Amongst the gifts received on the 25th were a bunch of Cambrian and Parkside wagon kits. The selection intended to diversify my freight fleet to get a more representative mix of other companies wagons to complement the Coopercraft

Comprising of a pair of LMS 5 planks, an LMS ventilated van, LMS steel ended van, MR van, a southern 8 plank mineral and a GW steel sided open all from Cambrian, along with a pair of LNER 1 plank and a LNER 5 plank from Parkside.

While my fiancée and the in laws sat down watching Christmas TV resting off the xmas dinner, I dug out the laptop workbench and made a start on the kits.

The Cambrian kits are a mix with a couple that incorporate their new(ish) one piece chassis, the rest having the flat floor.

While the 1 piece chassis looks a very good improvement to most people, I actually prefer the original as it is a lot easier to fit Bill Bedford sprung W Irons to. The older kits also have the added advantage of coming with 2 solbars on the spur, giving bits to upgrade old Bachmann minerals to have separate brake leavers etc (the latter coming out of the scrap box...)

I started with the 1 piece chassis kits (due to the need to place an order for more suspension units.)

The GWR steel wagon fell together very neatly, and even had a nicely pre drilled hole in the breakgear ready for the linkage bar.

The MR van was next, however the fit of parts wasn't so good requiring a fair bit of filler in the corners to get a good fit. This still needs brake gear adding (as I needed to get a different drill bit to drill the brake gear and didn't want to disturb the dog...)

With these out the way it was onto the separate floor wagons, with the LMS steel ended van and the SR mineral wagon. In both cases the floor moulding was a fair bit too wide (about 1mm after removing the flash) resulting in a poor fit between ends and sides. Thankfully the flat floor made life very easy to carefully cut off the excess.

The body was then made up as a complete unit, before adding the headstocks and solebars as required setting in position using the spring units as a guide.

The SR wagon had the moulded bar on the end door removed which will be replaced with wire.

The Cambrian buffers were very nice, with the pre drilled hole making drilling for sprung buffers a lot easier than the solid ones Coopercraft use. Again there are full sets of spares included on a lot of the kits which will prove very useful in the future.

Unfortunately there was no room in the car for the workbench / toolbox so having gone down to Devon for a couple of days to visit my parents I wont be working on the wagons until I get home at the weekend.

At this rate no doubt they will all be ready for paint (and springing units) before the Christmas shutdown ends...

Apologies for poor phone photos...