This project started out as a straightforward relaxing build of the Funicular Railway model described in the 1935 Set 7 manual. But, as you know, things rarely turn out exactly as planned and the project soon took on a life of its own.  I decided almost immediately that the support piers had to be of a more robust construction, sturdy supports and a lightweight track seeming best to represent what you would expect in the real world.

Then I abandoned the idea of a sprocket chain drive in favour of winched ‘cables’.  I also thought it would be a good idea to narrow the model to 9.5 inches so as to better capture the feel of the two cars brushing by each other when they pass at the middle of the track. To complete the specification, I decided to have an operating lever on the lower platform and an auto-stop mechanism. Soon, all manner of more important jobs around the house were being neglected, as I worked into the early hours on my ‘relaxing’ project.

The passenger cars are pretty much as in the original plan with some extra plating added to give a more solid appearance. I had recently come across some gold painted curved strips and I think these give a pleasing decorative effect over the windows. The insulated fish plate is used to activate the auto-stop switch, at the bottom of the track.

When it came to setting up the winched cable drive, I soon realised why most models of this type, that I have seen, use a sprocket chain drive! However, after a couple of frankly embarrassing failures, I came up with an arrangement that works well. The two cars are connected by one cable and each has its own winch cable connected to the winding gear under the lower platform.  With their near identical weights, and the inherent friction around the pulleys, they will stay motionless in any position they are placed, an ascent in one car always matched by an equal descent in the other. This is the key to the working of this model,  an ascending car is pulled up by its winch cable but the descending car is lowered by the car-to-car cable. This means that the winch cable of the descending car must not be under tension. This requires a little ‘lost motion’ in the system. As the slack in one winch cable is wound in, the other winch pays out slack in the cable of the descending car. Two weights, made up of a red hook and a worm, are suspended below the track to keep the  cables taut and generally under control.

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The upper platform is modelled to a minimum extent. A five-hole braced girder was cut into two to complete the fencing at the front.

The lower platform is a similar fenced structure that is mounted above the winding gear. It includes a tempting looking operating lever that controls the actions of the model.

Attached to the lower platform are two auto-stop switches. These are formed from 1” wiper arms and 3-hole narrow strips. An insulated fishplate, on the passenger cars, moves the wiper arm away from the strip breaking the circuit and bringing the model to a halt. The two winding drums share a common axle but, of course, wind in opposite directions. There must be some trick that makes setting up such a configuration simple but, alas, I didn’t discover it, the whole process whiling away quite a few hours!

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The winding gear is straightforward with reduction gearing followed by a final worm drive to the winding drum shaft. The operating switch consists of two insulated bush wheels on an axle rotated by the lever. One carries two contact studs and is used to select which auto-stop switch power is supplied through. The second carries three contact studs and, together with two 2” wiper arms, forms a two-pole changeover switch that reverses the direction of the motor.