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NER Days	Steve Hoyle
11 Little Church Lane
Methley
Leeds
West Yorkshire
LS26 9EF

• Slater’s 7131 wheels

Reviewed by Howard Clarke

A friend offered to take me to the Keighley Club open day. On arrival I was gobsmacked at the size of the clubrooms and would recommend anyone who has the chance to visit to go along. The friendly atmosphere and excellent catering make it worthwhile.

Running on the layout was a North Eastern freight train with a 6-wheel brake van on the end. Unfortunately the builder was not there so I had no idea where it came from. On a trip to the excellent O gauge show at Leigh I saw the brake van on NER Days stand; unfortunately, having just returned from The Gambia, the trader was not happy to accept Gambian Dalasis as payment. Not to worry, I had the exhibition guide and would contact the firm when I returned home. Unfortunately the guide only listed the traders, but no names or addresses but an email to the Guild TLO brought a name and telephone number. After a phone call, and posting a cheque, the etched kit arrived well packed a few days later.

The etch provided is all nickel-silver and about 0.020in thick. No wheels are included, but after a phone call to David White at Slaters, the 3ft 6in spoked wheels were collected at the Cleckheaton show.

Not knowing an awful lot about North Eastern stock I looked to see what was available on the internet and found the North Eastern Railway Association website. The instructions mention a drawing and an article by Richard Lacey published in the North Eastern Express. I emailed the editor, John Teasdale, who very kindly sent the drawings, a detailed history article and details of livery and van allocations along with two photos of the brake van in LNER days. It almost made me think I should join the Association as a way of saying thank you.

Before building any kit, I’d recommend a thorough reading of the instructions. The ones supplied seemed to be a bit lacking but I made a start and bent up the sides, tinned all the edges and started to assemble the main cabin. I had already noted that the cabin doors need to be soldered in place before removing from the main etch and after this point you are very much on your own. Yes, there are further instructions but without the information and drawings from the NER Association I could not have built this kit.

Having assembled the cabin parts, I looked at adding the Wirons, which were fitted as per the instructions. It did not look right; it looked like Hattie Jacques riding a Shetland pony. Something was drastically wrong so I tried to see how the axlebox/spring casting fitted. Straight away it became clear that I had soldered the W-irons in the wrong place. I undid them and started again, this time using the best of the castings to align the W-irons. After a bit of fiddling I managed to get all the W-irons in place and all the axles parallel. There is not a lot I would add about the castings, but I have seen better. After a degree of filing these were added over the W-irons. The etch for the lower footboards folds up easily enough, but the drop arms are in the wrong place. Now I had a choice of cutting them all off and soldering them on again, or making an entirely new set using milled brass section. The latter course of action prevailed and I obtained the necessary material from Eileen’s Emporium.

On the ends are two posts at that go from below the buffer beam to the roof. The cast white metal parts in the kit only reach as far as the veranda top. This is fine if modelling a LNER van as they cut them down but not a NER van which cannot be made with the parts supplied. Incidentally, the LNER also removed the sandboxes and sandpipes.

By now I had a rolling van and I turned my attention to the roof. The roof material is the same thickness as the rest of the kit, and not possessing any rolling bars I was not able to bend this roof to shape. Some thinner brass sheet bought from Premier Components bent much easier. Bending the birdcage sides was also a problem as there are two small holes in the corners for a small curved handrail. Needless to say they got filled with solder when adding to the roof so I redrilled the holes once the birdcage was assembled on the roof. A good tip is to mark and cut out the birdcage glazing before cutting the sides from the fret, similarly cut out the windows for the cabin ends as these are also difficult to measure after assembly.

The instructions say add the lamp irons, the etched ones would be better suited to Gauge 1. I did slim them down considerably but still think they are too big.

I fitted the handrails next. Some coiled wire is included in the kit but I do not like coiled wire, you seem to spend more time straightening it out than using it. I used Eileen’s Emporium 0.6mm straight brass wire. An illustration in the instructions shows the side but not the end handrails and thanks to the NER Association drawings these were fitted. On the side of the van body there are three holes for handrail supports, I used small 4mm scale handrail knobs with the holes reamed out a little to take the 0.6mm wire and they did the job admirably.

The buffers, supplied are well turned steel buffer heads along with springs and securing nuts, the buffer casing is cast metal that required a lot of cleaning up and then I found out the castings were solid. At this point I decided that a set of Haywood buffers would do just as well, they did not have the small step on the buffer casing but a small rectangle of plasticard soon put that right.

As the cabin has large end windows and the drawings showed the information, I added full interior detail. Note that after fitting the cabin glazing I added the boxes in the corners which gave the glazing extra support. Before fitting the roof I noted that there was a lot of angle plates left on the etch, 24 in all, where did they all go? It was only after carefully studying the NER drawings did I notice that all the corners of the veranda had angle plates; obviously the NER did not intend their brake vans to fall apart. A bit late for me, however I filled all the corners with short pieces of fine strip wood and this eventually gave me a little extra purchase when I added the roof with contact adhesive.

Conclusion: I do not think my completed brake van would win me any prizes but it would not look out of place at the end of a mineral train ambling by when viewed from a few feet away. Overall how would I rate this kit? Possibly 7 out of ten for etching and minus 5 for instructions, it would be better marketed as an aid to scratch building. Would I buy another kit from NER Days? Possibly, but I would really have to want it. Although this firm has a huge range of locomotive and wagon kits, I cannot understand why they have no website.

You will note from my final photograph that there are a lot of parts unused including the Gauge 1 coupling hooks; a set of Slaters couplings was used.