Jules' workbench - 2-axle ballast wagon upgrades

[Scottish Modeller]

Hi Jules,

 

I've been following your wagon works with interest - I've done the same conversions/detailing in 4mm in the past as you have.

 

Now I'm starting to do the same in N gauge!

 

Thanks

Phil H

[railtec-models]

10 hours ago, Scottish Modeller said:

Hi Steve,

 

Can we get this one in N as well please!

 

Just part  way through doing a batch of 10 NGS (ex TPM) MKA/ZKA and need more than are covered by the NGS decal sheet as I will have a 2nd batch of 10 to do shortly.

 

Thanks

Phil H

 

Ok

[railtec-models]

11 hours ago, Dungrange said:

Is that for the original MHAs (as per the Hornby model), the later builds (as per the S-Kits resin body and the Accurascale ones), or both?

 

Hi David, it'll be both, as I'm guessing others might find them useful too. Hopefully. They won't appear overnight though, simply because of the tedious amount of research and careful designing that goes into making them look authentic. Not so great for quick releases, but surprisingly therapeutic!

[Departmental203]

Ah the perils of uni life! Almolst 4 months since my last update and I don't have a mountain of stuff to show! Anyway, I'll jump straight in and present the wee bit I managed to get done

 

Turning to the underframe (the bufferbeam area specifically) of my maroon "Shed" 66111, the first job was to cut away the extra lashing eyes. On most EWS/DB 66's the left two aren't there (to clear the coupling arm) but for some reason, 66111 is one of the oddballs which retains the top one on the left side. Unaware of this, I cut both the left lashing eyes only to have to add one back on! They all had a 0.7mm hole drilled through to represent the real thing a bit better.

 

Goes without saying my "mishap" is the one in white, which was made from 60thou plasticard. The knuckle coupling assembly (the knuckle head is Bachmann's, the rest was done by me a few years ago) is too high on this end and I sort this out later, as well as the very thick paint on the light clusters.

 

Given the state of the ends at this point, I had to do some repainting, the yellow is Humbrol 69 Yellow (not a perfect match for Bachmann's but decently close enough) and the black is just Tamiya XF-1 Matt Black, all varnished with Humbrol Satincote.

 

The next job was scratchbuilding the coupling levers (I think EWS/DB Bachmann Class 66's have a pair in the detailing packet but mine didn't!) which was soldered up from 0.6mm diameter copper wire and painted with Humbrol 69.

 

 

One problem I had for years was one of the bogie steps on the model was broken (a 3-foot drop speaks for itself!!) so I wanted to sort it out while I had the soldering stuff out, so using a strip of brass shaped until it was 2mm wide and 0.4mm thick, I fettled one up. Despite my terrible soldering skills, I think this will pass!

 

At the same time, as I ended up breaking one of my brake pipes while stripping down the ends to help with the repainting, I made my own from 0.8mm copper wire with 0.2mm silver wire wrapped on the top to form the tap and lever. The photo below shows the pipes without any solder on them

 

 

Then, I'd flood the tap part and the bottom part with solder to give these bits more bulk and a lot of filing later they were ready to paint, with the finished result below. You can also see the finished step

 

 

The black on the pipes is Tamiya XF-85 Rubber Black which actually gives a decent representation of rubber and I recommend it! The red and yellow were just Humbrol acrylics.

 

With these details soldered up, they were fitted onto the model with superglue and here's a shot of the bogie with my scratchbuilt step added. Well it's at least better than half a step!

 

 

Back to the coupling which I mentioned earlier, I had to remove my old mounting assembly to be able to position it correctly, so I knocked up a new one from plastic rod and strip, and some copper wire to add some rigidity and to use as a mounting pin. Basically the same process I did a few years ago, I did this so the buffers would retract properly without the coupling getting in the way.

 

 

With this coupling painted and installed, the bufferbeam detailing was done and I can now focus on getting the cab interiors painted and various other wagon projects on the go. The finished result can be seen below

 

 

Before I conclude, I mentioned about the light clusters having a thick layer of paint on it. It turns out that they are made from black plastic so using a knife I scraped off the black paint, followed by the yellow paint underneath to get to black plastic! I unfortunately lost the bolt detail on the clusters but imo the result looks better than overly thick paint. The surface of the clusters were polished with increasing grades of sandpaper and micro mesh to eliminate the scratches left by the knife and afterwards, I painted on a white line to represent the marker light. I'm no electronics wizard, so I decided this was good enough!

 

Well, we have once again hit the festive season (time slips away!) so I wish all my readers and followers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

 

Jules

[EWS60065]

Nice detail work on that shed, will you be weathering it?

[Departmental203]

15 hours ago, EWS60065 said:

Nice detail work on that shed, will you be weathering it?

 

Thanks for the kind comment EWS60065!

 

Well I hope to eventually get around to weathering it at some point but I don't have an airbrush so this will put me off to getting round to it! I still have to varnish the body and I'm having to wait until a warm day comes so I can get the spraycan varnish out!

 

Jules

[EWS60065]

59 minutes ago, Departmental203 said:

 

Thanks for the kind comment EWS60065!

 

Well I hope to eventually get around to weathering it at some point but I don't have an airbrush so this will put me off to getting round to it! I still have to varnish the body and I'm having to wait until a warm day comes so I can get the spraycan varnish out!

 

Jules

Yeah of course, looking forward to the finished thing and Happy Christmas 

[Jack374]

Looking good Jules, very nice work on your scratchbuilt steps, pipes and coupling gubbins! Your soldered steps look very accurate to the original moulding.

 

Merry Christmas!

 

Jack.

[Departmental203]

Well what can I say? It's been over 6 months since the last update.....hmmm!😲

 

I have to admit railway modelling has been on the back burner over this period with the reality of university and also chasing real trains.....has now become a hobby in its own right! With uni over for the summer hopefully some progress will be made!

 

The (mostly idle) project sitting on my workbench for this time was a pair of Bachmann MTA's numbered 395083 and 395161 (latter was a renumber) which were awaiting new parabolic springs to replace the incorrect leaf springs as supplied on the model and something that any engineers wagon needs in my opinion is a good dose of weathering, which also took a mere 6 months!

 

Removing the moulded springs involved some careful work with a scalpel and side cutters before some very nice whitemetal replacements from Stenson Models were glued into place.

 

Before

 

......and after! Must say they do make a difference and well worth the effort

 

With the springs attached, the weathering slowly built up until the chassis looked like this:

The underframes were plastered with my now standard "road dirt" mix of Humbrol 29 Dark Earth with a dash of Humbrol 62 Leather and dry brushings of lighter shades of muddy brown, rust and even light grey (Humbrol 147, to represent stone dust) were added to break up the uniformity. 395161 in particular had a large buildup of stone dust around one W iron which was copied on the model. Oil stains using Humbrol 27004 Gunmetal were applied in strageic places and some was poilshed to give an oily sheen. Once complete, matt varnish was used to seal the weathering in and the wheels were given the Humbrol 29 treatment.

 

The same "road dirt" mix was brushed on to the bodies and partially taken off but intentionally left in some areas such as the side capping to represent heavy dirt deposits. Once dry, some light grey and rust was drybrushed in streaks so the bodies weren't boring and uniform! All of this was sealed with some matt varnish to finish.

 

The finished models are shown below however, 395161 is back on the workbench to sort out erratic running and given the current pace, how long will that be?🤔😅

 

 

I also have been working on the layout over the last month or so, hopefully a (much needed!!!!) update will be on the way soon and I'm also dabbling in some other odd projects as well so watch this space.....I guess!

 

Thanks for reading

 

Jules

[EWS60065]

Only just seen this. Great work on the MTAs, captured that distinctive colour well. They will look even better with some ballast load in. Looking foward to seeing more on the layout too. 

[Departmental203]

On 19/07/2022 at 08:34, EWS60065 said:

Only just seen this. Great work on the MTAs, captured that distinctive colour well. They will look even better with some ballast load in. Looking foward to seeing more on the layout too. 

 

Hi again EWS60065, thanks for the kind words there mate! To be honest, the colour I used for weathering the bodywork has settled to be my go to colour for road dirt, it's mostly Humbrol 29 with a little bit of Humbrol 62. Of course how much Humbrol 62 I put in depends on how dark the final colour becomes and I find that experimentation is the name of the game!

 

Oh and by the way, good job with your wagons too! Look forward to seeing some more!

 

Jules :)

 

[EWS60065]

2 hours ago, Departmental203 said:

 

Hi again EWS60065, thanks for the kind words there mate! To be honest, the colour I used for weathering the bodywork has settled to be my go to colour for road dirt, it's mostly Humbrol 29 with a little bit of Humbrol 62. Of course how much Humbrol 62 I put in depends on how dark the final colour becomes and I find that experimentation is the name of the game!

 

Oh and by the way, good job with your wagons too! Look forward to seeing some more!

 

Jules :)

 

No worries. I tend to use Vallejo because they brush really well but the colours are a bit random/not railway related. Yours looks a good match. 

Thanks, I have 7 MHA/MFAs to be cracking on with

[saxokid]

On 13/06/2022 at 21:35, Departmental203 said:

Well what can I say? It's been over 6 months since the last update.....hmmm!😲

 

I have to admit railway modelling has been on the back burner over this period with the reality of university and also chasing real trains.....has now become a hobby in its own right! With uni over for the summer hopefully some progress will be made!

 

The (mostly idle) project sitting on my workbench for this time was a pair of Bachmann MTA's numbered 395083 and 395161 (latter was a renumber) which were awaiting new parabolic springs to replace the incorrect leaf springs as supplied on the model and something that any engineers wagon needs in my opinion is a good dose of weathering, which also took a mere 6 months!

 

Removing the moulded springs involved some careful work with a scalpel and side cutters before some very nice whitemetal replacements from Stenson Models were glued into place.

 

Before

 

......and after! Must say they do make a difference and well worth the effort

 

With the springs attached, the weathering slowly built up until the chassis looked like this:

The underframes were plastered with my now standard "road dirt" mix of Humbrol 29 Dark Earth with a dash of Humbrol 62 Leather and dry brushings of lighter shades of muddy brown, rust and even light grey (Humbrol 147, to represent stone dust) were added to break up the uniformity. 395161 in particular had a large buildup of stone dust around one W iron which was copied on the model. Oil stains using Humbrol 27004 Gunmetal were applied in strageic places and some was poilshed to give an oily sheen. Once complete, matt varnish was used to seal the weathering in and the wheels were given the Humbrol 29 treatment.

 

The same "road dirt" mix was brushed on to the bodies and partially taken off but intentionally left in some areas such as the side capping to represent heavy dirt deposits. Once dry, some light grey and rust was drybrushed in streaks so the bodies weren't boring and uniform! All of this was sealed with some matt varnish to finish.

 

The finished models are shown below however, 395161 is back on the workbench to sort out erratic running and given the current pace, how long will that be?🤔😅

 

 

I also have been working on the layout over the last month or so, hopefully a (much needed!!!!) update will be on the way soon and I'm also dabbling in some other odd projects as well so watch this space.....I guess!

 

Thanks for reading

 

Jules

Great looking work on these wagons Jules😀

[Departmental203]

Good afternoon everybody

 

Good news!

 

My MTA which had running issues (395161) is back on the road after wrestling with brass bearings and wheelsets....but that's not the reason why I'm posting here!

 

Since the two MTA's, stuff on the workbench was shoved onto the back burner as I turned my attention on the layout but I have made some progress with some of the usual and some things I'm not usually fettling with....

 

To start off with the latter, I was fashioning some bogie sandpipes and sandbox fillers on a pair of Hornby Class 60 bogies. The "Tug" itself was a real bargain that I picked up for a very respectable £70 at the Glasgow model show back in February but as almolst expected with such finds, a fair few detail parts were (and still are) missing!

 

To replace the missing (or broken) bogie parts, the sandbox fillers were made from a short stub of Evergreen 2mm rod and the sandpipes were made by soldering two bits of 0.6mm wire together after many, many attempts!

 

 

 

Not a 100% match to the Hornby moulding but I recon it'll still pass!

 

The eventual aim is that the Class 60 will go into Colas colours but the running number is yet to be decided. Ach, I think getting an airbrush is the first concern!!!!

 

Staying on the theme of bogies, another long term plan of mine is to model 37610 in its final years with DRS with cast bogies but Bachmann only do the fabricated type. So, for the bogies from my model of 37411, the casting lip came off quite nicely with a scalpel blade but so did many of the brake actuator pipes!😅 Replacement ones were made from 0.5mm brass wire which in retrospect is fairly over scale but then again, so are the Bachmann ones.

 

Little details added onto the bogies were a speedometer cable (one bogie only), the one axlebox that has a protruding part which is a feature on 37610 (and a few other 37's) built from two diameters of plastic rod on the left on the top bogie of the 2nd pic and the funny looking bits on the corner of the cast 37 (and Deltic) bogies built using 10 thou plasticard, if anybody knows what these are I'm all ears!

 

 

To finish the bogies off, I painted all of the details using photos of 37610 as a guide with acrylics, a fine brush and a steady(ish) hand!

 

 

The hope for 37610 is that I can buy another Bachmann 37 with the correct nose grills (dividing bar on drivers side, none on the secondmans side) and swap chassis with my model of 37411 which has nose grills with dividing bars on all 4 cabsides (even though it's incorrect for the real 37411, we'll save the rant for later....)

 

The final bogie related thing for this update is for my old Hornby 156, I felt the trailer bogies in buchered form would lose grip of the wheelsets over time so I looked to get the Stenson's etched "Sprinter" type bogie frames only to discover that the website had shut itself down! (all OK now as their products are on the Will's Workbench shop, wishing Phil and co all the best for the future of thier range)

 

By complete surprise, A1 Models had a range going through eBay and they had an etching to build 8 bogie frames (4 trailer cars in total) for £7.95 which I felt was a steal! Little hesistation was made in the purchase and it came a few days later. If you want to see what A1 is selling right now, plese click here👈.

 

They were simple to solder up, even the bearings posed little hassle and that's saying something even for my poor soldering skills! The wheels used were 12mm ones from Bachmann sold as a pack of 10, I felt that was the best route to represent Sprinter wheels and also be easy to have pickups on.

 

 

 

Once assembled, the bottom of the bogie frames was filed at an angle to match the Hornby sideframes as seen on the example to the right. And the example to the left demonstrates my clumsy soldering!

 

The expectation was to glue the Hornby sideframes onto the frames with superglue and paint the brass parts black and away they went. However, after gluing the Hornby sideframes, they popped out as soon as the wheelsets went in so looks like I need to come up with a plan B! I'm thinking of gluing them with epoxy to give a stronger and slightly more flexible bond but right now, they're as separate bits.

 

Back to more familiar territory, work re-commenced on one of my Hornby MHAs which suffered from a broken brake lever guide. Re-kindling my inspiration for this wagon, I decided to portray one from the early batch with original font EWS lettering and script lettering data panel and after a trawl through my growing wagon photo collection, a candidate was found in the form of 394036.

 

Just like the MHA I did about a year ago, I stuck on worksplates and fitted the fiddly brackets in the middle of the wagon which I believe are related to the door mechanism back when the wagons were HAAs?

 

 

With the axleboxes and details painted, I contacted Railtec and used their new custom wagon data panel to get exactly what I was hoping for and a spare thrown in for good measure! All within 3 days of ordering which resulted in one happy customer! If you want a custom data panel, simply email them after your order with all of the content you want in the data panel (number, tare weight, TOPS code etc) and if you can, provide a picture of what you're going for and hit send. Much easier than fiddling about with digital drawing software!

 

 

 

With the decals in, the wagon was matt varnished and now its ready for a good dose of what every engineers wagon needs which is weathering!

 

Well that's that for this update! I do have two projects under wraps for now which I hope to present sooner rather than later.

 

Until then, happy modelling!

 

Jules

[EWS60065]

Hi there, hope you're doing well. Any updates on this or on Torness yard? 

[ess1uk]

Great job 

[Departmental203]

On 16/02/2023 at 11:15, EWS60065 said:

Hi there, hope you're doing well. Any updates on this or on Torness yard? 

 

Hello there EWS60065, thanks for the kind remark and apologies for the super late reply (!) 😅

 

Despite appearances, I have been alive and well with uni with a bit of modelling thrown in for good measure but I have lost my mojo with RMWeb as the course of adult life starts to take hold hence the absence of updates.

 

Torness Yard hasn't really progressed much further from where it was in the last update but I have bought a few things for it in the Glasgow show three weeks ago so watch this space!

 

I hope to post an update here soon which mainly involves the light detailing of a Hornby 66 for a friend of a friend which is nearly done as I speak, after a few finishing touches it should be off my hands soon. One valuable lesson is don't accept another person's project without thinking as it can really eat away from your own projects!

 

Take care and I hope to hear about your wagon musings, which I'm sure you have plenty of!

 

Jules

[EWS60065]

15 minutes ago, Departmental203 said:

 

Hello there EWS60065, thanks for the kind remark and apologies for the super late reply (!) 😅

 

Despite appearances, I have been alive and well with uni with a bit of modelling thrown in for good measure but I have lost my mojo with RMWeb as the course of adult life starts to take hold hence the absence of updates.

 

Torness Yard hasn't really progressed much further from where it was in the last update but I have bought a few things for it in the Glasgow show three weeks ago so watch this space!

 

I hope to post an update here soon which mainly involves the light detailing of a Hornby 66 for a friend of a friend which is nearly done as I speak, after a few finishing touches it should be off my hands soon. One valuable lesson is don't accept another person's project without thinking as it can really eat away from your own projects!

 

Take care and I hope to hear about your wagon musings, which I'm sure you have plenty of!

 

Jules

Completely understandable, keeping up a thread does take a lot of time. 

I can sympathise with you there about taking on that 66 project - I offered to detail and weather a pair of Hornby TTAs for a friend which although was an enjoyable process, did take a a whole year and a fair bit of time! 

[Departmental203]

So........it has been a little while!

 

Last year has been a very wild one for me, long story short, I wasn't in the best place mentally for the first half of the year with the addition of a rather late autism diagnosis, so the modelling took a back seat when faced with these complications. Fortunately, with support from good friends and family, I've managed to climb out of the woods.

 

The question is, does that mean a return to RMWeb? Yes and no, as although my modelling mojo has returned and my close friend has a real passion into model railways, last year was also a period of self discovery, realising that life isn't just about railways and model trains, but also finding your passions and building solid friendships among other things.......in short, I'll make a limited return to this platform, posting updates and replies whenever I have the time and energy to do so and asking the sages for help!

 

As sentimental as it sounds, the biggest takeaway for me last year was to take care of yourself, even the ol' b**tard you call "you" isn't wrong all the time!

 

A quick phone grab reveals what's been on the bench for the past few nights, more to be revealed shortly (although I will not make you go through everything that I did but didn't mention in 2023!). If you made it this far, dear reader, I sincerely appreciate it.

 

 

Stay safe (and sane!) and happy modelling!

 

Edit: ta for all the reactions, nice surprise on a Monday afternoon! Tomorrow will be a return to uni so understandably it won't be a grand return but still plan to update given a spare hour or two

Edited January 15 by Departmental203

[EWS60065]

Great to see you back, I look foward to seeing more posts no matter how infrequent you think they might be! 

[Departmental203]

On 13/01/2024 at 14:01, EWS60065 said:

Great to see you back, I look foward to seeing more posts no matter how infrequent you think they might be! 

 

Thanks for that bud, it does mean a lot to me although in general, the past few years have been testing times for all of us so it's great we're seeing some common decency unlike other places online 🤢

 

Also, I did check what you've been up to over the past few months, that is some impressive work especially with the rail carrier wagons but the humble SAA is what impressed the most.....I did a Hornby OAA a while back and regulated its old underframe into the bin thinking it was completely unusable, not so fast!

 

Jules

[richierich]

Did you progress the bogies for the 156 Sprinter?

[Departmental203]

On 22/01/2024 at 15:47, richierich said:

Did you progress the bogies for the 156 Sprinter?

 

Hi Rich, if I'm going to be honest, I've parked the Class 156 project for the short to medium term, after realising how much of a faff it was getting the underframe rebuilt, putting on new bogies and rewiring the thing to take lights.....in the wake of uni and the various other things a twenty-something gets up to, it feels more and more I've bitten off more than I could chew! 🙃

 

However, I do plan to revisit it given more time and confidence as I feel it would be a shame to leave the partially converted model to rot, as despite the Realtrack one, the Lima/Hornby 156 is still a nice model ignoring the underframe 🤔

 

Over the past year that I've been away, a few things have happened, most notably I've managed to (finally) get airbrushes and a compressor, the latter being the Sparmax Arism Mini, which isn't the most powerful around but won't be a pain in the @rse to carry around! I haven't used them much aside from some basic practice so hopefully with the more clement months on the way, some of my long awaited repaint projects can happen....trying not to make too many promises here!

 

Modelling wise, I've been progressing on two Coalfish, both on Hornby chassis with an early bodied variant (394116) just needing some weathering and another one of my scratchbulit later bodied ones getting through the painting stage with a hope to get it ready for weathering by the time MRS comes around next month.

 

 

The maroon is almost complete and for those that don't know, Rainbow Railways now do enamel paint to the same formula as Railmatch (I believe they're made in the same factory) with a large jar like this for £4.10 which is good value for money for 2024 😁 only caveat is it's thin so either you have to build up 8+ coats if you're brushing or put a similar coloured basecoat of Humbrol or Revell. I'll do the latter from now as it's a faff sanding the paint after 4 coats and then having to put on 4 more to compensate! Otherwise, this paint has been really nice to work with and I've even avoided problems with stuck lids which was my real annoyance with Railmatch in the past.

 

My "other" significant update is I decided to use Kadee auto couplings for my locos and outer rakes of rolling stock, as they allow the mounting of (nearly) full bufferbeam detail on my locos whilst being able to handle tight curves and bouncy trackwork (I now look in horror at my 14 year old self's woodwork and decision to use Sundella.....)

 

 

Loco wise, these are the only two I've converted so far, using the #141 long underset couplings so they can clear the bufferbeams and for anyone looking to mount Kadees to their locos directly to their chassis, these are the couplings to go for. I have realised I'm going to have to get creative with my 47 and fleet of 37s, so if anyone has advice in fitting Kadees on them, I'm all ears!

 

 

I kept it simple (and frugal) for my wagons by going for NEM mounted ones for them and I'll only convert my "outer" wagons in a rake, swapping them around at times to introduce some variety. These are the ones I've converted so far.

 

The exception to that rule is my FNA nuclear flask wagons, given that the trains for them are short and for flexibility, I've put Kadees on both ends on my models, including these bad boys that came from Rainbow Railways in November 😁

 

 

I have two of these, from Revolution as they're a bit cheaper than the Accurascale versions and detail wise, there's not much between the two. The self centring coupling mechanisms had a bit too much slack for me (the centring springs are no thicker than a human hair) so they were taken out for possible reuse and some old Kadee #46 couplings I got cheaply from eBay took their place. They really do look the part behind my Dapol 68, kudos to Revolution and Rainbow Railways for these!

 

I know that this isn't much to show after a year away but it was a break that I really benefitted from and sometimes, you need to know when to pause on something as burnout can be a real killer for motivation. I do hope to keep updating as projects continue on but sometimes, I need to remind myself that I'm a guy with a hobby with other things going on in life, as the old quote goes, it's a hobby, not a job!

 

Happy modelling all!

 

Jules

 

[EWS60065]

Great little update, nice to see another kadee user. I've found I can fit more detail on locos too as you say, although I do often have to cut off the bottom half of any pipes or they get in the way of the coupler. Good to see you're still getting on with your scratchbuilt Coalfish, I think I would have given up and got an Accurascale one if I was you so I admire your determination! 

[Departmental203]

19 hours ago, EWS60065 said:

Great little update, nice to see another kadee user. I've found I can fit more detail on locos too as you say, although I do often have to cut off the bottom half of any pipes or they get in the way of the coupler. Good to see you're still getting on with your scratchbuilt Coalfish, I think I would have given up and got an Accurascale one if I was you so I admire your determination! 

 

Thanks bud, so far, it's only the 56 and 68 that have been converted and I've managed to fit all of the pipes on those. Currently I have a Hornby 60 and Bachmann 66 waiting the conversion, as both have valences, they'll need some surgery to take the couplings but I hope to have the piping on them.

 

The challenge will doubtless be my 37s due to the very restricted space beneath the bufferbeam. I have seen successful Kadee conversions for them with even the snowploughs retained which would be the ideal but perhaps that would restrict functionality over curves? As my fiddle yard has 2nd radius curves, it does stretch the couplings a fair bit.....

 

 

This image was taken from an archived thread here somewhere but illustrates the effect I hope to go for. Can anybody shed some light on doing such a conversion and would it be able to take tight curves? 

 

The two late build Coalfish conversions have been quite enjoyable in my opinion as it's a fairly simple scratchbuild and both donor chassis came from fairly beat up HAA/CDA hopper wagons so it was nice to be able to breathe some life into some aging but still solid wagon donors! Yes, they're not as detailed/accurate as the Accurascale versions but knowing that they've been rescues done on the cheap gives me enough justification 😉 a future project would be one of the ex MAA versions as that would be something unique in the growing fleet of 2 axle spoil wagons......

 

Jules