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Gazette - August 2016 (Vol 19 No.12)

<GaugeOGuild|tradeinfo|Haywood Railway>

I bought this kit from the Haywood stand at Telford a few years ago as it offered an unusual wagon. I believe the prototype wagons were conversions in the late 1930s from Roll wagons and were intended to carry Wellington bomber propellers. It came as a flat pack in a slim plastic A4 sized box with the wheels handed over in a plastic bag. Inside the box was a CD-ROM, four small sheet of etches, two white-metal castings for the trestle parts and packets of sprung buffers, sprung axle boxes and couplings.

The CD-ROM provides the instructions, a price list and some notes on construction techniques. Not wishing to have the computer next to the work area I had to print off the instructions after editing them down to a reasonable size. As written, the assembly instructions comprise notes of each stage of construction along with pictures of each etched component in the flat, folded and then soldered to the wagon The two floor and solebar units both involve some complex folding along half etched lines. The floor unit in particular requires long narrow edges to be bent down on all four sides which makes the task fiddly even with bending bars. I had to do a little fettling of the components to get them to fit together smoothly as they were a tight fit. The instructions suggest using 2BA screws through the buffer holes to aid assembly alignment. This is a useful tip but I found 4BA more appropriate.

The trestles are each formed origami like from a single delicate etch which requires detaching with care from the surrounding metal to avoid distortion. I ran a triangular file along the fold lines to ease the bending. White-metal castings for the crate supports, which did not seem to be mentioned in the instructions, are mounted on the inner face of each trestle. The W-irons are etched as pairs with a bridging section. The bridging section has four slots that engage with tabs previously folded down from the solebars. I had to trim the inner edges of these tabs to achieve a fit. The etched brake gear, safety loops and levers were then added, completing the etched brass assembly. At this stage I soldered in the white metal buffers. The wagon was then prepared for painting by cleaning with a fibre glass pencil and then thoroughly washing with a kitchen cleaner and plenty of water. Grey car primer was sprayed on using an aerosol can and followed by two thin coats of Precision Paints wagon grey, again from an aerosol. After applying transfers I then lightly airbrushed the wagon with a weathering mix.

White-metal axle boxes slide in the W-irons with keeper plates to hold them in place. As suggested in the instructions I fitted the wheels, axle boxes and springs after painting. I opened up the cast slots in the axle boxes with a junior hacksaw so the axleboxes slid freely and I also had to open up the holes in the top of the axleboxes that locate the springs with a drill. The bottom of the W-irons bend backwards to stop the axleboxes slipping out while the keeper plate is soldered across the opening.

I decided that I wanted my wagon to be complete with two crated aircraft propellers. GWR Goods Wagons by A.G.Atkins, W Beard & R Tourret (Published 1998 by Tourret publishing. ISBN 0-905878-07-8) has a drawing of the wagon with an outline of the crate as well as photographs of the loaded wagon on page 142. Further photographs can be found in Railways in Profile series No.15 GWR Wagons Before 1948 Vol.1 Compiled by R Tourret (Published by Cheona Publications in 2005. ISBN 1 900298 29 5) and GWR Freight Wagons & Loads by J H Russell (Published 1981 ISBN 0 86093 1552).

I constructed crates from Plastikard using the drawing to get basic dimensions and the photographs to complete the detail. A plain carcass was first built about 1mm smaller than the overall dimensions. Slaters planked sheet was then glued on to create the box with a triangular centre section of each side and three oblongs to cover the ‘ears.’ Thin strips were then added to represent the reinforcements which conveniently cover the joints between the Plastikard planked sheets. The prominent bolt heads around the centre of the crate were short lengths of rod glued on and gently sanded down to an even height. Panting was with Humbrol light oak with some dirty thinners run into the plank grooves to emphasis the detail. The two containers are held in the cradles by gravity as I have not found any photographic evidence of any fastenings.

To summarise the wagon fitted together well with tab and slot construction locating the components. I would say the kit is suitable for anyone with previous experience of solder assembly of etched brass kits.

Geoff Gill, Haywood’s proprietor has seen a copy of this review. He found it a fair review and couldn’t think of anything he wished to add. He advised that they were in the process of updating a number of their kits, hopefully in time for this year’s Guildex.