One working that passed through the real Brettell Lane and kind of fascinated me was the St Blazey to Etruria china clay working. This service ran for years and was somewhat erratic in the paths it took. Usually going via Worcester, Stourbrige then Dudley before heading off to Bescot. Or it could go right at Stourbridge via Old Hill and (I think) Soho Junction. These routes avoided the Lickey but I’ve seen pictures of it going that way too in later years. When I was at University in Stoke it would often turn up at lunch time behind a pair of class 37s although it did switch to a class 60 in the time I was there.
So to have a clay train on Brettell road makes sense as a through service. I like the classic diagram 1/051 clay opens with their sort of cute, baby open wagon look about them. A little bit of rewriting of history is needed though as they tended to stay in Cornwall and not venture out to the Midlands. Brettell Road is set before the introduction of the clayliner service so my justification is that BR was trialing things out to see how they would work and thats good enough for me.

Ratio make a nice little kit for these and I was fortunate to find someone selling a box of 7 on Ebay for what basically worked out as a fiver each. The bodies go together well with a little bit of modification to make the ends fit. The kit features a somewhat crude attempt at a roller bearing and the brake levers are quite poor. It also includes cast buffers that aren’t all that great. So the bearings were replaced with MJT ones although my research showed oil axleboxes to be more common anyway. Brake levers are from the Mainly Trains etch, door bangers from Rumney models and buffers from Lanarkshire models. I did one as a test then built the other 6 as a batch.

Before I move onto the sheets a bit about the weathering.  I followed my usual approach of a wash of dark grime followed by a spray of AK interactive dark mud. This was then all sealed with Klear before AK interactive white ink was used (in various levels of dilution) to give an overall effect of clay staining. You don’t want a fully weathered wagon at this stage, try to think of it as you are aiming for about half the effect you ultimately want.

Previously when I have done wagon sheets I make the sheet up with the ropes attached to it and then attach it to the wagon. This is a bit of a faff and sometimes the glue holding the rope to the sheet can give an odd effect so I approached this a bit differently.  Roping of wagon sheets is a whole topic on its own and I will leave that too someone who has properly studied the subject but I just looked at pictures and coped what I saw. So the first stage is to attach the ropes (cotton) to the wagon – Tying it on at the visible ends and gluing to the wagon top with Loctite

This was then tided up by first sealing the knots with Zap Pink superglue.  Theres no huge reason to trim the ropes inside the wagon but it pays to just keep things neat so they don’t get in the way later.

As mentioned before the sheet is made from black latex gloves (actually nitrile) and mine are a brand called Supertouch.  They are a bit awkward to cut as the material tends to snag on the scalpel blade even if the blade is brand new.  A method I found to work best is to stretch the glove over a bit of cardboard, make a template and to cut it using the handle end of the blade not the pointy end, pushing the scalpel away from you to cut. I don’t know why this makes a difference but it does!   As i’ve mentioned in the past the material is black on the outside and a dark grey on the inside.  I use the black side as its depicting wet conditions but the grey is good for a nice sunny day layout.

The sheet is then positioned in place, not forgetting to add weight inside the wagon and bulking it up with a bit of tissue first before gluing to the wagon tops in 6 places, about where the ropes are. Use Loctite and start in the middle (it sets very quickly) and remember to pull it taught as you glue the outer sides.  This is one of those things were you probably need a bit of variation but you don’t want to force it. I find if I try to be as neat as I can, I’m not all that neat really and I get the variation by default.

Next stage is to glue the sides of the sheet to the ropes, again with loctite and again puling the sheet taught.  I found holding it in place for 10 seconds was all you need. It pays to glue the sheet the side of the wagon at the ends at this stage

On to the ends. Another drop of super glue on the top and the sheet can be glued in place. The corners can be folded and secured in place and the last set of ropes glued into the sheet itself.

The last ropes tied into place and tidied up.

The final weathering, back to the white ink (sprayed this time) with some additional grease stains on the underframe.

To break up the rake a bit I added a few 10ft wheelbase opens too.  These are actually way more typical of the actual wagons used in the clayliners.  The ex LMS Diagram 2150 I’ve featured before a few posts ago.

Likewise the ex LNE diagram 210 (although not this specific model)

A new wagon type for me is the ex LNE diagram 185. This was constructed from the body of the Cambrian kit C81 for the LNER 12ton 6 plank Open Wagon, With a Parkside 10ft underframe. Theres a few tweaks needed to the body as can be seen and theres an additional top support across the top of the door which is worth adding assuming you aren’t going to cover it over with a sheet that is!

Just need an enterprising transfer manufacturer to produce some sheet markings now.