The shock open progresses slowly. I cut down the ends, leaving some of the buffer beam behind to represent the floor.

The body was then assembled around a floor made of planked plastic sheet, as the drawing in BR wagons (and photos of the full length non-shock version of the prototype) show a wooden floor.

Finally, 40 plasticard was added underneath to represent the (quite thick) outside of the floor on these wagons. This was done in 3 sections to avoid having to cut out bits to clear the metal strapping.

It is now setting with some plastic spacers to keep the body from bowing inwards. The only real difficulty I found with this work was getting the 3 sections of each side to bond firmly back together, as they are very thin. I think I'll leave it for a few days to fully set, to avoid any warping in the future.

The LNER lowfit is now painted, and loaded with an LMS DX container that featured in it's unpainted form way back on the old site. LMS wagons suggests that these painted "slate grey" - the lettering is from various sources, but I did leave some of the smaller instructions off. My eyes went a bit wonky after doing the full LMS name using indvidual letters......

The two cattle wagons are done as well. Hopefully this picture shows the differences quite well - the one with modified strapping is on the left. I'm quite happy with these, even if Bachmann now do a RTR version. I must do a 12T van one day, and maybe a ferry van with an underslung "urine tank"