KR Models announce the Consett Iron Ore Wagon

[Suzy Sulzer]

19 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

It all depends if you want : -

 

i) a solution that works;

 

ii) to go overboard and lock the screw so that it will be difficult to remove in future;

 

iii) to have a go at KRM for a minor design / production issue.

 

In each case : -

 

i) use varnish or wood glue;

 

ii) stick your engineering principles and use Loctite;

 

iii) post here and reject all practical solutions.

 

Now - which are you doing; let me guess .....

 

CJI.

i found the solution today using a lathe and a needle file, as simple as that  So that people are aware, when you tighten the chuck or collet do it lightly so you don't damage the threads and gently apply a need file whilst the screw is rotating in the chuck.  Thank you all for your replies.  Lets leave the subject closed now, how you do it is up to the individual.

[Hilux5972]

[johndon]

Probably not something that would affect most but a bit of disappointment with the KR Models Iron Ore wagons tonight.

 

The wagons come with some quite nice instanter couplings.  I’ve fitted a couple tonight and, when hooked together, they are barely long enough to stop the buffers hitting each other on straight track let alone round a curve.  I’ve attached a photo with the bottom buffer heads touching and, as you can see there is hardly any angle between the two wagons.

 

I don’t know what size feet of radius they’d go round but I suspect it’s well in to double figures…

 

[Bishdurham]

1 hour ago, johndon said:

Probably not something that would affect most but a bit of disappointment with the KR Models Iron Ore wagons tonight.

 

The wagons come with some quite nice instanter couplings.  I’ve fitted a couple tonight and, when hooked together, they are barely long enough to stop the buffers hitting each other on straight track let alone round a curve.  I’ve attached a photo with the bottom buffer heads touching and, as you can see there is hardly any angle between the two wagons.

 

I don’t know what size feet of radius they’d go round but I suspect it’s well in to double figures…

 

 

Looks like there was a need for sprung buffers after all. Which is a great pity.

[jonhall]

10 hours ago, johndon said:

Probably not something that would affect most but a bit of disappointment with the KR Models Iron Ore wagons tonight.

 

The wagons come with some quite nice instanter couplings.  I’ve fitted a couple tonight and, when hooked together, they are barely long enough to stop the buffers hitting each other on straight track let alone round a curve.  I’ve attached a photo with the bottom buffer heads touching and, as you can see there is hardly any angle between the two wagons.

 

I don’t know what size feet of radius they’d go round but I suspect it’s well in to double figures…

 

 

 

Its not often I feel inclined to come to KR's defense about anything, but I feel your expectations are unrealistic about what a cosmetic coupling should be able to achieve, particularly on a wagon costing under £30.

 

Jon

[johndon]

28 minutes ago, jonhall said:

 

Its not often I feel inclined to come to KR's defense about anything, but I feel your expectations are unrealistic about what a cosmetic coupling should be able to achieve, particularly on a wagon costing under £30.

 

Jon

 

I suspect we won't agree on this but it would be a boring world if we did 😀

 

If the couplings (which, as I say, are rather nice) cannot be used as actual couplings then why supply them at all?  If they are only intended to be cosmetic then, in a full rake of 9 wagons you'd only need one on the last wagon of the train and, even then, that would only be applicable for the few years of the life of the wagons when brake vans were no longer required.

[johndon]

I've started work on some refinements to the iron ore wagons.  As I've said before in this thread, after my original scepticism when the original EP was shown, ultimately I was rather impressed with the final result but that's not to say that the wagons won't benefit from a little extra work.

 

First up are the manual door release handles at the end which, on the real thing, passed through a wire loop but this is moulded solid on the models as shown below:

 

 

As it happens, that vertical part of the moulding has holes in the ends that it fits in to so, once removed from the wagon, there are two holes in exactly the right spot for the replacement wire.  The vertical section was cut off the handle, the handle glued back on and a wire loop added as below, the wire could be a bit smaller in diameter but was a good fit in the existing holes, it'll look thinner under a coat of paint.   I've also rubbed down the buffer heads as they have a quite prominent horizontal seam running across them.

 

 

For some reason, the models have holes in the curved tops of the end boxes and a number of holes on the insides of the wagon sides, none of which existed on the real thing so it was out with the filler (the white dots in the photo below).  I've also, using TCut, removed the branding on the doors as, by the 70s (which is the period I am modelling) all of that had gone on the real wagons.

 

 

Next up is to give the entire underframe a coat of paint to match the rest of the wagon as it was only black when the wagons were brand new.

 

John

 

Edited October 27, 2022 by johndon

[johndon]

Getting rid of the black underframe makes a huge difference to the look of the wagon.  Tamiya XF68 Nato Brown is an almost perfect match for the original colour although, having painted the underframe, I have dusted it all over the wagon.  A couple of touch ups to do and then any slight differences in shade will disappear under the weathering...

 

[johndon]

As I'll be running my rake empty, I've made a start on weathering the interior based on the one and only colour photo I have of the interior of these wagons, plenty still to do...

 

[jonhall]

Ive not seen this film before, from the Yorkshire Film Archive

 

https://www.yfanefa.com/record/27363

 

jon

 

 

[Hilux5972]

7 hours ago, jonhall said:

Ive not seen this film before, from the Yorkshire Film Archive

 

https://www.yfanefa.com/record/27363

 

jon

 

 

Nice film. Just a shame it has no sound. 

[johndon]

21 hours ago, jonhall said:

https://www.yfanefa.com/record/27363

 

At around 8:10 it shows a rather unusual move as the banker, which usually detached at South Medomsley a mile or so further down the line, is still attached as the train goes through Consett station...

Edited January 3, 2023 by johndon

[peteskitchen]

 During the early BR diesel era (mid 60s ish) where would the iron ore carried in these wagons originated from? In the early 80s I visited Kiruna in Sweden which has a huge Iron Ore mine and the mineral being transported to Narvik was very nearly black. I'm thinking here what colour load to put in my wagons..... 

[johndon]

Iron ore definitely came from Sweden to Tyne Dock in the mid/late 60's.

 

The very dark ore is, I understand, called Taconite and thousands of lumps of it still litter the track bed to Consett if you know where to look.  This lot was lying at the site of Beamish station:

 

[peteskitchen]

12 hours ago, johndon said:

Iron ore definitely came from Sweden to Tyne Dock in the mid/late 60's.

 

The very dark ore is, I understand, called Taconite and thousands of lumps of it still litter the track bed to Consett if you know where to look.  This lot was lying at the site of Beamish station:

 

 Thank you for that, I'll perhaps use blackened 1mm gravel and see how it looks.. Maybe spray it with a bit of varnish to give it a sheen?

[Francis deWeck]

Received today 1 set, without load. Ran ok behind a SLW Class 24. Not a bad dabble, will attempt a rake of a dozen. Anybody know the typical train length?

[BrushVeteran]

45 minutes ago, Francis deWeck said:

Received today 1 set, without load. Ran ok behind a SLW Class 24. Not a bad dabble, will attempt a rake of a dozen. Anybody know the typical train length?

Nine plus a brake van

[Francis deWeck]

4 minutes ago, BrushVeteran said:

Nine plus a brake van

Cheers, Ta very muchly.

[New Haven Neil]

On 01/03/2023 at 22:12, peteskitchen said:

 Thank you for that, I'll perhaps use blackened 1mm gravel and see how it looks.. Maybe spray it with a bit of varnish to give it a sheen?

 

I recall that in the early/mid 70's when I was spotting at Boldon Colliery station the ore pellets had a distinct purple tinge to them, I will have a lump or two....somewhere....

[Mark Saunders]

1 minute ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

I recall that in the early/mid 70's when I was spotting at Boldon Colliery station the ore pellets had a distinct purple tinge to them, I will have a lump or two....somewhere....

The pellets can be found in many places , Boldon North jct, Gateshead High Street and Tyne Yard still have deposits.

[New Haven Neil]

1 minute ago, Mark Saunders said:

The pellets can be found in many places , Boldon North jct, Gateshead High Street and Tyne Yard still have deposits.

 

It's a bit far for me to go now....but when we were kids we used to pick bits of it up.  At the junction at Boldon Co;;iery it was deep as the ballast.  I still like class 24's!

[johndon]

4 hours ago, BrushVeteran said:

Nine plus a brake van

Or no brake van at all from at least 1971… 

[johndon]

5 hours ago, Francis deWeck said:

Received today 1 set, without load. Ran ok behind a SLW Class 24. Not a bad dabble, will attempt a rake of a dozen. Anybody know the typical train length?

The loading gantry at Tyne Dock had a maximum capacity of 9 wagons so the trains were never longer than that. 

[Trains4U]

We received our stock of Consetts yesterday 

We have very limited numbers of packs D, E and F

£69 per pack without loads

£74 per pack with loads

 

(we also have the Palbricks at £62 per pack)

 

http://www.trains4u.com/c/797/KR-Models

 

we expect these to sell through very quickly.

Edited April 15, 2023 by Trains4U

[Michael Hodgson]

On 01/03/2023 at 01:11, peteskitchen said:

 During the early BR diesel era (mid 60s ish) where would the iron ore carried in these wagons originated from? In the early 80s I visited Kiruna in Sweden which has a huge Iron Ore mine and the mineral being transported to Narvik was very nearly black. I'm thinking here what colour load to put in my wagons..... 

Kiruna produces one of the purest iron ores available anywhere and it is indeed very nearly black, there also being rust-like dust in it, but I'm not sure that would necessarily apply to ores from other places.  Having said that Tyne Dock imported ore from Sweden (mostly shipped via Narvik in Norway) and from Spain, so it would be reasonable to use as a load for these wagons.  The deposits are so rich that you can't rely on a magnetic compass in that part of the country.  I still have a bag of the stuff I brought back with me in the 1970s when my father was working at the Kiruna headquarters of a scientific reasearch establishment studying radio interefence associated with the Northern Lights.  My intention was to use it as wagon loads on 27T tippler wagon and 20T hoppers, however it is extremely dense and I suspect the weight would have been too much for the locos I then had.

 

My recollection of Consett when the steelworks was still active was of a thick rust coloured haze over the whole town - the reddest sunsets I have ever seen. The industry was first located there because of local iron ore, but that was worked out in the Victorian era.  The location had become less than ideal as none of the relevant raw materials were available locally, coke also having to be brought in.