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PECO	Steve Haynes
Underleys	Email: steve.haynes@peco.co
Beer	Web: http://www.peco-uk.com
Seaton
Devon
EX12 3NA

Part 2

Peter Jary with some more conversions for BR 1950s and 1960s era vans

Part 4: Parkside Dundas PS45: LNER 12t Goods Van, D.94, conversion to 12t Banana Van.

Having modelled examples of the LMS, Southern and GWR banana vans, attention was now turned to the LNER.

As with much of their wagon fleet, the 1929-built banana vans came with both wooden and steel underframes, the former having a 9ft wheelbase, as in this model, and the latter with a 10ft wheelbase. The banana van fleet also included a number of slightly larger vehicles converted from fresh meat wagons, which lie outside the scope of this article, and in particular the elderly ex- GER 19ft, 8t, 8-clasped braked and vacuumed XP rated vans of the early 1950s.

LNER van end showing the first hole cut.

To make the LNER banana van, you will additionally need a set of PS77 buffers and a set of PS114 body sides, plus a set of solid spoked wheels, not disc, for example Slaters 7121. No couplings from the kit are needed as the screw link type is used. In addition, the side frames can be changed to 9ft LNER versions by substituting the frames from the LNER 6-plank open, PS11.

Once this is accomplished, the door space blank on the side wall of the LNER wagon is removed by cutting out and filing off the door sliding guttering top and bottom. A good photograph can be glimpsed in Peter Tatlow’s LNER Wagons published by OPC, plate 98. The conversion involves putting two louvred vents in each end. These are from the Parkside LMS banana van kit (PS114). The door irons and its planking need to be changed or added to. The vacuum braking system with eight clasp brake shoes also needing to be addressed. The couplings should be changed to the screw type and new buffering added. Having previously built the later versions of the LMS banana vans, I had spare end-louvred ventilator mouldings from that kit. These were inserted into the body ends, cut to suit. Of note, the sides of the van had internal strapping in BR days, so screw heads are prevalent.

The replacement vents in position

I began the conversion by measuring the louvred vents from the edge of the small vent already impressed on the left of the end wall. Then I measured the LMS banana kit louvred frame to determine the size of aperture needed. The louvred piece was trimmed at its base by 2mm before insertion to bring it to the correct dimension. Once glued in place, this was repeated three more times to obtain all four louvres. These louvres were blanked out from the rear, to indicate the van’s insulation. This completes the body ends of the box.

Like the Southern Railway banana van described earlier, the existing (sliding) doors are flush with the body side. This time, the sides of the van body need to be cut into three pieces, the cuts being made down the edges of the plain section in the centre, which is discarded. On the right-hand section, since the banana van does not have a sliding door, the door runner and end stops need to be removed and the planking made good. Everyone has their own favourite tool for this, and in my case it is the Olfa laminate cutter, which actually is designed for carving V-shaped grooves in plastics and laminates, enabling the surplus to be snapped off. Some delicacy is required as the corner washer plates need tobe retained.

The sides from the LMS van need the same surgery, except that it is the central door section that is retained. These require some modification as the hinge straps need to be shortened by 9mm and the lever on the locking bar replaced entirely.

Once these modifications have been completed, the van sides are reassembled, putting the modified LMS door section between the outer sections from the LNER van, keeping the bottom edges in line. Since the LMS doors are shorter than the LNER body sides, there is a step in the top edge that needs to be made good by the insertion of a section of 1.2mm plastic strip. For additional strength, the backs of the joints are reinforced with a plastic cover strip. Once satisfied with the door/sides and ends, the body sides can now be fully detailed.

Like many LNER vehicles built before 1934, the banana vans were built with both 9ft (timber) and 10ft (steel) underframes. For the former, the simplest approach is to substitute the solebar mouldings from the Parkside LNER 6-plank open kit (PS11). For a steel underframe wagon, the equivalent mouldings can be taken from any of Parkside’s kits. The steam heating can just be seen in plate 98 in Tatlow’s book (see References, below). This is added to the buffer beam on the right-hand side between the coupling hook housing and the right hand vertical stanchion. It is a ‘D’ type, low hanging steam pipe. Returning to the underframe, because the kit is a conversion from others, it becomes apparent that the positioning of the W irons and brake blocks creates a problem. The webbed frame prevents them from being placed correctly against the back of the underframe. I cutout spacing from their base tabs to enable them to be repositioned against the frame side and floor. These differ for left and right sides. After satisfactorily completing this operation the rest of the brake rigging and vacuum rods can be addressed as per kit instructions. As an added piece of realism one can add the brake hanger safety iron loops or strapping which are mounted at each end of the brake housing. These are placed to prevent the brake rigging from dropping down through breakage or a lost pin and, by digging into the ballast, derailing the wagon. They are fashioned here from 0.7mm wire. Fixing these is a simple matter, and has already been described in the Southern Railway van conversion.

LNER side (upper) and LMS side (lower)

The order of construction for the underframe is as in the instructions but because the frames in this case were altered to a 9ft wheelbase, the lengths of the short brake levers are not altered accordingly, oddly enough. Of note, additional rivets were added to the frame where the V hangers are situated.

This example has proved to be the most difficult and fiddly version to do. I would leave this addition to the fleet in order to build a 10ft framed version in preference, but I wanted to show one example at least of this vehicle in service.

The almost complete Parkside Dundas kit showing solebar rivet positioning

The finished van

For the colour scheme, in BR days, these vehicles were painted standard freight wagon bauxite (1948-1965), with black underframes. The official photo shows this colour very faded. It may be worth mentioning here, but I found the transfers needed would have to be made up of several sheets from Fox Transfers: 7812/7814 as well as 7902/ 7905/7909 and 7912. The finished model is shown above.

Part 5. Just Like the Real Thing: PWW13A Plywood Banana Van type 1 D. 1/246 and Part 5a PWW13B Plywood Banana Van type 2 D. 1/246

JLTRT wagon kits, take a completely different approach to construction with the body being a single piece resin moulding which includes the detailed roof. The underframe is also a single piece of resin moulding to which the running gear is added by way of a collection of white metal and lost wax castings. Construction is by cyanoacrylate or epoxy resin adhesives. construction and in this case they are presented mostly in pictorial form, although since the pictures are taken straight from the 3D CAD renditions, the fine detail is too small to see easily, even then, so some things are left to intelligent guess work. Detail photographs of the prototype are provided but are too dark in their representation.

On the positive side, a full and clear photographic list of parts is included, which both helps identification and permits checking for missing parts. Sadly, discovering that the parts are not all present was not an uncommon experience with JLTRT kits, although having said that, they had always been excellent about making good the deficiencies. Not that the builder should have to go chasing the supplier for missing parts in the first place, always assuming the supplier is still in business by the time you have got around to building the kit.

The modeller is left to provide their own choice of wheels (I used Slaters 7122) and couplings, as the screw couplings that were carried by these vans are not supplied – only 3-link or Instanter types, neither of which is correct.

JLTRT D.1.246 12t banana vans with differing end plates

The axles on these wheel sets will need to be shortened by 1mm either end as the axleboxes, once fitted, are too close together. Before fitting, the wheel axles require a little shortening, by filing off about 1mm either side, in order that they fit without distorting the W iron. The white metal axleboxes themselves needed a lot of attention with a file, in order to get them to fit into the W irons.

The only difference between the two body types, 1 and 2, is the corrugated end pressing. The type 1 version, which was built first (Lot No. 3225 Darlington Works, 1959) has an end pressing that is standard for the ordinary ventilated goods vans plate but has the punched aperture for the vent blanked off with a cover plate. The type 2 end has an unpunched end, with a short extra rib in the otherwise flat space where the vent would have been (Lot 3290-Wolverton Works 1960).

JLTRT old buffer position showing correct position

JLTRT corrected buffer position

Returning to the model, a particular defect with these and other JLTRT ‘B’ van kits is that the buffers are too close together by a scale 1.5 inches; the earlier ventilated van kits are worse. Correcting this is not a simple task and required the use of a vertical mill to position them correctly. To my mind, this is an inexcusable fault with this kit.

Although the kit requires no other modifications, the detailing of the body framing and underframe is distinctly heavy; noticeably so, when sat next to a Parkside, Slaters or Freightman wagon. Apart from the buffer position error, which is occasioned by the considerable thickness of the solebars as moulded, the solebars themselves are a scale 10½in thicker, with flanges that are well on the way to 2in. Now, expecting a scale 3/8in is a bit much, but something comparable to the achievements of Parkside would be reasonable. The same heaviness is manifest in the body stanchions, which are both thick, and appear more so because they have square edges. In other makers’ kits they are generally not as over-thick and are rounded, which reduces the extent to which the thickness is apparent.

Of note, solebar ties are supplied but are not needed as they were almost never used on 8-clasp braked vehicles, and certainly not on these diagrams.

BR Photo buffers in lost wax brass castings are offered here, but the buffer head is too small and the fixing is poor to say the least, as springing seems to be left to the ingenuity of the builder. (Well, I received no springs in one of the kits!) I used examples from NMRS-Models (F019 BR General use Photo Type A). These are detailed white metal and come already sprung.

The rest of the kit, for all its compromises, goes together well with the aid of the suggested superglue. When finished it appears quite attractive at normal viewing distances.

I have added the brake safety loops on these models enhancing the underside detail a little more. There are no transfers supplied with the kits and this again is left to the builder’s skills. Railtec supply a basic and very good waterslide set to cover this model. (Cat. No.6700).

Weighing all this up, and doing your own research, these are basic but externally well-detailed models when the rectifications are carried out. Thanks to JLTRT, they are the only example of the model prototype of their kind.

And finally, BR also used the FM type Diagram 3/201 insulated meat containers in the early 1960s for transporting Fyffes bananas. Although dimensionally not quite accurate, the Slaters BD container offers the possibility of adaptation. The apparently incongruous sight of a white or, later, ice blue meat container bearing Fyffes labels in the midst of a train of banana vans would be interesting, and entirely operationally correct. That though, could be the subject of a future conversion together with the GE 19ft 8t planked van.

Thanks go to my model railway club colleague Jim Snowdon for his invaluable help in this project.

References

Your Model Railway, November 1985, Argus Specialist Publications

Model Railways, May 1989, MAP Publications

Model Railway Journal, No. 164, 2006 Wild Swan Publications Ltd.

Railways in Profile series, British Railway Vans by G Gamble, Vols. 3 & 11

An Illustrated History of Southern Wagons Vol.4 by G Bixley, A Blackburn, R Chorley & M King, OPC

A Pictorial Record of LNER Wagons by P Tatlow, OPC.

The underside of the JLTRT Banana Van showing added safety loops.