From idea into reality

One of the pleasures of working at Wheels of Time is bringing an idea into reality. As in anything good, it does take time.

To create an actual model railroad car involves many small steps. Once the concept railroad car is thoroughly researched, it is broken down to subassemblies or parts.  This allows us to figure out how to best manufacture it in the molding maching and yet be assembled without any problems. The concept railroad car is then designed on our CAD system. The virtual parts are tested for fit and form. Fitting mulitiple parts into an assembly requires the proper space tolerances between parts in order to fit properly. Sometimes, we make physical mock-up of the parts to help further validate the fit and form. Once we are satisfy that all is well, we send the design files to our tool and die makers to cut the cavities in aluminum or steel. Below is an example of our effort: test shots for our new N-scale 80-ft Baggage-Horse Express.  If it reminds you as a hobby kit model, it's exactly that. Perhaps in the future, we can offer some model railroad kit models for those who still enjoy building things!