Modelling the Confederation Tour Train

What better way to see Kingston than to hop into a one-axle trailer hauled by an old jeep? That's what the operators of the Confederation Tour Train thought. The prototype likely never operated on the streets along the Inner Harbour, but I suppose there could have been that special request charter by someone modelling the area five decades later. That's me. 

I needed a one-day project and the Tour Train fit the bill. Today, it's a self-propelled tour trolley, but then it was a jeep masquerading as a steam locomotive! The Niagara Choo-Choo was temporarily lettered ‘Retail Merchants of the Kingston Chamber of Commerce’ and was touring downtown Kingston in November, 1966. A jeep hauled two single-axle trailers around downtown and across the causeway to Royal Military College (1967 Queen's University Archives photo - above) for a buck adult fare, and around Queen's University campus - ten miles in an hour. Two undated views of the Jeep-based tour train in front of the Pumphouse Steam Museum:

The original Tour Train in Kingston was a train ‘shape’ cut out of plywood then painted. Passengers’ seats were constructed by local Canadian Penitentiary Service Joyceville Penitentiary prisoners. The power train was upgraded, but the weight of those seats eventually wore out the engine! A 1976 Chevy pickup later provided the motive power in the late-1970's (Whig clipping): 

This build was all scratchbuilding. I had a spare Roco jeep, around which I'd later build the locomotive shape. I cut styrene square stock into benches, on which I placed painted figures, er, tourists! I used some girder pieces from the scrap box, cutting out the cross-braces, and matched their length to the seated figures' trailer platforms.

I cut some styrene for the low trailer sides, painted and blued the girder pieces, added a styrene roof:

The jeep was an exercise in creativity. I cut the side in two pieces, added a roof and coal bunker, a piece of cylindrical shoe-stiffener plastic for the boiler, a stack and headlight, siderods and cylinders all from scrap. Small styrene scraps were the trailer hitches, and trailer tongues from Roco military trailers. I added more styrene pieces for the front and rear low trailer sides. The trailer axles and wheels were from my 'vehicle wheels' scrap box. Still need to add brake lights, though.

I printed the lettering using Microsoft Word. Yes, the jeep and driver are inside there somewhere. Touring Montreal Street, "Can we drive past the Outer Station again??", can just be heard above the roar of the engine!