Description of New Wagons May 2009

After visiting a model railway exhibition, and buying some books, I was inspired to build
some new wagons in 8mm scale.

The first build was the LMS 5-plank open wagon, in this case filled with lime.
This was inspired by the common "ICI (Lime) Ltd" 4mm scale wagon.  Whilst those
words might be possible in SNOT lettering in a length of 16 studs, it could not be
done whilst retaining the ability to open the drop door.  (SNOT = Studs Not On Top)
SNOT lettering on a 4-wide door has to consist of 5 plates horizontal and 2 studs
vertical in order to add up to 4 studs.  It is helpful if the arrangement also allows
the door to clip onto the bar underneath, as it does with the "M".
The inside of the door has a clip to hold a small amount of the load material if the wagon
were shown unloading in a siding at an exhibition.
A wagon carrying lime or chalk would often look whiter than this but I left that as an
option for later.  LEGO models can be changed or improved!
As built this wagon is unfitted (no vacuum brakes).  Some of the parts supporting
brake gear tubes might have to move to accommodate an off-centre brake cylinder.
The wagon has the corrugated ends typical of an LMS wagon.

The second build was the SC coal wagon.
This was inspired by Robert Hendry's book "British Railway Goods Wagons in Colour"
(ISBN 978-1-85780-094-4) Page 30, a photo taken in May 1942.  The livery is that of
Stephenson Clarke & Associated Companies, which operated over 10,000 wagons.

After The SC coal wagon it was too hard to resist building "Scruffey", a private owner
ballast wagon featured in the story "Toad Stands By" by Rev W Awdry.  The story is in
book 24 of the original series of books: "Oliver the Western Engine".
Scruffey is the leader of the trucks who show disrespect to engines but ends up in
pieces after being stretched between Oliver and the other trucks.
I chose not to make my model of Scruffey with the ability to be pulled apart!
Scruffey is similar in shape to the SC coal wagon, with the change to ballast as the load.
I went with SNOT lettering and sacrificed the door opening capability.  The side doors
are in evidence in the pictures of the original Awdry book.
The o with an umlaut did well for the superscript "o" of "Co" when turned upside down.
The grey 1x2 tiles inside the top cover the protruding studs of the SNOT support bricks.
Were it not for the locations of those studs along the length of Scruffey, I would have
been able to shift the letters right by one plate, to put a space between the "S C" and
"Ruffey".  Adding dots for the initials would have taken too much space in SNOT lettering.
I cut down on the remaining words.  "Ballast Contractors" would not have fitted, even
in 1x1 tile letters.
Note that I make no commercial gain from building a model of Scruffey, nor do I have
any intention of doing so.  One must not do so without first contacting the current
owners of the Awdry character name rights.
The face on my model of Scruffey is my own design using standard LEGO bricks,
with some inspiration from the book for the lone bottom tooth.

The fourth wagon to be built was a Grampus general purpose departmental wagon.
See page 70 of Robert Hendry's book.
Almost 5000 Grampus wagons were built between 1951 and 1961.
This is still work in progress till I have black versions of the dark grey and brown
parts to hand, but the wagon is functionally complete.
The build involved lengthening the wagon base from the 10ft wheelbase version of the
other wagons to make it a 12ft wheelbase with 21ft over headstocks.
The sides drop in 3 sections as per the prototype but I simplified it so that there are no
slot-in pillars between the side doors and the ends do not follow the "2-planks removable
and the rest drops" scheme but are easily removable in their entirety.
The lettering on the prototype was too small to be replicated with 1x1 tile letters.

Having lengthened the wheelbase to 12ft for the Grampus, I have a Mermaid wagon in progress.
Apart from cutting some long 3.2mm black tubes (which are available from Pick-a-Brick
online), there are no modifications, glue, paint or stickers in these wagons.

I used standard wheelsets because they run fairly well.  The wheels are a bit too small but a
more accurate approximation would be to use medium BBB wheels to model 3' 1.5" wheels,
though these might have more friction on a long rake of wagons.
With a wheelbase of 10-12ft there was no need for the wheels to pivot, as there is for
wheelbases of 15ft or more in my PCA cement wagons or OCA tube wagons.

Mark Bellis
May 2009