for the other end of the pole. Splintered poles and associated injuries and deaths were common, much like crush injuries/death in British yards with some poor fool running beside a moving waggon applying the handbrake.