LNER Wagons - Customer Review

The purchase of a large number of Ace/Darstaed underframes at auction provided the opportunity to construct a common wagon missing in the available range of ready to run 3 rail cattle truck.

LNER Wagon Kit

 Realising the time for sufficient older style Hornby stock to appear at auction was not viable and after considering Slater’s kits, which seem out of place alongside other tinplate, I decided to investigate the suppliers of laser cut buildings and other accessories to have my own design made up.

The Old and the New

 I run LNER loosely based around the late 1930s so inspiration came from Peter Tatlow’s book on LNER wagons. I contacted Andy Pearce of Railmodel.co.uk. to make the body from 1mm and 2mm laser cut MDF. Using a scale drawing, which was simplified and redrawn on a basic desktop publisher and then scaled to meet an O Gauge dimension and fit on the underframe.

 

The finished design allowed for two floor plates to both secure to the chassis and lock over the original projections for a tanker body, end sections are single 2mm MDF and the roof in 1mm MDF with grooves cut to allow bending over the finished body. The side sections are in 2 parts, a 1mm inner and a 2mm outer to provide details of the planking and diagonal bracing. Brass wire inserted at each end provided the bars and lettering and numbering is completed using Becc’s vinyl lettering sets. A long rake of them next to the recently completed but as yet, not installed cattle dock, looks good.

Cattle Dock

 Like most projects I would do some elements differently second time round, having the floor base plates both inside the body frame and tow additional arched sections to strengthen the roof but I am pleased with the result of a first attempt of designing and having components made to order. The next project will be looking to procure ETS underframes and having a go at 5 and 7 plank mineral wagons, my two Grandsons have a desire to see their names on the sides of some coal wagons pulling out of an Ely siding!

Under construction

 

My thanks to Mr Spooner to allow this review to be published