A slightly longer term project that has made some progress in the last week is a partially (well, mostly) scratchbuilt Shochood B. These seem mainly to have been used in conjunction with steel products (they were all initially branded 'Empty to' for Port Talbot or Newport (Mon) from new), and later many found their way into engineers service under the codename 'Dace'.

It's a wagon type I've always rather liked, and since Bartlett et al contains the drawings... Some time ago, when I was building a couple of Parkside 21T hoppers - one on a Bradwell etched chassis - I found myself with a suitable underframe which has been just that for about 18 months. In hindsight, the Parkside underframe for their fitted Grampus would be a better starting point, but there you go, they'll probably produce their own now... Most of the brake gubbins fitted (barring shoes and linkages since these are too easily damaged) along with couplings, buffers and so on, but only at the weekend did I start on the body.

40 thou' sides and floor allied to Parkside ends: the rest of the Parkside open will be converted to an SR pattern Shock with wooden ends at some later date. To this was added 15 thou' overlays with all the many rivets embossed by hand. I haven't bothered with the detail at the top of the sides since this will be hidden by the hood (which was a semi-permanent fixture on these wagons). This is just as well since the interiors of the prototype wre unusual as shown here, or here. I'll leave all that to those who want to model one after the engineers got their hands on 'em!

More, once progress is made.

Adam