Prior to starting this blog, I had been working on a number of wagons for my own, as yet unborn, GWR Cornish branch line. Last night I took some of them along to SHMRC and posed them on Hope-under-Dinmore.

Many of the chain clay private owner wagons were from the POW sides (pre-printed on salters/coopercraft bodies) - and very nice they are too. Very helpfully, POW sides will also change the running numbers for you, so you don't have duplicates - inevitably I only realised this after it was too late for one wagon - hence there are two no 4s for the North Cornwall China Clay Company - but hopefully the weathering is so heavy that at least one of the numbers is indecipherable.

Below you can see the NCCC wagons arrayed on the SHMRC's 'Hope-under-Dinmore' (which I admit is a long way from being a Cornish GWR branch line, but is a very pretty layout and a perfect backdrop for photography). Yes, I know they need tarpaulins - its on the to-do list.

The Toyne Carter wagons and the solitary (so far) John Lovering one...

I really need far more wagons belonging to wagon hiring companies. The NCCC wagons are perfect for my own project (it's set near Wenford Bridge, to the dismay of the LSWR - see another blog, 'the De Lank Chronicles', for more details - just don't hold your breath for the blog to be published, something about getting stock for Empire Mills next outing is getting in the way - I still blame Gareth....), but for the Empire Mills china clay option, something less geographically specific is needed - hence the attractiveness of using wagons owned by the wagon hiring companies based in and around the china clay region.

Weathering was using white acrylic paint dry-brushed over the outside of the body, with a weak wash of white applied to the inside of the body.

The GWR also made great use of its own wagons for moving china clay - either in loose form using specialist end-door wagons, or ordinary opens carrying high quality chain clay in casks (the jute sacks same into use during WW1 and so are a bit out of period for me). Below you can see a motely collection of GWR opens from the period 1900 to 1914. Most are from the Coopercraft stable, but the O13s (specialist china clay wagons) and the O11/15s are Parkside Dundas. Almost all of them have had their brake gear replaced using ABS parts to better present the DC1/2/3 variations, some of the O5s have also had grease axle-boxes added in place of the later oil type.

The 4 plank O5s

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A 7 plank O10 and 5 palnk O11 fresh out of the paint shops and needing weathering

Here are two O13 China Clay wagons, again awaiting weathering. You can see on the left hand one it has the Parkisde brake gear, while the right hand one has ABS cast whitemetal brake gear which I think is a great improvement.

Weathering for these wagons has been varied - some were just dry brushed with varying amounts of underframe dirt, rust and mud colours, while others also had a weak wash of dirty black. Some wagons will be in ex-works condition too.

What's next from the W & C works? There are some more GWR open general merchandise wagons to be finished off (couplings, lettering, weathering, that sort of thing), some PO coal wagons and hopefully rather more interesing, the construction some scratch-built ex Cornwall minerals railway iron bodied tippler wagons. Watch this space....

drduncan