I've been working on a lot of content over many years, and had released my first set of wagons for a railway simulator in the past couple. These utilized a shared 3D file library, where very common components such as axle boxes, axleguards, wheels, 9 and 10 ft. brakegears could be shared among the many different wagons, solebar-up. Then the components could be attached to points on the solebar, as to avoid including the exact same component, suppose RCH standard W-iron or Timken hooded bearings, in the 3D data file for the individual wagon. I would like to extend a hearty thanks to Justin Newitt (Rumney Models) for helping me out with some of the details of the wagons' underframes, and providing me with drawings and advice.

Now with the standard for computer graphics being raised high and fast, I have taken the opportunity to revisit my once-bland meshes* for the shared wagon components, and add much detailing to them. * A mesh is another term for the 3D data file or 3D object in computer space - I will be using this term alot. You can see my other "meshes" at my Flickr - https://www.flickr.com/photos/125881805@N02/ .

Here's a quick render for the day, a clasp-braked Conflat with an Insulmeat container. Obviously, everything except the solebar and body of the Conflat are un-textured, and everything seen is still a WIP. Yes, I am aware the back leaf suspension doesn't match the RCH 5-leaf spring of the front. Yes, the axleboxes don't match, as was the case on the real things, sometimes! Point is, I can go on and on about what is incorrect in this render, right down to the securing chains. All these errors will be put right at some point or another, and will hopefully bear fruit for railway simulation sometime. Come to think of it, I am not aware of an FM nor BM container that has been preserved, or at least restored yet. I believe the Mid-Hants has an ex-SR Insulmeat container (?).

Hopefully someone finds this interesting, my intentions are not to bore others to death! Another goal with these blogs would be to shed some light on wagons and their finicky yet fascinating details, as apart from a moderate (and tasteful) crowd on these forums, wagons don't get much of the limelight. I would appreciate some feedback as I am not well-versed with content creation blogs, and don't know who reads these, nor what they enjoy. Any critiques?

Regards

Ron