I’ve been checking over Diddington’s wagon fleet, which has led me to consider the wagon loads. There’s been quite a lot published about wagon loads, and I have got a lot of inspiration from Iain Rice’s wagon books, and the series of articles on weathered wagons by Martyn Welch in MRJ a few years ago. Later in this blog I’ll give some examples of loaded wagons, some of which are copies of Martyn Welch’s ideas, the difference being that his were in 7mm scale, and mine are for 4mm scale.

Mineral wagon loads

These are the typical wagon loads. They can be coal or another mineral, or for those of us modelling the East Anglian scene, sugar beet, loaded into mineral wagons. Either the latter day 16t steel kind, or the earlier RCH wooden types. I make mineral loads on a plastic base, cut to fit inside the wagon. A couple of longitudinal supports are fitted underneath, with the ends cut at an angle. which allows the load to be tipped up and removed like this:

The shape of the load is built up with a plaster mix, and when dry this is painted the base colour of the load. This is then painted with pva, and the chosen load sprinkled over and allowed to dry. The completed load looks like this:

Here are a couple of loaded mineral wagons. The one on the left is loaded with loose coal in the manner described above. The wagon on the right has a load of bagged coal, made from Ratio coal sacks, cut in half and glued on a plastic base.