Let’s start with a little observation.  Modelling railways is expensive these days, the reason for this has been discussed elsewhere but if I were starting out now I certainly wouldn’t be able to afford it. I actually think the prices are what they are but there are one or 2 things where manufacturers really are taking the mick.

Case in point is the 24ton LMS iron ore hopper.  Firstly its not one, at all!  Basically yes it is a hopper but thats about it. It’s a loose model of the Charles Roberts hopper with a body stretched to fit a generic 10ft chassis.  When you consider that this model first appeared in the 1977-78 mainline railways catalogue charging nearly £30 rrp for a completely wrong, very old tooled model is a fictitious livery is more than a little bit dodgy,  Considering thousands of these are out there in various liveries for a fraction of the price you have to wonder who’s actually buying the things?

So let’s look at what this model attempts to be.

LMS hoppers are something of a gap in the RTR market as they have been hardly touched by either RTR or kit manufactures. I believe that the model is trying to masquerade as a diagram 1893-1942 iron ore hopper.  From what i can tell these were all the same except for the materials used.

D1893 – 50 wagons built in 1934 by the Metropolitan Carriage, Wagon and Finance Company out of Chromador Steel

D1894 – 300 wagons built in 1934 by the trade out of mild steel

D1941 – 450 wagons built in 1936-38 by the trade out of copper bearing steel

D1942 – 100 wagons built in 1936 by the Gloucester Carriage and Wagon company out of an unspecified material.

Many of these lasted into the BR era and were cascaded to various steel works meaning theres quite a few liveries that can be done and an enterprising manufacturer can cash in on the current rise of interest in industrial modelling.

The model

While the RTR hoppers wheelbase of 10 ft is actually closer to the LMS wagons 10ft 6 than it is the Charles Roberts 9ft wheelbase theres nothing about the model that can really give you ahead start on constructing one of these so the easiest method is just to scratch-build one.

Which is what I did.  Construction is plasticard with evergreen sections for the chassis and rivet strips from Mainly Trains or transfers from Archers. Buffers are from Lanarkshire models and underframe ironwork from Ambis and Bill Bedford. The axleguards, axle boxes and springs are salvaged from parkside kits. Drawings in LMS wagons volume 1 were used as a guide.

Painted up with transfers from Modelmaster and Fox.

Comparison with the Charles Roberts wagon on the right. This has been shortened and rebuilt on a 9ft chassis so its not a direct comparison with the RTR model as supplied.  To see what I did to that one click here)