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A few recent kit-builds that have left the workshop.

ONE OF THE big modelling projects that I’ve been working on of late is the construction of the latest range of 4mm scale wagon kits from Chivers Finelines, which represent a nice cross section of much needed BR/SR engineer’s wagons.

Six vehicles have been produced; the Southern Railway-built 15-ton’ Ling’, 20-ton ‘Tunny’ and 20-ton mineral, and the later BR(S) 20-ton steel bodied ‘Lamprey’, the latter produced in original and rebodied versions, along with the final 1983-outshopped ‘Crab’ conversions.

I reviewed five of the six kits in the latest issue of RAIL EXPRESS Modeller - the sixth (the ‘Tunny’) being built up for the review by Terry Bendall following a little swapping of kits at Railex earlier this year - and following a few requests, I present some close up images along with a few extra information below. Space is always at a premium in the mag, and we were never going to be able to illustrate all six vehicles close up.

One final note, the wagons aren’t quite finished. They are awaiting transfers and weathering. Hopefully suitable decals will appear shortly from the likes of Cambridge Custom Transfers or similar, who seems to keep a close eye on recent kit releases.

SR 20-ton ‘Ling’ (diagram 1773)
I built this kit as the instructions describe - possibly a first for me. The only alteration was to replace the plastic moulded W-irons with Bill Bedford’s sprung equivalent. I also removed the safety loops from the brake push rods and replaced with 0.75mm x 0.05mm brass strip. The wheels and bearings are Exactoscale with parallel-ended axles. The latter can not be recommended highly enough.

SR 20-ton eight-plank mineral (diagram 1386)
The same details as applied to the ‘Ling’ are applicable here. Looking at the picture, I think I used the wrong door bangers! That’ll teach me to build all six kits at the same time.

BR/SR 20-ton ‘Lamprey’ ballast/spoil wagon
This is one of my favourite wagon types, so I’m really pleased to finally see a kit appear. With this in mind, I built two! One as per the supplied underframe (with the modifications described above) and one with the modified eight-shoe clasp brake chassis, with Oleo buffers, that many of the vehicles were fitted with later in life.

The clasp brakes were recovered from the scrap box and once formed part of a chassis option for a Parkside kit. I don’t remember which particular one, but it’s not really important. The Oleo buffers are from the ABS range, as are the vacuum hoses. One of my trademarks is to actually model the vacuum pipe that runs along the base of the underframe, and this is made from 2mm dia. fine brass tubing.

The end handrails - at every corner - were a lot of fun. For the sake of my sanity, I made them up in two parts: the grab itself and the footstep. They are made from 0.3mm dia. nickel silver wire. These are going to look nice mixed in with a rake of Parkside ‘Grampus’.

BR 20-ton rebodied ‘Lamprey’ ballast/spoil wagon
Another forgetful moment - I can see that I managed to miss the rod that connects the two W-irons on push-brake vehicles on this wagon. Other than that, this is another kit built up ‘as per the instructions’ with the chassis modifications as mentioned previously.

The etched buffer cowls and coupling hooks are a really nice touch. Other metal components supplied with these kits include pewter buffers and vacuum cylinder, as appropriate. Not bad for just £6.00 each.

BR 20-ton ‘Crab’ ballast/spoil wagon
Another favourite ballast type; the ‘Crabs’ saw service right into the EWS era, so hopefully these will be popping up on diesel and electric era layouts around the country. The only extra modification to the ‘Crab’ was to fit SKF roller bearing axleboxes. These are MJT parts, but I’m told that the kit now includes correct axleboxes. It was just the first batch where these were missing.

Both of the clasp brake vehicles pictured here are not exactly right. The brake lever on the side opposite the vacuum cylinder has a different cam arrangement. It will be an easy fix if I can find the right design somewhere - There are probably a couple of suitable levers in my scrap box, it’s just a case of looking.

So there you have it, a range of excellent and good value kits. We just need to get that transfer issue cracked…

Just one final thing, it would have been a lot trickier to build these kits without the superb reference pictures available on Paul Bartlett’s website. The ‘Lamprey’ and ‘Crab’ designs are pictured here, while the earlier wooden bodied vehicles can be found here and here. What a resource!