Last week I bought a job lot of GWR wagon kits from Ebay, containing 5 GWR open wagons of varying diagrams and a Parkside GWR Python.

While I have no photos showing Pythons on the cheddar branch, I'm sure I've read that they were used for parcels traffic. As such having one working in the carriage workings book containing an unspecified parcels van, I figured this little model would offer something a bit different to the standard bogie siphons (that will be out in force on the Strawberry traffic)

The kit appears to be fairly old, the roof being quite a poor fit on the body (surprising for parkside), it also included turned brass buffers which I havent seen on a parkside kit before. The instructions were very basic and have minimal prototype information, typically I havent bought my copies of the Russel books with me to Chester either. As such there may well be areas that need future rectification work. Please let me know if I miss something! The internet has rather let me down for reference photos as well...

As usual I will be using bill bedford sprung w irons, and as such the first job was to remove the ribs from the under side of the floor to clear space for the etch. The other modification was to remove the plastic w irons, and thin down the solebars to half thickness. Thankfully in a spot of very good design, the springs and axle box is a separate moulding (and so thinning the w irons was much quicker than the Fruit D!)

The body was glued together last night, and at the time it fell together in the usual parkside way. However this morning there was a very visable curve inwards on the sides. This was rectified with 2 off cuts of plastic from the spur, cut to the width of the wagon and glued in position. The roof will not be fitted until after painting to allow access for adding weight and glazing.

Once the sides were repaired, the sole bar was added along with the vac cylinder and inner V hangers.

Next step is going to be adding the new w irons, then the break gear and the trusing, though for the latter I am thinking of building from evergreen strip rather than the nylon supplied. (which will hold things up until I next bring bits up from home)

Glazing looks to be a pain, as it needs to be flush glazed. Given that I will only be having one of these, and each window is a different size I think the best approach will be the tedious method of filing plastic to shape...

Excuse the poor quality photos, taken on a phone with no flash.