I suppose it is inevitable that I would want railway containers to feature on the Boxfile. I've spent nearly all my working life involved with containerised seafreight, in one capacity or another, and in the 1950s railway containers were a significant part of British Railways freight traffic. Since it represents an urban goods depot, the Boxfile is heavily skewed towards van traffic and as I've said a couple of times recently my wagon fleet for the Boxfile is light in vans. So the remedy is obvious.

This all started with my efforts to sort out the unreliable running on the Boxfile, and the unhappy discovery that  much of the wagon fleet wasn't really  serviceable. Along the way I found out that both my Bachmann Conflat A and the homebrew Conflat V  were dodgy, and weight and wheel changes weren't  enough to cure them.

When I went rummaging in the modelling cupboard, one of the things I found in the box of wagon kits was a Parkside kit for an ex LNER Conflat S.

So I bit the bullet and decided that the Bachmann Conflat A would have to go -  meaning to reuse the Parkside BD container from the Conflat A on the Conflat S which was to replace it. The kit comes with an ex LNER DX open top container - these were pretty rare beasts and in BR days were only to be carried in Lowfits, since they were thought not to stand up to the stresses of chain restraints. (I do in fact have a Bachmann Lowfit body in stock and will ultimately build it as an ex LNER wooden underframe vehicle , as in Iain Rice's book, to carry the DX . That can be traffic to a London building site. I have a second DX kit in stock now, to provide an empty sat in the yard as an extra scenic detail . But this has been on hold till I found the brass strip, as the plastic lifting basrs are terribly fragile)

 But for various reasons the BD container wouldn't quite fit on the Conflat S. So I ended up buying a new Parkside Conflat A kit, and building the FM meat container out of that, which is slightly smaller and which will fit the Conflat S. In due course the Parkside Conflat A will be built and given a Bachmann AF insulated container froma pack of 4 I found while rummaging in the cupboard. See below... (The AF wouldn't quite fit the Conflat S either. Before you ask.)

The unloved BD was eventually found a home in a Dapol ex LMS 5 plank open , which had also shown a strong propensity to derail.  Tight, but after a little work, in it went... TI put lead inside the container when I originally built  so what was a lightweight open now weighs 50g. And suddenly the LMS open is running reliably . Result!

Here we see the Conflat S , awaiting couplings, final weathering and chains. Behind is the ex Hornby ex NER refridgerated van.

The Conflat A was a bit of a performance. In fact I ended up with a vehicle in which Messrs Parkside played only a limited role. I built the wagon - and then found that for reasons I can't quite understand the chassis was significantly and irredemably crooked. I can't remember when I last had a chassis so far out of true. Attempts to break out one solebar and adjust failed miserably , so the only way to sort the mess out was to cut away the plastic W-rons, fit etched compensated ones, and find a suitable spare solebar in the scrapboxes to replace the damaged one. Axleboxes and springs are ABS castings, as are the brake gear. Not that there is anything much wrong with the Parkside versions, but every scrap of weight is needed wherever you can with a Conflat.

here we have the result , unpainted , without couplings and no securing chains. The various whitemetal bits are obvious. Tierod is 0.045" wire

The container is one of the aforementioned pack of four AF insulated containers from Bachmann, finally finding a use. It's been stuffed with a decent amount of lead sheet. Another one these containers has become a sacrificial weathering test piece after a heavily diluted weathering wash removed much of the lettering on one side. White is a nasty weathering job without an airbrush.

The surplus Bachmann Conflat A  was then reworked as a service vehicle carrying wagon bogies, in line with some photos on Paul Bartlett's site. These carrier TOPS codes FAV ior ZVV and were also used by Derby Works for carrying DMU bogies. I contemplated some ex Triang Metro-Cammell DMU bogies in the box and thought "perhaps not". So my wagon carries a GW-type plate bogie - one of the wretched original bogies off the Cambrian Walrus I built some years ago, which are almost impossible to build square. Wheels are the Gibsons out of the Parkside Conflat A kit, which I replaced with Hornby wheels. Baulks are bits of balsa, securing chains are spare bits of the Ambis etches left after I had fitted securing chains to my replacement Conflat A / AF container (seen finished, behind) . The wagon is now fitted with Kadees , but requires new TOPS codes applying. It can now be used as a Loco Dept / engineers wagon on Blacklade, at least occasionally.

All of which means I now have a reasonable fleet of Conflat wagons, which can do a job or work, instead of falling off.

I have only one problem still remaining- this:

Or at least the semi-scratchbuilt Conflat V on the right . Bachmann container - the original load of their Conflat A - Red Panda chassis, spare Parkside floor and the edging/chain pockets scratchbuilt Despite an attempt to improve matters by melting in one of the bearings to give a little rock ("bastard compensation") it still falls off. It's currently sat on the bookcase , pending further thought. I'm not even sure if there's still a slot to squeeze it into in the stock boxes

The old Ratio MOGO on the left is fine. That one's never given any trouble in its years of use.