Boys' Make-at-Home Things :: HOW TO MAKE A TOY TRAIN

HOW TO MAKE A TOY TRAIN

CLEAR the track there! Push the crib over in the corner. Pick up those blocks. Shove the doll’s house and blackboard out of the way. Hurry and put the old red candy lantern out of sight. We don’t want any danger signals here. The Twentieth Century Limited—the Fast Special of the play room—is coming.

The construction of the Twentieth Century Limited follows close upon the making of whittling tools. A little train it is, just an engine, coal car, baggage car, and one passenger coach, but of course there may be any number of additional cars coupled on, provided the train proves popular and the nursery traffic is heavy. The train is made from cigar boxes. The floor of the engine is made from a flat piece of wood, two inches wide by four and one-half inches long, cut perfectly true and then pointed at one end (Fig. 1). Then the cab is made. Fig. 2 shows the front of it—a piece of wood measuring two inches by one and three-quarters, and having two little holes three-eighths of an inch square cut for windows. The side pieces are an inch and a quarter by two inches, cut in the shape of Fig. 3, and each has one little window. The roof is an oblong piece two inches by one and a half. When the whole cab has been nailed together, it is placed in position on the floor of the engine, about a quarter of an inch from the rear end, and nailed there. For the boiler you can use one of mother’s basting thread spools. Chip off the ends, making them even with the part where the thread was wound, and then nail it to the floor from underneath. A spot on the upper side of the boiler is smoothed off, and a tiny spool is glued on for a smoke stack. The forward wheels are made from circular pieces an inch in diameter, and the “drivers” from pieces an inch and a half in diameter. Then there are bearings for the wheels, like Fig. 4, those for the smaller wheels being an inch long, and those for the larger wheels three-quarters of an inch in length. They are glued to each side of the floor piece and the axles, made from lollypop sticks, are slipped through. These are cut three inches long, which allows plenty of room for the wheels to turn, and for a little nail to be put through like a cotter pin, to hold them on.

Diagrams of a Toy Train.

The coal car floor measures two inches square, the sides two inches by one, and the ends one and three-quarters by one. These are nailed together to form a little box, and four wheels and bearings like the forward ones on the engine are made. The couplings are made from little round brass hooks, the one on the forward end of each car being horizontal, and the one in the rear end perpendicular.

The baggage car is a triumph of whittling, for it has a door that will slide back and forth just like a real one. The bottom and top of the car are oblong pieces of wood two inches by four and a half, and the end pieces measure two by two and a quarter inches. The sides are made like Fig. 5, with an opening an inch and a quarter square for a doorway. On the inside of the side pieces, extending to within a half inch of each end, and starting about an eighth of an inch from the top a groove is cut, the depth of the groove being about a quarter of an inch. The door itself is one and thirteen-sixteenths inches high by two inches wide, and has two very small, flat-headed, wood screws, screwed in near the top at an angle, so that the heads rest in this groove, and slide back and forth. Above the door is a strip of wood an eighth of an inch wide, and outside of this another strip a quarter of an inch wide, both of which are nailed in position, and keep the door from slipping out of the groove. Another screw forms a handle for the door, and when the car is put together it is not at all apparent how the door slides. Fig. 6 is a section cut through the side, above the doorway, and shows the groove and how the strips are put on.

For the passenger car the floor is made first—like Fig. 7—the car floor itself measuring two inches by four and one-half, with a projection one inch by five-eighths at each end for a platform. The sides of the car (Fig. 8), are two inches by four and a half, with three holes one inch wide by three-quarters high for Pullman windows. The ends of the car are like Fig. 9. They are slipped over the platforms, the space one and one quarter inch by a half inch forming a doorway and the lower ends extending below the platform to form the side of the steps. The end of the platform is a piece measuring one inch by two inches, and is nailed in position so that the lower edge of it is even with the lower edge of the side pieces, the remainder of it extending above the platform for a railing. There are two steps on each side at each end—eight steps in all. The bottom ones measure a quarter of an inch wide and three-quarters of an inch long, while the upper ones are the same width, but only a half inch long, for they have to fit in between the ends of the car, and the ends of the platform. The roof of the car is like Fig. 10—a piece two inches by six and one-half inches with rounded ends, extending well over the platforms. Both the passenger and baggage cars have wheels exactly like the coal car. When these are done the train is coupled, and away she speeds. “Clear the track there! The Twentieth Century Limited is just pulling into Chicago, and she has made the trip from New York in eighteen hours.”

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