How I built my Galloping Goose

I had always wanted a Galloping Goose for my Badger Creek Logging Company HO layout, so I set about looking at various photographs of what they looked like. Living in the UK meant that I could only judge as to whether or not my efforts in making such a model would in fact; turn out right in the end. 

The photographs I looked at were of various types of Goose ranging from the Bus type #5 R.G.S. to ones made from the Ford A cars etc. So I decided to make mine in the form of a Model A ford car and add the freight Box also.

I bought a Model Ford Car from my local model shop and disassembled it. Taking the body, I cut the rear off and added a plasticard back. The sub-frame couldn’t be used as it was, but I needed the mudguards, to add authenticity. My attention now turn to how I was going to power up this little beauty, so I looked around my hobby shop for some kind of small motive power and came up with the Bachmann Brill Trolley. Once this had been disassembled I made a new chassis out of plasticard for the Ford A car to sit on, cutting and leaving space to insert the Brill mechanism. 

Many trial fits – cut/file/cut again were needed to get it just right, when all was spot on the fun could start in building the Goose. First, I glued the Ford Car in place then added the mechanism. What I needed now was two pairs of small wheels on a bogie for the front. What could I use? As I had been into N-scale years ago, I thought about N-scale wheels, would they be small enough? Well, after rummaging through my scrap box I found a couple of pairs of wheels and set about making a bogie for them using brass wire for the wheels. Back now to the chassis I had made for the Car and mechanism, I drilled a small hole under the radiator of the car and using a small nut and bolt added the new bogie with N-scale wheels. 
(Was it going to run, I thought) so off to the railroad room for a quick test run. Wow, it worked, but needed some tweaking to make it run reasonable. Once this had been accomplished, the hard work of making a Galloping Goose was over; the rest was just cosmetic appearance. 

Now came the question of what colour to paint it, as the Goose #5 was in a silver colour, I thought perhaps my #2 would also look nice in this scheme, so that’s what I settled for.

I added various items to the roof and a cowcatcher to the front, and then added my Badger Creek decals to it. Now it’s running on my layout taking little people for a ride and delivering odd and ends to various campsites.

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