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Some LNWR Wagons in 4mm Scale / 00 gauge


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Over the past couple of years I have built up a fleet of around thirty LNWR wagons in 4 mm scale, 00 gauge, mostly from Ratio and Mousa Models kits. They are intended to represent wagons as running c. 1903. The wagons that I am entering in the competition are ones which include some degree of modification from a Ratio kit, rather than being built straight out of the box.

 

For prototype information, I have chiefly relied on LNWR Wagons Vol. 1 (and recently, Vol. 3) and the wagon pages of the LNWR Society website. I should also acknowledge input from various LNWR experts on RMWeb, particularly Sandy Croall on ballast wagon livery and on wagon sheets.

 

With one exception, these wagons are built from the currently-available Ratio kits:

 

575 Permanent Way Wagons: two D62 ballast wagons and a D48 twin rail wagon pair;

 

576 LMS Traffic Coal & 4-Plank wagons: D54 10 ton coal wagon and D4/D9 open goods wagon;

 

570 LNWR / LMS Wagon Underframes.

 

The construction of all these wagons has been described on my RMWeb workbench topic.

 

Each kit will build one 15’6” over headstocks wagon and one 16’0” wagon (or two of each in the case of the P/W Wagons kit). An obstacle for the c. 1903 period is that there are only enough grease axleboxes for one wagon; oil axleboxes of the carriage type are provided for the other wagon. Apart from any other consideration, I think the latter were rare on wagons at any period. Two types of brakes are provided: the iron block, flap and push rod type (LNWR Wagons Vol. 1 Fig. 28) and the vee or double brake (LNWR Wagons Vol. 1 Fig. 31 but with the straight lever per Fig. 32 rather than the curved lever). As two sets of each are supplied, there’s no shortage of brake parts.

 

All my LNWR wagons are painted in Precision Paints NBR freight stock grey! It’s probably too dark a grey for a newly-painted wagon; lead-based grey paints darkened with exposure to atmospheric sulphur pollution but I’ve probably not got enough variation in shade. Lettering is a mixture of the waterslide transfers that come with the kit – valuable for numberplates, HMRS Pressfix, and some rub-down diamonds from Coast Line Models.

 

First up, a D1 1-plank wagon and a D2 2-plank wagon, both modified from the P/W kit:

 

post-29416-0-49599100-1546433214_thumb.jpg

 

These are shown part-way through construction to illustrate some of my bodges. The D1 is simply one of the D48 pair with the side height increased and end pillars added from 60 thou square plasticard; the corner plates are from 10 thou Plastikard with the rivets embossed using the point of a pair of compasses. The D2 is adapted from the D62 parts. The D62 was 16’0” long whereas the D2 was 15’6” long so 1 mm was removed from either end of the solebars and sides; the hinge detail was scraped off, corner plates added along with short pieces of 10 thou Microstrip to represent the bottom part of the side knees. Squares of 10 thou Microstrip represent the bolt heads along the curb rail. Neither wagon uses the Ratio axleboxes. The D1 has Coast Line Models’ 3D printed ones; the D2 has a cheaper home-made solution. This uses the spring and oil box base unit from the kit, with the bottom of the axlebox rounded off. New axlebox fronts are cut from 40 thou Plastikard; the LNW boxes have a very distinctive raised circle which I have tried to represent by pressing the blunt end of a 2 mm drill bit firmly onto the Plastikard while softening it with Mek-Pak. A square of 10 thou Plastikard represents the sloping lid of the box.

 

The D62 to D2 conversion falls down on the unequal width of the planks: on a D2 these are both 11” high. To disguise this, I’ve hidden the wagon under a sheet from Thomas Petith’s Model Wagon Sheet Company:

 

post-29416-0-96401900-1546433288_thumb.jpg

 

This is an attempt to model a sheet that has been secured along the sides using ties to the three eyelet tabs along the first seam on each side (sheets were made from five strips of material sown together lengthways). It seems that when sheets were secured this way, the sheet would be furled up - like the sheeted LNW D1 on the left of this enlargement from a photo taken at Birmingham Central Goods Station, probably in the 1890s.   

 

I think a better representation of a D2 is this one, with an entirely scratch-built body on the Ratio 15’6” underframe:

 

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A better conversion from the D62 ballast wagon is the D3 dropside wagon. The one on the right here is my first attempt – just cutting off the protruding tops of the end pillars. In the one on the left, I paid more attention to the detail differences:

 

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Most LNWR wagons had the characteristic quarter-circle cut-out at the end of the headstock; the D3 had straight-ended headstocks to act as door stops for the drop sides. These are represented by cutting back the headstocks in the kit and grafting on new ends from 60 thou Plastikard. The brake handle was bent to the new joggled shape by careful softening with Mek-Pak – it’s held so far!

 

The tare weights use the smallest size of numbers on the HMRS LNWR sheet, with the dots added in white paint using the end of a cocktail stick.

 

A rather more drastic kit-bash is by D12 dumb-buffered timber wagon, which includes parts of the D48 rail wagon. This wagon has 7’0” wheelbase, so the solebars are cut and spliced together, with the offcuts used to build up the dumb buffers:

 

post-29416-0-92617700-1546433403_thumb.jpg

 

The bolster was a stumbling block for a while, until John Redrup of London Road Models very kindly supplied me with the cast whitemetal one from his resin kit, along with the etch for the stanchions. I have yet to add the D-rings and chains:

 

 

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Emboldened by this, I’ve started a D13 twin timber wagon pair but I’m still working out how best to do the fixed coupling:

 

 

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The brakes on these wagons are cut about from the Ratio parts, following the photos and drawings in LNWR Wagons Vol. 1.

 

The 5-plank coal wagon in Ratio kit 576 represents the 10 ton D54, of which around 1,000 were converted from 1905 onwards from the much more numerous D53 4-plank 8 ton coal wagon. I’ve reversed the operation, making a D53 by cutting the top plank off all round, scraping off the diagonal ironwork and replacing with Microstrip:

 

post-29416-0-98114300-1546433503_thumb.jpg

 

I’ve done a couple of these; this one has the 3D printed grease axleboxes and the iron flap and push-rod brake. Here’s the completed model, alongside a D4 7 ton open wagon, built straight from the Ratio kit:

 

post-29416-0-78691100-1546433518_thumb.jpg

 

Next, a D62 ballast wagon, with the bodywork unmodified from the kit. I’ve added the leather or canvas flaps that stop grit getting into the running gear and also had-crafted a wooden brake block:

 

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This wagon is lettered for the Birmingham Division:

 

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I now think the B and D should be a little closer together; also I need to add B D to the end.

 

The D64 loco coal wagon was part of the original range released in the early 1980s; it came with the D54 coal wagon, while the D4/D9 4-plank wagon came with the D2 wagon; the D62 ballast wagon came with a D1. The D1 and D2 were discontinued long ago, though Mousa Models now do resin kits; there’s no current substitute for the D64 with its characteristic rounded ends. This one was a lucky Ebay find:

 

post-29416-0-54240100-1546433649_thumb.jpg

 

I’ve hacked around at the brake gear to produce a representation of the “toggle” brake arrangement characteristic of these wagons (LNWR Wagons Vol. 1 Fig. 30).

 

Here’s the finished D64 in a line up with my second D54-to-D53 conversion – this one featuring the vee brake with curved brake lever (more softening with Mek-Pak and cautious bending), more authentic for this type of wagon – a D54, also with the curved lever, the D4 open wagon again, and a D16 brake van:

 

post-29416-0-14837000-1546433664_thumb.jpg

 

The D16 is from the London Road Models kit built without any modification, though there’s still an open question as to whether the end windows at the verandah end were glazed. It was one of my first successes at soldering whitemetal, so I’m rather pleased with it. And one ought to end with a brake van!

 

 

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