I have to confess that I've slipped off the straight and narrow (no, I'm not modelling the Nullarbor Plain as 3'6" gauge...) 

 

The plan was that I was going to systematically work through the litter of stalled unfinished projects on the bookcase, to clear the decks , clear my head , and achieve a maximum of result for a minimum of effort . No new projects!

 

However I've come off the wagon, fairly spectacularly..

 

There were two catalysts. Firstly, there was the ex LNER Toad B which I reported stalled here  as I couldn't find the packet of handrail knobs. As you may have guessed, the packet of handrail knobs duly turned up, so work resumed . Secondly, I dug out the Boxfile to have a running session. And I dug out the second stockbox - and into use went an LMS fish van that fell off at every turn. Closer investigation reminded me that I have two ex LMS fish vans, after I bought a built kit off a second-hand stall under the misapprehension it was a plain ordinary ventilated van. One is - just about - okay: the other isn't . This was the one that isn't....

 

 

A couple of years ago I had a big push to sort out the problems of reliability on the Boxfile. This brought on the realisation that all was not well with the wagon fleet, and a determined effort to sort it out: Troublesome Trucks  . Unfortunately, like a lot of my determined efforts, this one petered out about 4/5ths of the way through, leaving a substantial improvement in the situation and a pile of unresolved loose ends. Or at least, 6-7  wagons that definitely derail. Worryingly, at least 3 of them are RTR chassis , which really ought to be square.

 

So another push seemed needed - especially as 3 of them are vans, and I am under quota for vans anyway, whilst being over quota for opens and minerals.

 

You will now realise that my latest efforts have improved the availability of serviceable opens and minerals...

 

The ex Hornby Dublo steel High (OHV) had been a nagging failure for a while, and it sat carded in the storage file. Checking the thing revealed that the Parkside chassis was tight and not quite square. Never going to stay on like that.  I've melted in one bearing to create a little slop - an ugly bodge, but it won't be good enough for the file. (I've been here before with a Parkside BR van that ended up redesignated to Blacklade).

 

In a box in the modelling cupboard amongst other unbuilt kits lurked an old Parkside kit for said wagon. This was the version without the "dimples" in the side for securing. I'd prefer the more characteristic dimpled version, so I was thinking about building this for a friend's EM shunting layout and buying the more recent retooled Parkside kit... Nothing got done .....

 

Coronavirus simplifies matters - I'm not sure he still has the said EM layout. Besides, there will be no shows until at least next year. The club's 4mm steam project is therefore stalled. And the employment situation prohibits unnecessary spending. 

 

So I decided simply to build the thing as a straight replacement, and dug out the kit. While I was about it, I also dug out of a box from the depths a Hornby refridgerator van. This was always vaguely planned as a conversion for the boxfile. I'm convinced it is ex NER from the body style, but I have no firm details. Buying an entire volume of the new Tatlow 4-5 parter on LNER wagons for reference for one wagon, when I also have the old one-volume version was never justifiable. (Pt 1 GN/GC/GE was an indulgence. Pts 4a and 4b a necessity)

 

So - from a livery diagram in the preface to Tatlow Vol 1  I think this Hornby model may be based on NER dia F3, 17' over headstocks / 10' wheelbase, wooden underframe, presumably clasp-braked. No kit exists for a 10'wb /17' long wooden fitted underframe. (Of course not) The Hornby body seems to be 67mm long - 1mm short (unless I am measuring over angle irons and it's 2mm short.) . I intend to live with this slight discrepancy. A scratchbuilt underframe will be needed - I have plenty of etched W irons in stock. Since the axles are displaced well to the ends, I intend to "adjust" by reducing the wheelbase to 9'9" to compensate and maintain proportions - it's only a matter of where I set the W-irons on what I believe to be a clasp-braked vehicle. 

 

A packet of ex MR buffers from ABS had been bought years ago as the nearest available match for NER buffers. These will be set on spare Cambrian buffer beams surplus from a mineral wagon kit - which neatly provides the round base. After more hunting through boxes, I found the Mainly Trains etch of wagon strapping where it should have been - so I have crown plates and other garnishings for the solebars

 

The wagon has been stripped of old paint and a coat of primer and a first coat of white applied

 

And the remaining MR buffers  have a use too....

 

 

Many years ago, in my early teens, I bought a Slaters rectangular tank wagon kit and built it. (Not particularly well, obviously.) It ended up painted in a fetching cream lined grey along the edges (not especially accurately) and the battered thing has been lurking in the depths of a box for several decades as not bad enough to chuck.

 

So I dug that out as well, and stripped off the paint at the same time. 

 

One solebar broke loose under gentle pressure - the other didn't, but that was enough to rebuild it square. The buffer beams were removed , cleaned up and replacement whitemetal MR buffers fitted, as 3 of the originals had broken away. The whole thing was reassembled, a missing brakelever replaced with something of an old sprue , and another one patched up. A missing V hanger was reinstated (another bit from the boxes of accumulated spare bits from kits  ). As much lead sheet as I could was jammed in underneath - I reckon it's at least 40g which I hope it just enough, though ideally I aim for 50g . Cross-shafts were installed from plastic rod, brass bearings and a pair of split-spoke wheels  fitted from another box and we have this:

 

 

Transfers are bits and scraps from various sources including the sheet numbers on Modelmaster transfer packs. I'm not sure a wagon with only two brake blocks should carry a fast traffic star but some things that shouldn't really did, and tank wagons could be rather archaic in the 1950s. The fetching weathered effect is where one transfer started to break up under the weathering wash... A little further weathering of the chassis , then a coat of matt varnish, is still required.

 

Prototype reference is here RMWeb thread and here: Paul Bartlett - Croda Rotherham, 1984   I will repeat my astonishment that such archaic vehicles survived so late, when I was discovering blue 31s on Transpennine South loco-hauleds and approximately the date of Blacklade's "blue period".  Just to ram it home - this wagon kit was originally built 6 or 7 years before the prototypes were photographed at Rotherham. Nobody mentioned I was getting a contemporary wagon kit....

 

The OHV is a reasonably straightforward kit build, complicated only by my possession of a copy of Geoff Kent's "4mm Wagon". This means that I've done most of his upgrades - whitemetal buffers, profiled brake levers, better whitemetal brake cylinder - and whitemetal clasp brake shoes, though that was much more about trying to build in as much weight as I could. I also made the effort to suggest the drop doors from the inside as the interior is very visible, and the Cheona LNER Wagon book includes shots of the interior of a wagon preserved at  Quorn on the GCR. The door area is cross-scribed with a scrawker to represent the chequerplate, and fine microstrip added on both edges then sanded down

 

 

 

And painting has reached the point where we now have:

 

The number is reasonably accurate for the contractor-built fitted wagons with smooth sides and steel doors. Again the underframe needs more weathering washes and the whole thing a coat of matt varnish

 

I still have to reletter the original OHV that started all this off, and which seems to behave itself on Blacklade, and to sort out the couplings  all round. And the LNER brake van has been given a trial trip out in traffic - though it too needs an underframe wash and some matt varnish to seal the transfers