2mm Midland wagons D299 and D305
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Entry posted by John Brenchley
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Having almost reached the painting stage with the LNWR van, I decided that since it was to be painted in LMS livery, rather than get the air brush set up for just one model, I might as well build the two Midland wagons that had been sitting in my "to do" box for a couple of years and finish them in LMS livery as well.
The 2mm Scale Association kit for these wagons comes with a plastic sprue containing the sides and floor for both a 3 plank and 5 plank open in the same double kit. An etched 9' wheelbase Midland chassis kit is also available from the Association and I had bought two of these to go with the wagons.
As can be seen, the chassis contains parts to allow various combinations to be made - either single or double V hangers, with or without a central door stop, oil or grease axleboxes but only has the short Midland style brake lever.
Having studied the information given in R.J. Essery's An Ilustrated History of Midland Wagons - Vol 1, I decided that for wagons still running in LMS days, I should have brakes on both sides. For the 3 plank D305, I decided on the wooden end door stops and added these from small pieces of plasticard. I also opted for a single V hanger. Plate 75 in the above book seems to show a wagon with these features but I am not sure if the number given (658) is its original Midland number - not being very knowledgeable on the LMS can I ask if anyone else can confirm if such a wagon would have had an extra number added as a prefix in LMS days?
For the 5 plank wagon, I chose to model it with double V hangers and a central door stop but am now struggling to find a picture of such a wagon in LMS days, particularly with the shorter style of brake lever - can anyone help please.
The wagon body parts are nice crisp mouldings and fit together easily to create a good square wagon. The floor is reversible, having representations of plain planks on one side and bottom opening doors on the other. Hopefully, I made the right decision and used the bottom doors on the D299 5 plank and the solid planked floor on the D305 3 plank. The only slight criticisms of the plastic parts is that the rivet detail is perhaps a little excessive and some of the corners, particularly on the 5 plank are a bit rounded rather than square. I attempted to improve this by adding some 30thou wide strips of plasicard to the ends of the buffer beams to try to square them up and I also glued in some small plastic scraps of plastic to the top corners of the 5 plank wagon and then cut them back to leave a sharper corner - in the pictures, this seems more successful on the right hand end than the left and although not visible, has improved the inside of each corner as well.
The next stage should be painting but at the moment, with a heat wave here in Perth, Western Australia, the temperature is really too high for painting, so I'll get back to finishing off the train shed roof. I'm also waiting for an order from the Association shop as I've run out of buffers, as can be seen from the picture of the 3 plank open.
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