Browsing on the Internet I saw the 5 Inch gauge railways. The scale is 1:11 (formally 1:11,3) This scale has the potential of ride-on trains as well as still being able to handle the locomotives and wagons. Therefor I decided to build a test wagon to see what construction problems I would encounter.

I am interrested in wagons and locomotives of the Dutch "Nederlandse Spoorwegen" especially from the 1930 to 1950 period. In this period steam locomotives as well as the first series diesel, diesel-electric and electric locomotives were introduced. Furthermore the freight wagons still had the dark grey painting scheme.

One of the standard freight wagons from that time was the CHD. The CHD is a closed freight wagon which would suite my purpose to build a wagon. It is relatively simple, standard chassis, no brakes, simple body but still enough oppertunities to detail the wagon.

In order to get started a drawing was needed as well as a piece of 5 inch track.

Step 1 the drawing.


drawing CHD I purchased a plan (20.06.041) from the NVM. The plan was a scale drawing scale 1:45 (O scale). All the measures on the plan are in scale 1:1 which makes it easy to scale down for 5 Inch Gauge (1:11). The overall dimensions of the 5 inch gauge model will be: length 764mm, Height 318mm and width 273mm.


CHD The Dutch railway museum in Utrecht. do own a CHD. The photos I made from this wagon is usefull information to support the building process.


Step 2 the track.


5 inch track I figured out I needed a piece of track during the build. I looked what metal I had available and browsed on the Internet for tracks that could easyly be build. I ended up with the Groovy Track system. Below a picture of the finished track section. The sleepers are oak. 2 Sleepers are mounted on top of the 'rails' in order to prevent the wagon from falling off the rail. The rail is made of 8x25mm flat bar.


CHD part 2 of the build.