The CR built 200 single bolster wagons to D37 in 1892. They had semi permanent shackle couplings, so effectively 100 twin wagons. There is a photo and a copy of the St. Rollox drawing in the wagon book, always a good place to start from.

Several people have asked me to give a more detailed account of the way I make wagons and fit compensation. Many may consider this to be teaching granny but this D 37 build will serve as an illustrated example and hopefully persuade folk  that it isn’t some mysterious art and can actually make wagon building simpler. Nor would I claim that this is the right or best method, it is just one that produces reasonable results for me.

I always start with wheels and W irons. These are from 51L and are generally accurate. However I always set the back to back with my gauge and put a drop of cyano on to lock it. All engineering components are toleranced and setting all your wheels with your own gauge reduces the chances of minor errors adding up. The W irons are 51L pre group type, very close to the CR drawing. I solder the waisted bearings and bridles in on the flat then fold them up with just a spot of solder to reinforce the joint.

The subchassis is a bit of single sided copperclad about 12 mm wide 1mm thick, length to suit the wagon and marked for the wheelbase, 9 foot in this case. The W iron baseplates are soldered to that giving a solid reasonably square sub chassis to work with. I also leave a small tab at the ends for the buffer spring and tin the centre parts to make fitting ajs simpler.  One of the baseplates has the side tabs folded up, thats the fixed end. The other is the rocking end, the W iron just rocks on the central pivots, simplest form of compensation.

A pair of bodies. The silhouette is very accurate, cutting 30 floor planks a scale 7” wide takes minutes. Sides ends and floor laminated up, I just use “Revell Contacta” cement which isn’t instant and allows a bit of adjustment. Making things 3 ply tends to resist warping, but weight well and allow a day of  drying time. Buffers are 51L castings drilled through 1 mm and glued on with cyano. I used the CR self contained buffer that is bottle shaped since those are shown on the photo, The drawing shows the heavy duty self contained type. I cant’t really say whether the whole build had either buffer so my pair is as the photo. As ever if anyone has more photos I’d be glad to be corrected.

Next step is getting the buffer height right. I appreciate that buffer heights vary a bit with load but from the modelling perspective it is good to get them all as close to the same height as possible particularly if you are actually pushing long trains back with them. So some 10 thou spacers cut and a brass weight on the wagon so the height can be adjusted to suit my 14 mm height gauge.

Spacers and sub chassis glued in place.  At the fixed end the spring hangers sit on the solebar. At the pivot end I tape a couple of bits of 10 thou to the solebars and sit the spring hangers on that. When removed that gives about 10 thou each way of rock which I find is sufficient. Note that the tabs holding in the W irons are straight, I give them a little twist to hold them in right at the end of the wagon build. Having them removable makes detailing and painting much easier.

The pair of wagons sitting on the track, a decent start. The spring hangers will be tweaked a bit once painted.

I hope that explains things. I use much the same method for scratchbuilt or kit wagons and I wouldn’t claim it to be a new method, many do things in a different but equally successful way.

Some detailing next.