Back to the PGA
Regular visitors will remember a while ago I looked at springing a Lima PGA. Since these wagons tend to operate in bulk trains I had no intention of doing another 30 or so. However the covered bulk salt version seemed to crop up in WCML speedlink trains so one of those is ideal. First impression is that they look the same as the Lima one however they are longer so after picking up a cheap one on EBay a start was made using Phil Eames article on PGA’s in DEMU Update as a guide.
The 2 wagons were cut into unequal halves before gluing them back together. Extra details were added to the under frame and the ribbing added to the hopper sides using plastruct strip. The end platforms were made from a combination of wire, some scrap walkways from an old A1 models TTA walkway kit and ladders from Colin Craig. The internal formers were kindly cut for me by Tim.
After paint, the tarpaulin was just baking foil sprayed blue. The transfers are a mix of fox ones I already had and some home brew ones drawn up in Illustrator and printed on Crafty waterslide transfer paper.
Some more wagons
Despite not really getting caught up in the rush for the latest thing when it comes to RTR I do find that the new wagon announcements have an effect on what I’m up to. It’s because most of the new stuff actually isn’t. It’s been available before as a kit and if it suits what I’m doing there’s a good chance there’s an example or two in either my unbuilt kit pile or half started in a box somewhere. I’ve had to admit I’ve never really understood the clamour for new stuff we already have especially if the example is something simple like a 4 wheel open wagon. I mean you will see comments on forums that it’s the greatest thing ever, that someone has wanted one of these for years etc etc. I just think they can’t have wanted one that badly or they would have built the kit! Don’t dare suggest it though as such people seem to rejoice in explaining that they are so inept that they can’t stick 2 sides and 2 ends to a floor, or even better puff their chest out with pride when they tell you they have never even tried! And yet after all this time waiting they will absolutely buy 3 dozen of them just on a written specification, yeah right!
Getting back to the point, this time it’s Bachmanns tube wagon which so far does look nice. If starting from scratch I’d probably buy a couple but I’ve had the Parkside kits half done for many years. Having said that I would be surprised if Bachmann manage to match Parkside’s lovely thin sides.
Here is one of them after changing the w-irons for Bill Bedford ones, adding brakes from MSE and a few bits of wire for linkages and safety loops.
Above is a Bachmann VGA also done with Bill Bedford w-irons. The original axle boxes look nothing like those on a VGA so it’s worth changing them for slightly cut down hooded roller bearings, again from MSE. the break gear is from microstrip and wire but you can’t see the wire when the wagon is the right way up. The end steps are from DEMU member Martyn Normanton. I thought they were a bit too long so moved the top fold along by 1mm to reduce the height. Martyn also does steps for BAA and BBAs.
One little tool I’ve had for years but never really used is this, which is like a temperature controlled hot glue gun designed for sticking etched details to plastic. It’s kind of like a soldering iron for plastic because if you get it wrong you can over heat the part and the glue breaks down and just rubs off. More faff than using superglue but the joint appears to be stronger.
10th April 2014
Those who follow the workbench section of the site will know that I have been converting a Hornby class 110 into a class 114. Well its nearly done now (just a few tweaks to do) and a new page has been set up for it in the units section.
There are also new pictures in the coaches section and a new page for steel wagons (admittedly with only two to look at so far).
Welcome to spring
If you listen to some forum ‘experts’ if you are going to model in P4 everything has to be compensated or sprung or it will all fall off and everyone will point at you and laugh! Of course the closest that these people get to regarding springs are the ones in their oh so comfy armchairs that they never seem to get out of.
The reality is somewhat different but before I go into that it’s probably best that I share my finding of how model railway vehicles run. Of the three options Sprung vehicles do run best, then compensated and finally rigid when it comes to trackholding. Visually though the order is a little different as while sprung still looks best, I find rigid vehicles look smoother than compensated ones where due to a single solid axle all the track imperfections are transmitted to the body.
It seems then that Compensation is perhaps outdated and I certainly wouldn’t bother with compensating a wagon these days. Leaving sprung and rigid as 2 viable options. Sprung being best but not always necessary. I have a theory that any form of flexible chassis is primarily there to compensate for us not building things square in the first place and when it comes to machine produced RTR wagons most of the time you can just pop some new wheels in and they will work as can be seen here –
So before we fix anything we should really see if it needs fixing at all, however some RTR is a bit more tricky and the prime culprit here is Lima with their underlength axles. So using a lima PGA as a victim here’s what to do.
First thing is P4 wheels just wont fit. However Lima did mold a boss on the back of the axle guards so one option is to carefully cut this away with a circular saw in a minidrill and deepen the axle holes with a special tool such as Ed’s tool. However Lima also modelled a lot of their wagons too high so in an attempt to kill 2 birds with one stone the original axleguards were removed completely.
I tend to use the Bill Bedford springing units but if mounted to the floor they wont fix the ride height problem. The trick is to mount them to the top side of the floor not the bottom and cut holes for them to poke though. The angled shapes are there so that the wheel doesn’t hit the floor. This mounting to the wrong side of the chassis idea also works for Bachmann TTA’s too. 
You shouldn’t expect springing to sort out sloppy workmanship because it wont. Getting the axles parallel in all 3 dimensions is still important and a handy tool to help with this is the Brassmasters axle spacing gauge as seen above.
I always solder the bearing in to its carrier and file it down a bit for clearance. The original Lima suspension moulding was distorted to adjust the height so I decided to replace them with spares from a Cambrian SSA kit that I had. These are very thin, plastic mouldings, so a few strips of square 40 though strip were glued in place to act as spacers. It goes without saying – dont bung the springs up!
The finished (ish) chassis. The SSA kit also yields the rather heafty brake gear brackets too. Obviously the body needs work but that’s for another day.
29th August 2013
Some new things to look at.
As well as the class 25 picture above there are new images in the class 37, class 122 and HST galleries. On the coaching stock front there are new images in Mk1, Mk3 and None passenger galleries too.
I have also added a page for my small fleet of tank wagons, there will be more to be added to this page in due course.
Finally we are only a few weeks away from Expo EM north where Calcutta Sidings 2 and the Universal Fiddle Yard will be making their public debut. For more details click here and if you get along to the show be sure to stop by for a chat.
Hornby OAA – done!
With a spot of weathering the Hornby OAA is done. I have made a start on the wagons section of the site too with a couple of small galleries to be getting on with. Click here to go to them.
Improving the Hornby OAA
A little project that has been in the back of my mind for a while is a couple of OAA’s. I picked up a cheap pair from Ebay (strangely lettered as OBA’s) and set to work.
The body is OK but the chassis is horrible plus it rides way too high (Hornby repositioned the buffers to compensate). The chassis went in the bin and new solebars added (spares from the Cambrian SPA kit), The wagon uses Bill Bedford sprung W irons and the linkages and handbrake levers are from Colin Craig.
