Liverpool Trams

Baby Grand — Liverpool 201–300

The Model

This was a project to build a complete and reasonably accurate model of a tram using Building Rail3d Models In3d Canvas. You can see in the screenshot that I still haven’t quite mastered the art of getting textures to line up on complex curved surfaces.

The model makes full use of the new support for trolleypoles and reversible components (flip-over seats) introduced in Build 101. It is also fitted with rudimentary cab controls, so that you should be able to drive it with the mouse and keyboard. Sorry about the generic adverts — imagination was flagging a bit when I prepared the textures.

Update: Jan 2007

I’ve updated the model with interior lighting and marker lights, and adapted the destination blinds and route number panel to work with dynamic textures. There’s a little script that sets the destination to “pier head” by default, so you don’t have to drive around with it showing “Destination” if you aren’t setting destinations on your layout.

The prototype

I chose this subject to model because I had drawings and photos from two different books — I was halfway through the project when I realised that they didn’t actually agree with each other very well…

Liverpool Corporation Tramways built this series of four-wheeled streamliners on 9-foot emb “Flexible Axle” trucks between 1937 and 1942. They were known as “Baby Grands” because they looked like a scaled-down version of the bogie streamliners. Being cheaper to operate than the bogie cars, they were used on most routes in the last years of the Liverpool system.

Sources

Brian J Martin, Liverpool Tramways (Middleton Press, uk, 1997)
E. Jackson-Stevens, Scale Model Electric Tramways (David & Charles, 2nd edition, 1986)

Mark Hodson August 29, 2006, at 12:25 am