As mentioned in may last post a some major work and home projects have been completed which meant that a much needed holiday was due. This was supposed to be spent up in Scotland, but a two week forecast of rain and gales put paid to that. So we ventured South West to Cornwall instead and found much better hot sunny weather.

As I also said in the last post not much has happened on NMR, so I managed to sneak some wagon kits into the campervan to make while on holiday; well I think building a kit is a bit like a reading a book on holiday - nice and relaxing.

So after nice long evenings spent watching the sun set into the sea I came back with the following competed kits (excluding painting):

1. 
    
   
2. LNER 12 Ton Low Sided 'Lowfit' Wagon - Parkside
   
3. BR Vanwide VEA Air brakes Wagon - Parkside
   
4. LMS/BR 16 Ton Steel Mineral Wagon - Cambrian
   
5. Class B Tank Wagon BP Wagon - Dapol
   
6. 20 Ton Cement Wagon - Dapol
   
7. BR FM and BR BD Containers - Parkside
   

These all came out of my stock pile, a draw full of wagon kits from all the different manufactures just to try them all out to see which one is the best, easy to build etc.

I would say that Parkside and Cambrian were all round very good; no flash, easy instructions and went together well. Both came with steel wheels and brass bearings.

The Dapol was not so good, although there were good instruction and there was a high level of detail on the Cement wagon when compared to the recent Bachmann RTR, but the level of flash, bowed and brittle parts meant that a lot of trimming a had to be done and lots of the finer parts kept snapping. Both kits came with only plastic wheels with steel axles, no brass bearings. (Note - these kits were about 4-5 years old)

So, RTR verses kit build? Well obviously RTR quality is now 1st class. A kit brings much enjoyment and relaxation in the building. So as I like building wagons but I am also prepared to buy RTR, I think from now on I will focus my kit building on those wagons not in current RTR production, like the VEA.

Here are some picture of the wagons built.

Bachmann Presflo vs Dapol Cement - Side View

Bachmann Presflo vs Dapol Cement - End View

LNER Lowfit and BR Vanwide VEA

Class B Tank and LMS/BR 16 Ton Steel Mineral

BR FM and BR BD containers.

I intend to use the two containers along with the Ratio Provender Store kit (the next build) to create an sort of railway engineering/PWay/S&T compound which will be just behind the signal box. These will be made to look run down and very aged, I hope.

On with the baseboard and track build next...