Once the underframe detailing was completed on both wagons, I made up four small brass plates to enable me to mount the couplings below the height of the buffer beams. Although the Irish narrow gauge lines were nearly all standardised to a gauge of 3 feet, the coupling heights of the railways varied greatly, from 1ft.10 1/2 ins. on the Ballymena and Larne to 2ft. 10 1/2 ins. on the County Donegal. The majority of lines had coupling heights of 2ft. 2 ins. or 2ft. 3ins. The Tralee and Dingle coupling height was 2ft 3ins. (33.75mm in 15mm scale) whereas, more by accident than by design, the coupling height of the TBLR is 1ft. 10 1/2 ins (28mm) like the Ballymena and Larne. I should really have adopted an average coupling height of about 33mm for the railway to give a degree of compatibility between the stock originating from various lines. By the time I got around to giving this any thought, I had built too much stock and converting some of the locos to a higher coupling height would prove difficult. Hence my solution of making the coupling adapter plates. These were fixed to the buffer beams with 10BA bolts, the couplings will be attached using the lower pair of holes.

I then masked the interior in preparation for painting. Once the side openings were masked off I glued the roof support hoops in place and then made a masking tape 'roof' to cover the top of the wagon bodies.
Both wagons were sprayed using an aerosol can of grey auto primer from Halfords. Several coats were applied to both wagon bodies and the underframe details.

Once the paintwork was dry I brush painted the axleguards, brake detail and brake hoses using matt black acrylic paint.


The roof planking sheets were then glued to the roof supports using aliphatic resin. The roofs were held in place with elastic bands until the glue had set. A sheet of tissue (the type used for packing between clothes, not the nose blowing variety) was then applied to the roof using dilute PVA glue. This tends to crease, which is a desirable effect, as the idea is to represent canvas applied over the planking. When dry, both roofs were given two coats of sanding sealer. This makes the tissue very stiff and durable. Both roofs were then finished off with two coats of dark grey acrylic paint.

Before fitting the wheels, a fair bit of the paint on the W irons has to be scraped back to the bare metal in order to allow the axleboxes to move up and down with the springing. Once this is done and the wheels and axleboxes are in position, they are held in place with keeper plates which are secured by 2 rivets, these are fixed with cyano glue.

The next step was to apply the lettering. Some modellers hand paint the company letters and numerals but I am totally useless at signwriting, my handwriting is pretty awful too. The standard TBLR lettering until now has been Deca Dry 5mm white rub on transfers. I bought a fair stock of these some years ago but they are no longer available and I am running out. I have enough for another three or four vehicles, after that I will go over to Letraset transfers.

I ran out of numbers 6 and 8 while 68 still required numbers on the wagon ends, I had some 9s which were simply turned upside down but for the 8s I used a number 3 and then applied another 3 over this upside down to close the open side of the 3 and form a number 8. After very careful alignment it worked! The handle ends of the hand brakes were picked out in matt white paint (to make them more visible for train crews).

Finally the couplings were fitted using 10BA hex headed bolts and nuts and the axleguards and wheel bearings were given a spot of oil to ensure free running.

With the buffer beams and solebars in place, I then moved on to fitting the W irons, these are pinned in place with rivets and glued with 2 part epoxy. Using epoxy resin for this enabled me to position the W irons while the glue set to ensure that they were at right angles to the floor. The epoxy also acts as a filler between the solebar and W irons to fill any gap that may occur if the solebars are not exactly at right angles to the floor.

Next I cleaned up the axlebox castings, drilled them out to take Slater's brass wheel bearings and assembled them. A small coil spring was then glued to the top of each axlebox using cyano adhesive. The wheels (Slater's ref. S9116) were then temporarily fitted to ensure they ran freely.

The brake gear parts provided in the kit are the same as those supplied with the open Pickering cattle wagon kit. This brake gear is common to most T&D goods wagons but not these Midland cattle wagons. However there are no detailed drawings available for the brake gear on these wagons and John opted to use the existing brake gear as it is common to most T&D wagons. Once it is painted black and the wagon is the right way up one hardly notices anyway. Looking at the only clear photo I have found showing any underframe detail for these wagons, the main differences are that the brake handle is to the left rather than the right, when viewed side on and the brake activation rod is dead centre not offset to one end and the activation rod support brackets are an inverted V shape. To give a bit of authenticity I simply reversed the brake gear layout so that the brake handle is on the left and I moved the activation rod nearer the centre of the wagon floor but not dead centre, to avoid the brake rodding fouling the vacuum cylinder.

The dummy springs were glued to the solebars and the brake assemblies were made up from the various cast metal parts. To get the brakes to line up correctly the wheels need to be temporarily put in place. Once I had the brakes correctly aligned, the parts were glued with cyano. The completed brake assemblies were then glued to the floor and 1.5mm brass rod was used to provide the linkages. The operating rod for the handbrake has to be fabricated from a piece of brass scrap.

Wagon No. 68 is completed to this stage, No. 67 has the W irons in place and I am about to carry out the underframe detailing on this one.

Things have been quiet in the workshop since the Roundhouse Millie was completed in September '12. Two small jobs were undertaken in the autumn, one was a repaint and refresh of the fisherman and his boat. The other job was making a fixed distant signal (see the Structures page).

The first project for 2013 is the construction of two Tralee and Dingle Railway, covered cattle wagons. These are John Campbell kits and were purchased in July 2011.

The kits consist of laser etched plywood for the bodywork, etched brass parts for the strapping detail and some other fittings, the remainder of the detail parts are white metal castings. The W irons for the axleguards are made from etched nickel silver.

The body sides are built up in 3 layers, two identical pieces are glued back to back to represent the planking on the inside and outside of the wagon. A third piece of ply is then applied to the outside representing the external framing of the wagon body. Both sides and both ends are assembled in this way and then they are glued together at the corners around the floor.

Once the bodies are complete the strapping and door hinges are carefully removed from the etched sheet with the help of a cutting disc in a hobby drill and are applied to the body using cyano glue. The instructions provided with the kit on a CD also include step by step photos of the construction, which is very useful. I also have a drawing of this type of wagon which provides a quick and easy reference guide to show where the various bits go.

Final detailing of the body includes the addition of the rails above the side openings (brass rod), some dummy hinges on the door fittings, I used short pieces of 1.2mm plastic rod and door handles (fabricated from a paper clip).

The instructions state that the roof should be fitted at this stage but as I want to leave the interior in its natural wood state, I feel it is easier to mask the interior prior to spray painting, if the roof is left off. I will fit the roofs once the bodywork and underframes are painted.

The next step is to glue the buffer beams and solebars to the underside of the floor. I pre-drilled the W iron fixing holes in the solebars before glueing these in place.