Been filling the odd moment here and there with some kit builds of fairly old vintage. The above is an LMS 22t tube from the old Ian Kirk kit. I replaced the bearings with MJT roller bearings based on a photo of a very similar wagon in Don Rowlands Twilight Of The Goods book. The hand brakes (which are too long in the kit as provided and are only one type) are spares from the Parkside 12ft chassis kit. 
Digram 1/120 LNER open from the Parkside kit. Whilst this kit is still readily available it is one of their older toolings. I enjoyed doing the weathering on my china clay rake and have seen photos with similarly weathered opens in normal freight trains so I returned to that for this one. The cattle van is a diagram w5 from the Coopercraft kit. Both have had extra detail with the GWR brakes coming from Mainly Trains and Morgan Designs etched parts
Next up another Ian Kirk kit, this time for the GWR mink C. I used the ends from the Ratio GWR 12t van kit, the ones in the kit had end vents and looked too narrow to me. I’ve added extra details to the body and underframe. Being on a 12ft wb underframe it’s something a little different.
Finally the left over sides from the above model were mated with Airfix cattle van ends to produce a Fruit B Diagram y7 banana van (I’m not sure that this designation is correct but it what the Didcot Railway Centre website refers to them as). The end vents were scratch-built and the underframe is a Parkside 9ft one with the ends stretched a bit.
Some nice modelling there!
Reference the W5 cattle van, I have recently build some of these from the Slaters O gauge range and also painted them in Freight Bauxite. I took the liberty of numbering them per the GWR numbers on the transfers (no BR numbers supplied) and putting a W in front.
When I was researching them, the only picture I found of these in Bauxite was a single wagon photo at Launceston. I believe that they barely reached BR, let alone being repainted in Bauxite. Certainly interested to know if your research goes further!
Kind regards
Hi Graham
If you’ve got Dave Larkin’s Acquired wagons of British Railways (volume 4) on page 138 theres a bauxite one (with XP branding) taken in the 1950s – it doesnt say where it was though (might be the same image you have already) . Theres also a bauxite W1 on the page before.
Thanks Jim,
I think the issue I am having is that I am stretching these wagons into 1962 because no-one makes an O-gauge version of the Airfix kit BR cattle van which would be more appropriate for me, By 1962, I think that very few W5’s were still extant but I’m happy to be corrected.
In the 1950’s period, you would probably be OK.
Hi Graham
You sound like you’ve researched this particular topic a lot more than me (my method is find a picture in the timeframe i need it and copy what i see!). Do you know if the W8 vans were the same as the Airfix ones just with different brakes? Thats what they look like to me.
My method of research starts the same way! I work back from there. According to Don Rowland, GWR cattle vans were 8t. The first batch that Swindon works produced under BR authority were a 12t version but looked the same as the 8t version. BR eventually settled on an 8t versions as their standard cattle wagon as diag 353 which was an 8t version of the previous version but with a different roof profile. It is this last point that is the difference: BR cattle vans had a much higher arc to the roof than GWR vans. So in answer to jour question, I don’t know whether the BR versions were based on the W8. If they look the same, they possibly were, but check the roof arc.
Jim,
I realise it is the wrong scale for you but Minerva have just announced an O gauge version of the W8. Maybe you might be able to source information from them ? : https://www.minervamodelrailways.co.uk/news/announcing-our-next-model-the-great-western-railway-cattle-van/