Decided to build a Shay, my kids gave me Hiroka’s book ages ago and now I am retired I thought its about time. Got frustrated bending up a “bar” truck and decided to go “cast” truck and 3 1/2 was too fiddley so up to 5 inch.

Looked around and found Greenbreir Cheat and Elk #3156, originally 3 truck but rebuilt to 4. I thought “why not, what could go wrong?”, So got stuck in, and found plenty could go wrong, see my introduction in “Introduce yourself”. It looked wrong, like an apprentice would make.

So scrapped first attempt, had a cuppa, got out the drawing board and began to plan things.

Going to do 1 truck first, the original gearing was 20/49 giving 2.45 to 1, I had some 1.5mod cutters and decided to compromise at 17/40 giving 2.35 to one, looks corect enough for me, I’m not a “rivet counter”

Here are the first 4 wheels and 2 gears, next are the 17 tooth pinions and bearing blocks.