Handcrafted G-Scale flat car from Ebay and making "cab view" videos

The more elements I added to my new garden layout, the more I wanted to learn whether my miniature world already looked interesting from the point of view of its "inhabitants". The idea of seeing it through their eyes was so tempting, I knew I had to do it one way or another.

That's how I decided on making some "cab view" videos, What I needed was just a flat car where I could attach a small camera. I was considering buying some old used rolling stock and making it my recording platform. Second hand LGB cars are however pretty expensive and I could not find a good offer. That's when I ran into this Ebay auction:

It promised a new wooden handcrafted flat car at a price level below a used LGB car. I've decided to give it a go....

The car was supposed to come from Sri Lanka. After some weeks of waiting I received a package. To my surprise it came open and EMPTY inside. I complained to the seller who immediately sent another item. This one arrived successfully...

Hmm... nice envelope :)

Inside we find a medium-sized plastic bag with all the elements carefully packaged. Looks promising.

What we get are:

• a wooden platform
• parts for building two sets of wheels
• two sets of couplers (not really compatible with LGB)
• over a dozen of plastic bolts

The build also requires a glue. The seller recommends using super-glue and while it does not work on wood immediately, it gets the job done in the end. The entire model is ready in half an hour.

Some more photos from various angles.


As mentioned before the couplers are not standard LGB type. Additionally I had to install them differently from the way it was suggested, or they would end up too high for my other cars. This is the result of my installation.

And here's the car with a GoPro camera installed.

I also noticed the car was very, very light. I decided to increase its weight by attaching some steel pieces. This operation made the model almost three times as heavy.

So how did it work? Well, I have to say I did run into two issues:

• The car does not operate that great when being pushed and derails a lot then. This does not really surprise but here the performance is additionally affected by the second issue...
• ...which is the non standard coupler. I was able to connect the car's coupler to an LGB/PIKO rolling stock but it would almost immediately detach when being pushed. In case of pulling the connection - to my surprise - was quite good. 

On the other hand, I have to admit that after some trying I got quite promising first results. Once I picked the correct locomotive to do the pushing and once I found an optimum running speed, my video recording setup worked pretty well. And this is what I captured:

The "handcrafted wooden flat car" from Ebay deserves an extra note. I've used this product in a way it was never meant to be used. And I think being fair requires saying that the model itself looks really nice. The fact it's made of wood gives it a very interesting appearance right away. It's definitely an option worth considering for anyone trying to build their own custom train.