As mentioned in the first post on this blog, I was underwhelmed by the wagons in set 60052. However, the previous cargo train set (set number 7939) had a tanker wagon in it that I had seen and thought was rather nice. Lego wagons crop up all the time on eBay, so, knowing that the cargo train set was coming I successfully bid on two auctions.

Here is the wagon, virtually as shipped in the 7939 set.

You can just about see from that picture that there are horizontal clips holding the side ladder in place at the bottom. These are additions, but the rest of it is built as it should be.

Octan is the Lego world's fuel company. They have an attractive corporate colour scheme: white, red and green. Over the years, Octan road tankers have appeared regularly, as have smaller trucks, and even Octan-sponsored racing teams.

I felt it was a bit plain and didn't like the free-flying ladders, so added the clips from my Lego bits box. I also added domes to the top under the filling caps and coloured discs to the plain wagon ends. The discs are visible in these pictures, which includes the first trundle around the track for the loco. As the wagons arrived before my birthday they were already built and waiting to be used.

However, I wasn't one hundred per cent happy with the modifications. Then I popped into my local Lego Shop and noticed they had green horizontal clips in the 'pick and mix' section. (I love the pick and mix section and have to fight the urge to fill a pot full of Lego pieces.) Realising these would be perfect clips for the tankers as they were 'Octan' green, I bought several.

This sequence of photos illustrates the issue with the tankers as supplied by Lego. Firstly there is no clip to hold the side ladder in place.

This means the ladders could swing up and down all crazy like.

It looks much better clipped. The hinge bracket at the top is green so the new green clips look great for the part.

In the above photo you can see my attempt to add some control / warning pressure dials to the wagon chassis. I bought these in the pick and mix too, but I didn't feel it really worked mounted there. I tried mounting it on a direction-change plate instead, but didn't like how it overhung the axle box.

So I gave up with the dials for now. In the pick and mix I'd also bought a load of white slatted 2x1 tiles. (2x1 refers to 2 Lego studs long by 1 stud wide - a tile is a thin piece of Lego with a smooth surface, as opposed to a plate that has studs on the top.) My wife refers to these as 'bathmats' and I thought they would be a useful addition to the top of the wagon to prevent Lego crewmen from slipping over.

I bought a decent amount of grills, so I also had enough to replace the round discs on the end of the wagon. These might not look prototypical, but they look a lot better than just four bare studs.

So, those are the two tankers in the freight fleet. I am happy with how they look and am planning on adding to their number to create a short 'rake'. In fact, one is on its way from eBay as I type this. I'm not sure what the maximum number a loco could pull, but for now I am happy with two and will be even happier with three.