A few years ago I scratch-built this Brake Van. It is principally made from Kappler Scale Lumber, which as far as I can tell is Sugar-Pine. I modelled it slightly different on each of the two sides. My cunning plan was to put different numbers/letters on each side and pretend it was two brake vans. Body and chassis come apart - held together with two brass 8BA screws. It is about 3-4 years old and it hasn't warped or fallen apart. I glued it all together using Zap-a-Gap Medium CA. No zip-kicker or anything. Just regular glue. Slater's split-spoke wheels, detailing parts are left-overs from various projects. Currently sitting in Tamiya grey primer, one of these days I'll get around to finishing the brake detail, painting and glazing. Wood is great stuff, I don't know why we don't use it more as a modelling material.
Lovely model of an unusual prototype. I have noticed with the rise of laser cutters that more plywood is starting to be used in models. Paul
Unusual prototype indeed! It is free-lance, though basically a shortened version of the type of Brake Vans used on private coal railways in NSW.
I've got the construction drawings for an NSWGR KA "Tramcar" (Railway Carriage) and I am seriously thinking about building it principally out of a combination of milled basswood scribed sheet and basswood or sugar-pine scale lumber.
It also rolls as good as it looked, as Martin brought it down to the Epping Exhibition recently ! A very nice build indeed and it was also asked about by quite a few established modellers as well ! Cheers, Gary.
It certainly got a few questions at the show and a few double takes from Modellers It’s resembles the NSWGR CHG just a bit shorter. Martin We did notice that it’s got wooden brake blocks on one side and regular brake shoes on the other.?? Is there a story behind this or just left over parts in use.
Two-in-one model. I planned to put different numbers on each side and pretend that it was a different model when I turned it around.
Hi SMR Chris Looks a love model and well thought out, lovely to see other people's imagination and what can be inspired from ordinary materials
Hi Gloria Yes Martin builds, very nice models as well as being interesting like this almost CHG or NSW coal field brake Van, we just have to encourage him to finish them off he gets to the pain stage and moves on to the next project I think should finish the pain on this project, then code the van as a SCHG, “Short Coal Houses Guard“ A quick google image search found this one below of a prototype NSWGR CHG set up as a pair for extra braking capacity on a non air coal train. Non air reference is to no air operation of wagon brakes so it was up to the loco driver and guard to keep the train under control.
Hi SMR Chris, In my GWR days it's what was called loose coupled with wagons with no vacuum brakes. We had a had a run away at Viaduct Jct near Kensington in London just our loco and the guard's brake van to bring us under control luckily there were no trains in stood in any of the platforms the signal man gave us the road. Good luck to the finishing of your project. The photo of the coal train is brilliant plus the scenery. Give Martin a pat on the back for me please for his excellent work. My kindest and best regards, Gloria.
All it needs are a few more items to represent the brake gear, the final coat of paint, glazing and the coupling links added. Mind you, it has been sitting like that in primer for a few years now! I moved house a couple of times and the box of miscellaneous parts which has all the brake gear is floating around my garage somewhere.
If I need a back-story for this brake van, I can always say that it was built on top of an old coal wagon underframe, using spare parts, which is why it is so much shorter than a prototype CHG.
