One goal that I set myself after the last exhibition was to build a few sort of self contained items of rolling stock that could just be run up and down to a a bit of interest, You have already seen the 18 pounder gun and there is an 8 in howitzer on an F that you haven't seen yet but thought I would go for the conversion of a D class to an ambulance van. So I started off with this;

A Wrightlines D class that I picked up along with a load of bogie bits off Ebay recently. First thing to sory out though was the bogie mounting. The one the the kit comes with is absolute pants and this had been built asper plan. A much better option is to fit an 8 ba bolt down through the cross member but this does mean removing the ribs inside. Previously I have milled out this bit but had a brain wave and this time just bent them off with plier - far simpler! The bolt is then secured with a nut on the other side which provides good spacing for the bogie;

I only have this picture to go on for the conversion;

Which as it shows the drop down door open posed a problem. Although I am sure that the Wrightlines could be converted to have the door drop down, it would not be easy so suddenly though that I had an old PLM version that had seperate doors somewhere. After much searching I found this;

OK, seperate doors but they wouldn't open..... Here comes a bit of very careful soldering. First a small brass tube was soldered onto each end of the door, then a corresponding tube was soldered to the frame and a wire attached to the door only was soldered in. Much use was made of a black (although you can use any colour!), pemanent marker to ensure bits that didn't want to be soldered weren't stuck.;

Then the center posts, that am sure were in the original set of bits but long lost, were recreated and a small magnet fixed to the upight to mate with a bit of iron wire on the door to keep it in place. Ends were then made up from some basswood 'siding' of merky American origin and some upper sills fitted;

Then it was time to get out the plastic section to build up the frames for carring the streatchers and then a roof;

This is far as I can get at the moment as need to prime all the new bits (note masking of the frame that was already finished), but the grey primer I have at the moment is so smelly that I can't even get away with it in the spray booth in the cellar so will have to wait until tomorrow and do it outside. No worries though, I have another 'special' I can work on!