Model of the Month January 2010
Sheep Wagons for the Mid-Derbyshire Light Railway by Brian Dominic
When I
modelled the MDLR in 4mm scale, I operated a few sheep wagons,
because the fictional MDLR operates in the White Peak area of
Derbyshire – click
HERE and
HERE to see where.
Anyway, I fancied building a
pair in 16mm scale, so got the bits together. Wheels and axles,
axleboxes and couplings came from Imp Models (because I was going to
enter them for the Imp Models Trophy at Stoneleigh) and the corner
“steelwork”, hinges and document clips came from P&J Models via PPS
Models – I bought W7 Large outside end corner 'L' channel, W24 Wagon
document clip and W17 Long strap hinges. The wood came from my local
model shop in
The first stage was to build a
pair of underframes (less solebars) :
They were slightly different as
I’d got a couple of lengths of angle which got used on the front
wagon of the pair.
The next stage was to add the
floor:
Then I epoxied the corner
steelwork in place, built up the ends and added the tops of the
sides and the bars either side of the doors.
Adding the bars to the sides
(not as far up as on the ends) finished off the basic body.
The doors / ramps were made up
from a mix of square (for the slats) and flat (for the rest) glued
together and held in place with masking tape, strengthened by a pair
of square timbers running along their length. These were used to
fasten the hinges to.
After adding solebars and
fitting the wheels, axles and couplings the finished job (with
Roundhouse lamp irons – an MDLR standard) looked so nice that I
didn’t paint them for some months………
…….. and they ran in traffic
like this for some time………..
……….. until they had to be
painted for Stoneleigh.
The greatest compliment I get
paid is: “Who makes the kit, then?” I did!
Brian Dominic
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