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GWR Aero Wagon, Genesis Ramp Wagon Build


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Well after years or reading everyone else's posts I thought I would take the plunge and show a couple of my builds, these being two Genesis Ramp Wagons to go along with the DOGA Warflats I made a little while back. The kit's looks pretty decent and seeing as Genesis seems to have stopped trading it was a good thing I picked a couple up last week online. 

 Warflat.jpg.4ef3ac1705235a017319e1760316ae93.jpg

 

1332050084_RampWagon2.jpg.d258f4030e7cc17d04102b23030505b5.jpg

 

This is what the kit looks like and it doesn't look like it will be too stressful. The only bits that will need any work will be the top deck and the two axle sides as being pewter they are rather bent, most probably from the post as they where sent in a jiffy bag!

 

605447806_RampWagon3.jpg.def0a72236f890d30d1987b2d7177f35.jpg1408903294_RampWagon4.jpg.b25b2d413fc2d46aab4500f6e45b9317.jpg

 

 

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They literally popped up on Ebay, I've always thought about them but never seen them at shows and at the time I didn't have any warflats. Then last week someone listed them buy it now so jumped on them, glad I did as I only found out a couple of days ago that they aren't made anymore.

 

I'm sure they will pop up again at some point though, if not hopefully the moulds will be bought by someone else to start production again. 

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46 minutes ago, WD1995 said:

... I thought I would take the plunge and show a couple of my builds, these being two Genesis Ramp Wagons ...

 

Before you start the build, check a few dimensions - especially the width of the deck.

 

I built a Genesis bogie armor plate wagon and, when I had finished it, I felt that something wasn't quite 'right'. Checking the model against a drawing, it was evident that the width was overscale by a couple of millimetres.

 

In conversation with the then-proprietor of Genesis I mentioned this, and he said that it was intentional. The kits had been designed for a friend who used Hornby Dublo stock, and he'd asked for the kits to match Hornby Dublo models - so they'd been made overwide!

 

I wish that I'd known this before I built the kit - it would have been easy to remove 1mm. from either side of the deck, but now the model is solder-assembled and painted, the only practicable way to narrow it is to take 2mm. out of the centre of the deck, and construct new bogie pivots.

 

John Isherwood.

Edited by cctransuk
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3 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

Before you start the build, check a few dimensions - especially the width of the deck.

 

Thank you John, fortunately for me the width matches perfectly with the warflats I have. I'm sorry to hear about the issues you have had with your wagon, I would never have thought they where designed to run with dublo stock. 

 

I've started to crack on with the build, so far I've

- Very gently bent the pieces straight again 

- Cleaned up all the edges 

- Drilled the 2mm holes and placed in the bearings 

- Dry fitted the solebars to the underside and realised they are a few mm too long, I've trimmed these both down from the same end so they are flush with the locating strips at either end. 

- The strips mentioned above are to locate the buffer beam and the width between the solebars, this is left intentionally wide so it can be trimmed to the desired measurement. I have trimmed it down on one side by 1mm for now and glued on the solebar. I will work the other side out when it has dried and I can match it up with the wheelsets I have. 

 

677759153_RampWagon5.jpg.b69cec8698883e2569786c052eb72764.jpg

 

While that is drying I have tidied up the buffers and glued them into the relevant holes on the buffer beams provided. I have left the stalks sticking out the rear of the buffer beams and after they dry will cut them off and tidy it up.

2013036697_RampWagon6.jpg.bf10f54b8aa8ad81bdbbcef1ed923dd0.jpg

 

I just realised that the buffer beams are too wide and should be flush with the side off the buffers, once everything dries I will trim them down accordingly. I've also noticed that the buffer faces are a bit rough so shall tidy those up as well later. 

 

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53 minutes ago, WD1995 said:

 

Thank you John, fortunately for me the width matches perfectly with the warflats I have. I'm sorry to hear about the issues you have had with your wagon, I would never have thought they where designed to run with dublo stock. 

 

I've started to crack on with the build, so far I've

- Very gently bent the pieces straight again 

- Cleaned up all the edges 

- Drilled the 2mm holes and placed in the bearings 

- Dry fitted the solebars to the underside and realised they are a few mm too long, I've trimmed these both down from the same end so they are flush with the locating strips at either end. 

- The strips mentioned above are to locate the buffer beam and the width between the solebars, this is left intentionally wide so it can be trimmed to the desired measurement. I have trimmed it down on one side by 1mm for now and glued on the solebar. I will work the other side out when it has dried and I can match it up with the wheelsets I have. 

 

677759153_RampWagon5.jpg.b69cec8698883e2569786c052eb72764.jpg

 

While that is drying I have tidied up the buffers and glued them into the relevant holes on the buffer beams provided. I have left the stalks sticking out the rear of the buffer beams and after they dry will cut them off and tidy it up.

2013036697_RampWagon6.jpg.bf10f54b8aa8ad81bdbbcef1ed923dd0.jpg

 

I just realised that the buffer beams are too wide and should be flush with the side off the buffers, once everything dries I will trim them down accordingly. I've also noticed that the buffer faces are a bit rough so shall tidy those up as well later. 

 

 

I would still check the width against a drawing - not another model.

 

The fact that the bufferbeams are too long, and the overhang of the deck from the solebars looks excessive, suggests to me that the model may be overwidth.

 

1576268838_1_418DIAGRAM.jpg.459b8bee9cb531cb942c32709f8346b6.jpg

 

As you will see from the above diagram, it would appear that the decking should be 8'-10'' (35.3mm.) overall.

 

John Isherwood.

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19 hours ago, cctransuk said:

As you will see from the above diagram, it would appear that the decking should be 8'-10'' (35.3mm.) overall.

 

 

 

Thank you for the size, I measured them and they are just under 35 so that's good. 

 

Well this morning I attached the other solebar (after trimming another mm off the locator strip) and checked to make sure the wagon is level and rolling well. While this was drying I tidied the buffers up and trimmed the beams down to the buffers, it does look a little weird not having them full width but in reality the buffers swing round so the end of the wagon can be lowered. 

Ramp Wagon 8.jpg

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1 hour ago, WD1995 said:

 

.... it does look a little weird not having them full width but in reality the buffers swing round so the end of the wagon can be lowered. 

 

 

Looking at Paul's photos, the bufferbeams should be full width; the buffers had offset hinges at the ends of the bufferbeams.

 

John Isherwood.

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I have recently built two of these wagons (guess who bought the last two from Peters Spares).

The attached pictures show both the prototype and one of my models under construction.

To match the prototype I added an extra solebar to the sides as shown.

It is possible that the some confusion in designing the kit came from the later modifications to the vehicle, to allow for wider tanks, resulted in the excess body overhang.

ramp3.jpg

ramp5.jpg

rampm2.jpg

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2 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

Looking at Paul's photos, the bufferbeams should be full width; the buffers had offset hinges at the ends of the bufferbeams.

 

Thank you, going by the pictures I've seen the buffer beam seems to meet with the solebars so a little trimming is at least needed as the ones with the kit meet the full width of the deck.1353245763_BufferBeam.png.cf1c0e396edcc5fc22a38bff3347d438.png

Your ones really do look good Tony, I like that you've even added on the hook eye. An eye for detail I hope I will achieve at some point with all my modelling. 

 

It seems im nearing the end of my build now, I've glued on the buffer beams, added the jacks, brake wheels and underframe detail so here's how it's looking at the moment. 1398634866_rAMPrAMP.jpg.0cfd0888c625444121722b1d0cedae25.jpg

 

 

Here they are with the two DOGA warflats I've built, alas it does look like a rather short rake but I have four more warflats to build so that'll make it look better. 

 

520931532_RampWagon10.jpg.fb09fcf9b6c01e5e404b8aa3c0e4b97d.jpg212103681_RampWagon11.jpg.93f107c51518daab9a03ac268d1a836d.jpg

 

 

 

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Thanks for the kind comments.

Here are two pictures of a nearly complete wagon, just needs lettering.

While I did not check the width of the deck when I built these, a quick measure shows that they are a few inches under size.

The width, as built, was 8ft 10in.

IMG_0640.JPG

IMG_0641.JPG

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They look really good Tony, did you swap out the buffers for metal ones? One thing I should have done is change the hand brake wheels for etched ones as the ones supplied seem a little chunky. At least they are only glued though so I can take them off and swap them if I decide to. Do you know anywhere that does the relevant decals for these? 

 

Given the nice weather I went out this morning and primed them so hopefully I will get round to painting them late tonight or tomorrow afternoon. 

 

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I just replaced the buffer heads with metal ones. Drilling out the cast metal buffer body takes a bit of care. Yo can see the result in the previous picture of the wagon under construction. As to decals most of the text is too small to read so I was going to use small text from a variety of decal sheets to mimic the lettering. For the WWII livery only the small star needs to be correctly  represented.

I presume you are doing a later period, if so then the Model Masters MOD an War Department decals may be of use.

 

I look forward to seeing the finished model.

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It certainly looks smarter than the cast heads and that's a good plan, the writing is quite small. I was going for around 1944ish with my ones, I'm not too sure as to how accurate my colour is as in some photos the ramp and warflats look more like black than green but I can't find a definite answer. 

 

Thank you, I will have a look at Modelmaster as I am looking to convert an Austerity and an 8f to War Department spec. 

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The lettering would, I think, be the same in 1944 as in 1941 or earlier. There were similar vehicles with different lettering intended for use in France, but by the time they had been built our recent mass visit to the Continent had not gone at all well,

Attached are three pictures of the lettering as carried in 1941. These are stills from a film you can find at the following URL

 

Tanks by Rail, Ramp wagon            

 

Ass you can see very little of the lettering would be readable on a 4mm scale model.

As to Decals for wartime WD locomotives I would recommend those form Cambridge Custom Transfers, sheet BL161.

ramp side 2.JPG

ramp side 3.JPG

ramp side.JPG

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Thank you Tony, those videos are really interesting and full of great information. I'll check out those transfers and I agree I wouldn't imagine they would have changed the writing on the ramp wagons. 

 

I've pretty much finished the wagons now, well apart from a couple of details to pick out and transfers so here's how they are looking at the moment. 

 

 

 

Completed Ramp Wagon 3.jpg

Completed Ramp Wagon 5.jpg

Completed Ramp Wagon.jpg

Completed Ramp Wagon 4.jpg

Completed Ramp Wagon 2.jpg

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1 hour ago, Fat Controller said:

BR bought a number of these when the MoD had a clear-out,and converted them into Twin-Bolsters, making them into semi-permanently coupled pairs with a centrally mounted bolster on each wagon.

 

See up-thread for the BR diagram (1/418).

 

John Isherwood.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well it's been a little while as I've been distracted with some other projects but I have just finished making another ramp wagon out of plasticard and random bits from broken wagons. It hasn't actually come out too bad, only took about an hour or so to knock up.

 

1371442465_RampRampWagon1.jpg.573a163eb762361f5a4734c1dd904653.jpg1237064283_RampRampWagon2.jpg.7c6cb89e40dd46488e91e00e4026b76f.jpg

 

The only thing I didn't do was remove the sleepers that would have been used to help tanks get up the initial part of the wagon as I didn't fancy cutting some strips out of the body. Maybe that'll be a job for another time. 

 

 

Ramp Ramp Wagon 3.jpg

Ramp Ramp Wagon 4.jpg

Ramp Ramp Wagon 5.jpg

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  • WD1995 changed the title to GWR Aero Wagon, Genesis Ramp Wagon Build

Well I'm onto my next wartime project now which will be a GWR Aero wagon, the Great Western first produced these in 1938 and then during the war produced another three batches totalling around 170 in all. Having finally found a drawing I can roughly go by to get the sizes I have started with scratch building the crate from plasticard. 

 

Below is the finished crate apart from a missing strap round the bottom, for now it will live in primer as I may have a go at making a mould and producing some so I can make a few wagons in one go. Now I'm just working on the supports and then to find a suitable donor underframe. 

 

I have also attached a picture of the one at Didcot I took the other week, this one is only however a rough mockup and is built slightly differently to drawing I have and the pictures I have seen. 

Prop.jpg

Prop 2.jpg

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The GWR Aero wagon used a angle iron frame to supports the crates which is rather fiddly to make. A ready to run model that make a fair stab at this was available in a special wagon set and is pictures here.

The LMS and SR did similar wagons using a timber frame which is easier to make. Examples of my attempt at these shown here.

GWRCOLOUR.jpg

LMSCOLOUR.jpg

LMSCRADLECOLOUR.jpg

P1010014.JPG

P1010011.JPG

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That's the bit I'm dreading, but first I need to order some plasticard L profile. Funnily enough I bought one of those wagons a few months back, it was Much Ado About Toys through Dapol if I remember rightly, I quite like the well wagon they produced with the anchor. 

 

Those models are great, after I have a crack at the GWR wagon I will try the LMS one as I have a couple of pictures to go by. I never knew the SR transported them as well, I'll have to hunt down some pictures of them. 

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