I’ll present the current status of the rolling stock in groups of three, as for some bizarre reason, this just seems to work.

First the LNWR, as this is their line the plan is to have the Premier line (would a modern company get away with such conceit? Probably……) most numerically represented. All these wagons are in the process of having the paintwork finished and being weathered.

So, from Left to right, we have a D1 9” sided 1 plank open wagon constructed from a Gladiator kit, a D43 Gunpowder van from a Furness Railway Wagon co kit and a D17a brake van from an unknown kit (the box is unlabelled) purchased at the O Gauge Guild's Telford exhibition about 17 years ago.

“Hang on a minute………..didn’t you say this layout was based in the 1890 – 1900 time frame?”

“Err, yes.”

“And you’ve modelled a D17A Brake van that wasn’t introduced until 1910?”

“Well, I err, got confused when I bought the kit as information on LNWR wagons was scant in 1998 and the internet wasn’t as informative. It wasn’t until I had built most of the kit I realised I should have bought a D16 van.”

This poses a conundrum.

- Should I finish the van in pre-1908 livery (no LNWR lettering and diamonds only) which the van would never have carried, but fits the time frame of the layout (would you have known it was wrong if I hadn’t told you?).

or

- Should I keep the integrity of the model and represent a livery it would have carried but would be out of the time frame of the rest of the layout?

I am leaning toward the latter, any thoughts out there?

The kit was my first resin kit and finished long after the instructions had been lost….so is best viewed from a distance.

Also I've just noticed I've got the chimney in the wrong place, I've drilled it central to the whole van, rather than central on the compartment.

The D1 was the most numerous of LNWR wagons, with 20,000 being built from 1859 to 1889 (almost 1 per route mile of railway) some surviving into LMS ownership. In the timeframe modelled the majority of the Railway companies were still building low side small capacity wagons.

The Gladiator kit goes together well with good quality castings, I just wish I could persuade them to sell the axle boxes separately.

I’ve used Haywood wheels which have the advantage of being supplied black, they are also appear slightly finer than the Slater’s alternative.

One of the buffers is slightly off as I didn’t drill the shank straight so I’ll probably have to replace these at a later date with sprung ones from the Heywood range.

I’ll wait until it annoys me sufficiently though.

I love these little vans, they are tiny. There is some debate about the colour but there seems to be common consensus that in the 1890 – 1900 period they would be painted vermillion. I’m not too sure the shade I’ve got here is correct, a bit orangey perhaps? I need to work out the way to do the lettering as this is quite small, and a lot of it. I sense an experiment with some decal paper in the future…..

The kit itself is a Furness Railway Wagon Company kit. It goes together quite well but to enable the embossing of the rivets the sides are very thin and require reinforcing with some struts of scrap brass. The punching out of the rivets by hand final drove me to buy a GW rivet punch. Believe me there are a lot of rivets on this wagon. Any offers to count……..?

Unfortunately I’ve been a bit heavy handed with the paint and this detail has been swamped a bit. I am hoping that once weathered the relief will become highlighted and the detail visible again.

If not it’ll be stripped back and repainted.

Anyway I’m still not sure about that red…………