Making Stuff Up

 After creating my track clean train, I was left with two E wagon kits. While I was at Casula Hobbies a couple of weeks ago, I spotted some E wagon log loads. So I bought a couple.

I've been looking into the industries around Tathra, mainly because I had added another siding to the yard. I had been using it to load ballast hoppers. However, the small loader that I had been using kept getting knocked over and the clearance because it was on a curve was very tight. Not only that, but after watching a clip on a modern stone train being loaded with a front end loader on YouTube, I realised that a significant amount of dust is produced. This obviously pretend HO scale stone dust would end up over my little plastic people waiting at the station opposite the loading. That would never do. So I put in a new siding.

Now that I have a spare siding, what could I have loaded there?

I had put my sleeper wagon there to be loaded with timber sleepers. I have a couple of other WSC kits to build. One is Sydney Hobbies and the other is an IDR Models kit.This is more coincidence than knowledge, but I have since found out that sleepers were cut on the south coast and shipped by sea to other places. This industry dried up in the late 1950s. But what if it didn't? I just need to build the kits and presto! A definite new industry.

Timber is also an industry in the area as well. Timber logs are processed (turned into wood chip) at a wood chip plant in Eden and exported to be turned into paper and cardboard.

My E wagon log loads could help with that. It seems that the NSW railways didn't have specific wagons for the task according to Railway Freight Wagons in NSW 1982 by John Beckhaus.

I looked into modern log trains in NSW. Today it seems that timber logs are loaded onto a flat ISO container base with bolsters to hold the logs in place.

I've always had a soft spot for the UK style timber wagon (OTA) that I saw while travelling by train through the Scottish highlands in the late 90s.

So I made my own wagons up.

I used the E wagon base. I had issues fixing the truss rods underneath the first wagon. I'd cut the supports too short. So, using an ICX container wagon as inspiration, I altered the underside if the wagons. Next, created bolsters for the wagons and some panels for the ends. I drew my inspiration for the end panels from the NGFF Taughtliner wagons. (I have a couple of these to add to the roster.) The end panels are not an exact copy of the NGFFs but are loosely based on them.

They were painted in weathered grey (Vallejo Air Tire Black) and the ends and bolsters in red (Model Master). My airbrushing skills have taken a hit from not being used for a couple of years.

What would you call such a wagon? Using the above mentioned book, I called them NFTF. N for NSW, F  for flat, T for timber and F for the type of bogie they are on. I gave them numbers outside of the numbers used in NSW in 1982.

It was a bit of fun. I did need to buy some styrene from my local hobby shop so the two wagons cost me $24 each if you include the two loads.

Here are a couple of images for the finished wagons ready to run on the layout. They could do with a spot of weathering, but that can wait for another day.

Would I make more? Probably. I have all the styrene that I need, as well as bogies left over from old scratch built container wagons that I made over 25 years ago. I might paint them in other colours first. However, I have a couple of sleeper wagons to build first.

Until next time.