The JMA's i've been working on for some time on and off have reached this stage.

This wagon still needs three thin vertical stripes of blue adding, where it was welded and repainted along the lines of the hopper partitions, the NP logos have been painted out, with little care, as per the prototype. They also need some weathering, though not too much as the prototype seems to stay fairly clean.

These wagons have hit the buffers at the mo, the bogies, which in look are a reasonable representation do not run well enough for them to stay, they don't derail but create too much drag, with just 6 wagons behind a Hornby cl60 it was taking far too much effort; the whitemetal frames are not easy to get square as there are no proper flat edges to work to, plus the holes for the axles needed drilling quite a lot to accept the axles, all this resulted in bogies that looked square to the eye but no when run on a wagon, plus if you try to tweak the bogie frame, being whitemetal and thin, they snap quite easily! So i have begun soldering up bits of brass to make something free running, which seems to be working, now just in the process of getting various brass section to build a whole set of bogies, which will be built and tested as a rake before adding detail, some of which will also be revised.

Fancying a break from the JMA's, I decided to re-visit a project i'd started when the Dapol KIA came out in Tiphook Rail blue livery. Eventually I'd like to model a fairly accurate covered steel coil train, made up of BYA, KIA, JSA, IHA (canvas hood) and maybe FCA's with containerised coil loads, theres a way to go yet but at least 1 step closer with the KIA.

Dapols model, as purchased leaves a bit to be improved imo.

I don't usually get too involved with wagon mods unless there are major problems, but with these it straightaway looked like it needed new buffers, the plates Tiphook Rail is printed on ( and therefore transfers to re-transfer, and some of the ones Dapol missed ), lashing hooks and eyes, brake handwheels, couplings, bogies, probably other things i've missed too.

I've replaced all but the bogies, although Hurst did produce these in their kit of this wagon, they don't seem to be available separately so for the mo they're staying.

The lashing hooks and eyes are from Hurst, though i drilled out the existing eyes and only replaced those that i made a mess of.

Buffers are S-kits reverse pattern continental buffers, which look right, certainly better than what was there to start with.

Brake handwheels are from Colin Craig, i probably haven't done these etches much justice with my soldering skills but they improve the look of the wagon.

The main thing for me was the Tiphook Rail logo printed straight onto the bodyside, these needed changing so i contacted Scale Model Transfers to produce the transfers for these and the IHA, which is the same wagon from a different lessor. I've now got the transfers and was going to apply them to the strips shown in the pic above, however they look way overscale so i will be replacing with brass strip for a more scale appearance, so can't do much to these at the mo either, waiting for some bits of brass.

I'll prob start on a model of 56054 in transrail grey in the meantime, clog the workbench with another half-finished project!