Wagon Train

This posting concludes what turned out to be a 3 month project to recreate the goods train pictured in our reference book*. Our train includes five 1-plank wagons with tarpaulin covered loads and is hauled by a G6 0-6-0T locomotive. The view of the train in the book is truncated so we can't see its full length but our model train length shown here is ideal for the size of our layout.

The G6 is a brass etch kit from N Brass Locos (with added detailing) on a GF 57xx chassis and its build was described here: G6.

The final addition to the loco was the lettering and numbers from fox transfers, which were extremely fiddly to apply, being so small.

Number 278 is shown in the book photo. It was sheded at Basingstoke and operated goods traffic between the Thornycroft factory and the marshaling yard at Basingstoke. The 02 class loco was also used for this purpose.

The 1-pank wagons have scratch built bodies and loads on Peco chassis. Their build was described here: 1-plank.

* The Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway by Dean et al.

David

1 Plank Wagon - Part 3 Fin

Well, I came up with some numbering and have applied it to the sides of the wagons in the manner postulated in Part 2.

The tarpaulin covered load has come out very well. The load is sculptured FIMO clay shaped as in the prototype photograph. The weave of a tarpaulin cloth was created by lightly pressing a very fine plastic mesh onto the clay. The idea being that when the actual tarpaulin cover is pressed onto it the weave would make an impression in the cover. However, this was not very successful.

The tarpaulin cover is the clever bit. What we need is something that represents canvas with its folds as it is draped over the load. What I discovered, whilst taking a break, is the silver foil packaging from a Kit-Kat bar. This is remarkably thin, almost like gold leaf. I thinly covered the clay with epoxy resin glue, laid the foil on the top of the clay (dull side up) and dabbed it into place around the load with a large, round, artist paint brush. The foil formed its own (N gauge) folds, as you can see from the photo. The trick is to use a very thin foil.

It was then painted grey and dry brushed with white pastel scrapes (when the paint was very slightly tacky) to highlight the folds and dull the paint.

There is no visible strapping over the load as these tarpaulins had eyelets near the canvas edge where rope tied it down to the solebars of the wagon (not modelled). SR lettering on the tarpaulin has also been omitted, let's say it has faded/rubbed away over time.

Here are the two wagons in the yard at Thornycroft. I thought that one more wagon making three in all would be enough for a train but I think now that I should go for the five originally proposed, which is still a short train compared to that in the prototype photo. Don't know what the load is but it surely is not vehicles, probably spare parts.

 David

To Part 1

1 Plank Wagon - Part 2

The wagon body height and style was scaled from a 00 gauge LSWR wagon in my possession.

The floor of the body is printed planks (left over from the Wood Store build) stuck to card and weathered with dry brushed black pastel scrapes. Such a small body does not allow for fitting of the metal weight supplied with the chassis kit but, since it will carry a load then the load can be weighted appropriately.

Body sides are card, as are the end struts. Corner and side strapping are cut from a sticky label sheet and the lot painted brown.

Lettering and numbers should be applied but two problems arose. Firstly, what were the markings? I have only found one example of SR marking and that is on a vintage 1 plank wagon toy which, being a toy brings into question its authenticity. Secondly, I'll need a transfer sheet of N Gauge SR markings, which I do not have. I could have created an artwork of the body sides with markings on the computer, printed on sticky label and applied to the card. This can still be done once the markings are identified.

David

To Part 3


To Part 1

1 Plank Wagon - Part 1

There is one goods yard left on the layout that needs materials laid about but available photos just do not show clearly what they were. So I'm stuck for the moment. More vehicles and people are also needed but I'm taking a diversion from all that to make some 1 plank wagons.

There is a photo in our reference book* of a Southern G6 locomotive pulling a train of mainly one plank wagons with tarpaulin covered loads from the Thornycroft factory towards Basingstoke and it is this I would like to recreate.

I'm sure I saw a proprietary kit somewhere on the web for a 1 plank N gauge wagon (it is a rare beast, not available as a r-t-r item and kits seem sparse.) Anyway, I decided to use the Peco NR-119 9' chassis kit with scratch built body and load. Only two chassis kits were available from traders at a show we visited back in the summer. We will eventually need 3-5 for a reasonable length train.

The chassis kit has few parts and should be simple to assemble. However, it was not clear to me from the instructions if the buffer beams fit inside or outside the sole bars. Yes, I got it wrong and had to disassemble the glued parts! They fit outside the sole bars so that their ends are flush with the sole bar sides.

* The Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway by Dean et al.

David

To Part 2

More LSWR Cattle Vans

Another auction, another win. Two more Graham Farish SR cattle vans re-badged LSWR and weathered completes our rake of three cattle vans for the Wednesday cattle train that served the three stations on the line. Details on the conversion can be found here.

David

LSWR Cattle Wagon

I won an auction for 3 different wagons in disrepair including a Graham Farish SR cattle wagon, which is the item I was really after as I wanted to convert it to LSWR. I feel happier converting a wagon that has a little bit of damage than bodging up a brand new one. The only fault with the cattle truck was the roof, which had been badly painted and had an unsightly locating plinth that was visible through the railings.

The other two wagons had more damage. Parts from both had to be used to make a good wagon that I can sell at auction. Hopefully, this tactic will result in a return on my expenditure that means the cattle wagon cost nothing!

The changes needed for the cattle wagon were to put the roof right, change the SR legend to LSWR and apply some lime wash. Lime wash was a disinfectant used until about 1924 when it was made illegal as it caused health problems for the animals - I read that it rotted hooves.

The Graham Farish cattle wagon is based on a GWR diagram, I believe, but it looks close enough to pictures of LSWR types.

First job was the roof. The offending plinth was cut away and the black paint finish removed with emery paper. Unfortunately it cut right through the original white finish to the grey plastic. Not too troublesome as I intended to 'dirty' the white anyway.

The SR lettering was scratched away and LSWR letters applied taken from BR words on a 'pressfix' sheet, except no 'w's left so that was applied with paint and an ink mapping pen.

Weathering of the roof and application of lime wash was the last job. I have been impressed with weathering techniques used by other modellers, especially the use of powders, and wanted to have a go. I could spray paint instead but I felt the powder would be more controllable on such a small model.

I found a good review of MIG Productions powders as being well suited to 'n' gauge because they are very fine. However, I did not need a large quantity and they are relatively expensive. Then I found a video at YouTube that demonstrated the same effect could be obtained using cheap pastel crayons scraped with a knife to make the powder that is then dry brushed onto the model and guess what - we already had a white pastel crayon in the house from previous art interests.

Powders need a base to adhere to so I sprayed the roof with artist fixer spray (matt varnish will also do) and brushed on some white pastel scrapings. This was then sprayed again to fix the powder and all repeated again to whiten the grey roof further. It is in fact much more grey than shows in the photo below, giving the impression of a very dirty white roof.     



I then proceeded to apply the powder to the inside of the body, outside of the top railings and along the bottom of the sides and chassis. The end result is quite pleasing albeit not as white as shown in prototype photos but I expect the whitening effect varied and I did not want the finish to be too glaring.

David

LSWR 12-Ton Open Wagon - Part 4

The tarpaulin was designed in graphic editing software and printed on ink jet paper. The canvas texture graphic has come out quite well.

It is not easy to re-create cloth wrap around folds using paper and I don't think this method would be suitable for the larger scales.

Ed suggested I use FIMO clay. This might be worth a try but the serif font of the lettering would I think be a problem to replicate, unless there are suitable transfers available*. Interesting that the font used on tarpaulins is different to the sans serif style used on the trucks.

After all the work gone into making the wagon body to represent the prototype it is a shame the tarpaulin covers the detail. Any r-t-r wagon could have been used with hindsight. However, the tarpaulin is removable and if I tidy up the inside it could be run as an empty showing the correct bodywork for this 8 plank LSWR truck.

Below is a photo of the midday goods train comprising all wagons recently made. The bodyworks are scratchbuilt on Peco chassis kits, except the Lowmac which uses butchered Graham Farish bogie parts.

* Just found this.

To Part 1.

David

LSWR 12-Ton Open Wagon - Part 3

Bodywork painted and lettering applied. The latter taken from a Presfix 00 gauge BR(S) transfer sheet. The sheet had various sized lettering, some of which matched n scale. Some letters however, had to be painted over to change yellow to white. A coat of clear, matt varnish over the letters stops wear and tear.

Brass wire for the tarpaulin rail.

Much of the bodywork detail and lettering will be hidden by the tarpaulin, which will also hide some of the build faults.

To Part 4.

To Part 1.

David

LSWR 12-Ton Open Wagon - Part 2

Each panel was filed square with corner panel joins mitred at 45 degrees. The parts were then assembled and Superglued onto a Peco chassis NR-121. Gaps are filled with a mix of clay dust and pva glue.

The thickness of panels and interior details are not too important because this waggon will be tarpaulin covered.


The three butt joined side panels were 1mm too short for the chassis. This was taken up by one of the ends resulting in the corner bracing width being oversize, but not too noticeable thankfully. If I made another then gently stretching the two FIMO end portions of the three panel sides by half of a millimetre would easily take up the slack.

I have to say that this build method is extremely quick with quite good detailing and relief compared to the printed card method used for our other scratch built rolling stock. The clay method is only possible of course if a closely matching injection moulded r-t-r waggon is available to use as a mould pattern.

To Part 3.

To Part 1

David

LSWR 12-Ton Open Wagon - Part 1

Another waggon to build. This time it's the standard 12-ton open with tarpaulin bar and side doors.

I bought the Peco NR-10S, SR Ferry waggon with the intention of chopping it up to make the more common, and shorter 12-ton version, as suggested here. But I could not bring myself to cutting up an otherwise perfect and highly detailed waggon.

So, it was out with the FIMO clay again to make the sides using the Peco waggon as a pattern for the moulds.

In the photo, from the top, the waggon is Peco NR-10S. The two pieces of FIMO are the side and end moulds created by pressing the waggon sides into the soft clay, which is then hardened in the cooker at 110 Celsius. The next two are the end panels formed by pressing the soft clay into the end panel mould and then trimming the parts to size with a scalpel before hardening in the cooker. The  lower six pieces are the side mouldings. The Peco waggon has five panels on the long side but we only need the centre (doors) panel and the two end panels for the 12-ton version.

The white residue evident on the mouldings is talcum powder used as a release agent to stop the clay sticking to the moulds.

To Part 2.

David

LSWR Box Van - Part 4

To protect the door guide slot from glue ingress when the roof is fixed and to restrain the door from lifting above the slot a very thin paper strip was glued over it. Superglue instead of my usual PVA was used here (and elsewhere to join components). Easily controlled on the end of a cocktail stick it has less bulk and mess than PVA but does leave a shiny finish if allowed to spread beyond the area of applicaton.

The roof curvature was formed by pressing it around an AA battery. The spring back when taken off matches that required.

Here is the van on a mixed train, typical of the line. The roof is grey but shows white in the photo.

And at the loading dock with the sliding door open.

To Part 1

David

LSWR Box Van - Part 3

The ends were glued to the sides off chassis and a dummy ceiling inserted to keep it all square.

A paper floor covers the metal weight, which is seen through the opening.

Shown here without the doors fitted.

To Part 4

To Part 1

David

LSWR Box Van - Part 2

Scale drawing and information about this waggon appears in Railway Modeller Nov. 1970.

Making a box van body could be quite simple - it's a box. I needed a bigger challenge so I designed the side with an operating sliding door. (What! - in 2mm scale - you must be mad.) Looking closely at photographs of the real thing was necessary to understand how the door operates.

The scale drawing from the mag. was scanned and this  used as the base onto which the decorative layers were created using photo editing software.

The van side is made from a rectangle of planks (postcard). Onto this goes the cross bracing (copier paper) then the sliding door frame (postcard) and this is stood off on vertical spacers (postcard) leaving a gap between the top and the van side into which the door is slid.

The door component comprises a sandwich of three layers being backing (paper), planks (postcard) and cross bracing (paper) with wire for the long grab rail. The door bottom runner rail is wire fixed to the side and the door middle layer runs along this, which you may deduce from the photos.

Quite fragile and only operated in practice for staging photos of the van in a train on route (door closed) or at the loading dock (door open).

To Part 3.

To Part 1.

David

LSWR Box Van - Part 1

Time to build another 'n' gauge waggon. This time it's the ubiquitous LSWR 10T Box Van.

The chassis is the Peco NR-121 10' wheelbase with steel solebar. To be accurate to prototype it should be 10'6", but we will not worry about 1mm difference. The underframe detail is excellent and closely resembles the LSWR arrangement of leaf springs, V hanger and brake levers.

Quickly assembled from 8 parts. Care to be taken with glueing down the coupler retainer to avoid gumming up the coupler. I assemble the parts and then wipe liquid glue around the join of retainer to chassis. It leeches between the retainer and chassis but keeps clear of the coupler. The only other care needed is to ensure the weight is fixed square to the chassis.

To Part 2.

David

Scenic Modelling

A visit to the Basingstoke Model Railway show, gave us the opportunity to buy some scenic models for Cliddesden. This weekend was spent making and painting a Langley Horse Drawn Coal Cart, painting Ratio Line side Fencing, and painting LSWR Loading Gauge (had to extend plinth by a few mm).

Here is the results:

Horse and Cart

Loading Gauge

Line Side Fencing

Ed

Wagons

I recently purchased 4 different types of GWR wagon's, for the railway.

- 7 blank wagon

- Cattle Van

- Single Vent Van

- Long Truck Wagon

Need to find some LSWR and Southern wagons, and some private owner ones.