---

THE WAGON THAT SAVED THE STEAM ENGINES

As my granddaughter’s football match was cancelled, I was at a loose end. I sometimes find it difficult starting a new project, so having just finished building a Macaw G, I picked up a book I had bought at the Bristol Show. In it I found a bookmark that was a wagon card for a wagon’s last journey to Woodhams Bros. for breaking up. I found this most interesting and spent the rest of the day researching this wagon.

It turned out to be an iron ore hopper of Dia.1/163 Lot 3001 No. B439124 built at Shildon Works in 1957. (What did we do without search engines?) It seemed like an interesting project and, with the help of the Fat Controller from the RM web who provided me with a basic drawing of the wagon, I drew a rough working diagram to use. As I often model in Plastikard, this wagon with all its angles and flat plates seemed an ideal subject.

I started with the hopper, and built this using the few measurements I had, referring to some photos I had found on the net. Thanks to Paul Bartlet for his excellent web site. Next came the chassis. This was also built from the few measurements I had, and when it was built and I fitted the hopper into it, it looked right to me.

I was then motivated to add all the extra steel channel and support pillars and this improved it again. With Slater’s 3-hole disk wheels, 3-link couplings from PECO, and self-contained sprung buffers from Graham at NMRS, she was ready for a run.

The painting was done with some old Humbrol grey and rust paints that I had. The painted rust looked too even, so I filled the hopper with water and added some old nails and left it overnight: voila! – real rust. I still have to add the lettering with the actual number, but as I model pre-war GWR and SR, I do not have any suitable transfers.

The hundreds and thousands of these wagons being cut up at Woodham Bros. saved the steam engines being cut up: they were being kept for a lull in wagons arriving. So, it could be said that this (and other) wagons saved the steam engines!

I don’t pretend this is a scale model of the prototype, but I feel it gives a good representation of the original and, with all the fun I had researching it and then building it, it kept me occupied until my granddaughter’s next match.