Loco servicing cradle

Loco servicing cradle

Just as in the real world, it is often necessary to access the underside of locomotives and rolling stock to in order to carry out maintenance. In the real world, this would be achieved by parking the locomotive over an inspection pit, so that maintenance staff can go into the inspection pit and access the locomotive from underneath.

Unfortunately, in the model world we cannot fit into our model inspection pits, but we can lift up a model locomotive and turn it upside down! So far so good, but most locomotives and rolling stock is very unstable when resting on their roof, so some means of securely holding the item on its roof is required. Enter the Peco Loco Servicing Cradle.

This is a foam, u-shaped ‘cushion’ that will not only support your up-turned item of rolling stock, but will protect any fragile bits on the roof from damage. It is suitable for OO gauge and N gauge models.

In the case of use with OO gauge models the item of rolling stock will be a tight fit between the ‘uprights’ of the u-shaped moulding and so care is needed to ease the sides apart slightly to accept the up-turned item of rolling stock.

Sometimes, it is only necessary to have the narrowest part of the model (e.g. a setam locomotive boiler, actually down in the cradle for the item to be held securely. Experience will grow as you use it, but never use force to place the locomotive or other item of rolling stock into the cradle.   

Ref.: PL-70 - Also listed as PL70