I've finally finished building the David Geen LSWR refrigerator van that I bought at Scalefourum in 2008. I'm afraid that in my excitement the photo came out a little blury.

This was a nice kit, but suffered from poor etched brake gear - most of this was replaced by MJT brake shoes and various bits off a mainly trains etch. I also added a thicker roof - the curved bit of plasticard supplied was too think for the very thick roofs on these vehicles.

One nice feature of the etch was the fold up ladder - you fold up the sides and solder 0.33mm wire through the holes to represent the rungs.

This will be painted in SR stone livery, in 1930s condition, Like previous David Geen wagons, a bit of a mixed bag but one that turned out OK in the end. I've got one of his GWR Toplight brakes in my to do pile, to finish of my rake of through coaches from the GWR. That looks very nice.

I've also built this Cambrian SR 'Dance hall' brake van. The Cambrian kit represents the vans built after 1923 by the Southern, rather than the earlier SECR variety with a shallower underframe.

It wasn't the easiest kit to build, as my first attempt ended up with the body not quite central on the underframe. After some careful dismantling with a scalpel it was reassembled correctly.

I replaced the strange looking moulded plastic buffers with some more accurate ABS cast ones. I also fitted a MJT inside bearing compensation unit (as I couldn't get the chassis completely level) and used their cast brake shows instead of the slightly crude plastic ones.

I also fitted Finecast etched lamp irons - the ones on the roof supports are less prominent than they should be, but hopefully a bit more robust.