Prepared by Stewart Ingram Originator Charlie King

The Warren Shephard kit represents an example of one of the 130 wagons comprising Diagram W12 introduced in 1929/30 that were just another step in the evolution of cattle wagon design on the GWR.

Although livestock traffic probably only represented a small proportion of overall goods revenue, in the agricultural areas served by the GWR it must have been sufficient to justify the regular updating and modernisation of the company’s fleet of cattle wagons which at its peak numbered around 1200 vehicles. Given the nature of the traffic, from local station cattle dock to the nearest market town, it is a fair assumption that cattle wagons unlike other rolling stock would not travel far and wide.

However, besides the parent company, if your layout is based on one of the other company areas that overlapped or neighboured the GWR then such a wagon could be justified on your layout as these cattle wagons were part of the ‘common user’ arrangements.

The kit, with the exception of the lost wax buffers, vacuum pipes, axle boxes and springs is entirely etched brass. If you like kits that involve riveting, folding and adding overlays to replicate the depth and detail of the real thing then this is a kit for you. The weakness of etched –brass as a medium for certain types of goods wagons is its inability to represent thickness and I got round this on this model by representing the visible interior detail with Slater’s 4mm planked embossed Plastikard which by sheer chance has near enough the correct plank spacing.

The instructions comprise notes and exploded drawings which illustrate and set out the recommended sequence for construction but as this kit is probably more appropriate for the more advanced modeller, do not expect a blow by blow account of how to build it. Having said that, the instructions are clear and the recommended sequence makes sense.

A further point of note is the construction sequence breaks down in such a way that would suit a pleasant evenings modelling doing one stage or more as time allowed.

The quality of the parts is very good. The brass used is quite hard and produces crisp folds, certainly much better than the softer material used by some manufacturers. The etches are cleanly done and the lost wax castings are neat and once off the sprue require little in the way of cleaning up.

The rivet marks are very fine and difficult to see. I got round this by rubbing the side of the point of a soft pencil over the surface which reveals the rivet marks; an alternative is to place the work to be riveted on the rivet punch next to a strong light which will also show them up.

Studying photos shows that the eaves on the roof projected out level with the side stanchions. I found the roof in the kit to be too narrow once rolled and so I added a couple of strips of scrap etch from the kit, one either side to get the correct width.

Before assembling any of the body parts, I used these as templates to cut components to represent the interior planking from Slater’s 4mm spaced embossed planking. These are set aside until after constructing the kit when they will be trimmed and fixed into place using contact adhesive.

Following the sequence set out in the instructions, the basic body of the wagon soon takes shape, all joints being soldered with 60/40 solder using a 40watt Weller soldering iron. I would advise that the recommendation to sharpen the half-etched fold lines with tip of a file be followed as there is a lot of bending to do and not always a lot of material to get hold of so any aid to obtaining a crisp bend is useful.

The fit of the parts is very good the only trimming required was on the diagonal side stanchions where a little material needs to be removed to get the parts to fit closely into the bottom corners near the doors.

The doors themselves have several detail overlays so that the full impression of catches and hinges can be formed.

The instructions contain information on how to make the doors so that they can open. If you want to do this representations of the hinges and catches are all there. They are so fine that I resorted to using a magnifier to see them properly but I chose to solder the doors shut because this wagon will be used on a layout and I can envisage a situation where it is picked up and by accident the doors are pushed in.

The roof needs to be formed, I have a set of rolling bars but it can be formed by rolling a length of broomstick or similar diameter tube over the roof on a carpeted surface which will gradually form the curve. As previously mentioned, the roof was too narrow but this is easily remedied by adding a couple of strips of scrap etch from the kit, one to each side. I need to do a little bit of filing down to get the correct width and this was done by fixing a sheet of fairly coarse wet & dry paper to a flat board and rubbing the roof edges on this. I find this is much easier that to try to hold the work and file it in a conventional manner. The outside of the roof is finished with cartridge paper to represent the canvas covering which also hides the joins made when the roof was widened.

Instead of placing the roof supports as shown on the diagrams with the kit, I laminated the four sticks in to two pairs and soldered these into the two most central positions. This is where strength is needed most and by laminating two parts together a strong support to both the roof and spacing to the sides of the van is achieved.

There is full under floor detail. The brakes can be made up to show the prototypical gap between the pull rods but again for the sake of strength I soldered the parts up more solidly. The safety loops fold up from brass etch and although they look flimsy, and so they should, they are really quite strong.

The vacuum cylinder is made up from etched brass with top and bottom etched discs. I decided to replace this with a cast GWR wagon vacuum cylinder from ABS. The one I used was in one of their wagon kits for a GWR open that could be built fitted or unfitted and as I had chosen the latter option the vacuum cylinder had gone into the useful bits box but it can be obtained as a separate item.

With construction complete and the work thoroughly clean and dry, I detailed the interior using the previously cut embossed Plastikard. You might be thinking that this is going a bit over the top but much of the interior of the wagon is visible and given the level of external detail I fell that it was appropriate to at least show a representation of the planking. The Plastikard was glued in place using good old fashioned ‘Evo-stik’ which, if used sparingly and spread evenly across the surface to be glued, will form a strong bond without damaging the Plastikard. Although I had used the parts from the kit as templates, a little trimming was required because the assembly of the kit had altered dimensions slightly.

I left the work to dry out overnight before trimming out the Plastikard from behind the cut outs in the lower sides of the wagon and the hand holes in the doors. I used a sharp Exacto knife to do this supporting the Plastikard on the inside with some scrap modelling ply which also protects the fingers giving a final clean up with a 1mm drill running in a mini drill and using the flutes of the drill as a milling cutter to trim the last of the Plastikard back to size. A bit of fine glass paper is then used to tidy up the inside of the wagon to get rid of any burrs. To put the floor in I needed to remove the two roof supports but this was a couple of minutes work with a hot soldering iron and certainly more time efficient than trying to manoeuvre the floor around them.

By applying the interior planking, the partition used to adjust the capacity of the wagon will need its sides filing down to accommodate the thickness of the Plastikard.

With the finished model clean and dry, it was first sprayed with etching primer; I use ‘Acid 8’ from Halfords. This was left for a couple of days to thoroughly dry and harden before applying a thin coat of grey primer again from an aerosol can. The interior of the wagon was painted with varying shades of cream, brown and grey to represent the unvarnished wood and when thoroughly dry this was masked off and the exterior sprayed with Precision Paints GWR freight grey.

The outside of the roof is done with Precision ‘roof grime’ with additional weathering applied. Transfers come with the kit. They are of the dry print variety and are very good. There is sufficient for one wagon only so you will have to be careful as there are no ‘spares’. However, GWR wagon transfers are available from a variety of sources but if you are doing only one wagon, I can recommend the Slater’s transfers which come from their own cattle wagon kit and can be bought as separate item. There is no GW lettering on the ends as this practice was discontinued in 1928, before the introduction of this diagram.