Progress with this project is still very slow; sanding the top of the van sides to match the roof profile took ages, and was extremely boring! I have assembled the doors; fitting the metalwork and fixing the underframe and roof to the body will be the next tasks.

 While attending the Llanfair Garden Railway Show in 2014, I visited the Atropos stand and enquired about their Irish rolling stock kits. I was informed that these were being discontinued, so I decided there and then to buy one example each of what was still available. I came away with the following; 1 x Schull & Skibbereen (S&S) 12ft van, 1 x S&S small livestock van and 1 x Cork and Muskerry dual purpose cattle/goods van.
 These kits are all scaled to 16mm to the foot or 1:19, meaning they are a bit overscale for my 1;20 scale railway, but being models of the smaller Irish vehicles, their modest proportions will fit in well with my existing stock. For example the 12 foot van scales out at approx 12 ft 8 in long by 6 ft 6 in wide, about the same size as a TBLR standard goods van.
 I decided to start with the simplest kit - the 12 ft van -  and began work in March this year, progress has been a bit slow. I will not give a blow by blow account of how I built the kit, it is no longer available so a review seems a bit pointless. It is however a very fine kit, comprising pre-cut wooden parts and a wealth of brass fittings; the instructions and parts list are very detailed and are accompanied by a set of superb scale drawings. If one follows the instructions to the letter, and periodically checks the work against the drawings, one cannot go wrong. So far I have completed the underframe and the van body, the working sliding doors are next.

As I have stated on the wagons page, I recently broke my own rule against buying ready to run rolling stock, and bought a pair of Accucraft W&L bolster wagons. They are pretty generic and fit in well with the rest of my rolling stock and it means I don't have to scratch build a pair of Schull and Skibbereen bolsters. Despite being ready to run, I needed to make a few modifications. Lettering for the TBLR and raising the coupling height to the TBLR standard were already planned jobs. 

On unpacking the wagons, I noticed that the axleguards were positioned at the extreme ends of the solebars, and did not line up with the axleguard washers moulded into the solebars. The holes to take the axleguard mounting screws have been drilled in the wrong place, presumably there is a jig for doing this at the factory and it has been set up incorrectly; examining photos of the wagon on the Accucraft website confirmed that all the wagons have probably been built this way. It was fairly easy to correct this error. I removed all of the axleguard fixing screws and then glued the axleguards into the correct position (with the wheels in place). I thought it would be far too fiddly to drill out new holes in the correct position. The only disadvantage with using glue (Evo Stik Serious Glue) is that the axleguards are now permanently fixed.

I also noticed that despite being fitted with a very nice brake handle, there was no corresponding brake shoe on the wagons. I had just carried out some surgery on an Accucraft W&L brake van to build a snow plough (see separate post) this left me with some surplus brake shoes. I cut the twin brake shoe mount in half, giving me a single brake shoe, which I lined up with the appropriate wheel, using thin ply to pack the mount until the brake shoe matched the wheel profile.

A little light weathering with diluted acrylic frame dirt applied to the planking and a waft of olive drab acrylic spray to the running gear, finished the job.

For its opening in 1886, The West Carberry Tramway was equipped with four brake vans built by Dick Kerr and Co. numbered 46 - 49. By the early 1900s, by which time the WCT was renamed to the Schull and Skibbereen Railway, three of these vans were used exclusively for conveyance of goods. By 1906 these vans were in poor condition and so the company completely rebuilt them as goods vans in their own workshop in Skibbereen. The company built two new brake vans to replace them See my number 54 on the coaching stock page. I intend building all three of the vans and I started the first, number 46 in March 2013.
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I mentioned in part 1 of this blog that I decided to keep this wagon even though it is not a model of any particular prototype, but if it was to be retained it would need a bit of super detailing.

Before starting on the detailing, I removed the wheels, couplings and axleguards. I then sanded off most of the paintwork on the inside of the wagon body to give a distressed and used look. The main feature of the wagon that I was not happy with was the rather overscale looking end supports, so I removed these with the aid of a pair of fine nose pliers. These came off easier than I expected. New end supports were cut from lengths of plastic 'angle iron' supplied in Garden Railway Specialists open wagon detailing set. These were than fixed in place with cyano glue.
I then turned my attention to the wagon sides and drilled 3 holes in each of the 6 supports (in the centre of each of the 3 planks) and glued rivets in to these. I also fitted 4 rivets to the headstocks, 2 each where the solebar joins to the headstock.

The components in an IP Engineering solebar detailing set were then fixed to the solebars with cyano. the straight and curved axleguard fixing bolt washers need to line up with the W irons, so I temporarily re-fitted the axleguards to help line these up.

The dummy handbrake assembly was discarded and replaced with a working handbrake set from IP Engineering ref. W6. The kit includes a full set of instructions and all parts including rivets, pins and chain. The appropriate wheel set needs to be temporarily re-fitted to assist with lining the brake shoe up correctly. The brake gear was assembled using cyano adhesive and went together with no problems. I have several of the sets and will be fitting these to some wagons I will be building in the future. The working handbrake is very useful for ensuring a wagon stays put in a siding on  a windy day.

Before painting, I masked the newly scrubbed floor and insides of the wagon ends and the wagon sides were masked with the exception of the riveted uprights in order to preserve the lettering. The wagon was sprayed with my usual grey auto primer in a spray can. The brake gear and builder's plate were then picked out in acrylic matt black.

The wagon was then reassembled, new load data transfers were applied to the sides (the old ones were a bit flaky) and new number 11s applied to the ends. Finally the wagon was given a few light wafts of olive drab from a spray can to give a slightly weathered look. I am not very good at weathering techniques but this method works for me and I will be using the same process on all wagons as they come through the workshop for any maintenance.

When the line was opened in 2007, the original freight rolling stock comprised of three Brandbright open wagons and a Tenmille Corris brake van. These had all been purchased second hand as made up kits in 1993 and spent the intervening years in my attic. The brake van was soon replaced by a scratch built Schull and Skibbereen version but the three opens continued in service.
Modifications to all three were carried out in 2008 and these included fitting 30mm diameter wheels and Accucraft chopper couplings as well as applying TBLR lettering and numbers.

I have a policy of building and running models of actual Irish narrow gauge rolling stock in order to give the railway an authentic feel. I therefore felt I needed to review the future of these freelance wagons and decide whether they could be modified and continue in service or end up on the scrap heap. Here is a breakdown of the fate of each wagon.

• Brandbright ref. GS6 4 plank open wagon - TBLR number 8. This wagon was rebuilt to resemble a Schull and Skibbereen ballast wagon in 2009. The conversion was not a success and I have now withdrawn the wagon from service. The wheels, couplings, axleguards and brake shoe have been salvaged for re-use. The dummy handbrake lever assembly made from plastic strip was thrown away and the body has found use as a lineside ballast bin.
• Brandbright ref. GS15 5 plank open wagon - TBLR number 5. This wagon was rebuilt to resemble a Schull and Skibbereen 10ft. open wagon in 2009. The wagon floor was cut down both in length and width to the correct proportions of the S&S wagon and then re-assembled, extra curved top planks were added to the wagon ends and the side drop doors (non opening) were widened by relocating the hardware to the correct position. A cast metal handbrake assembly from Garden Railway Specialists was also added. The original is a 3 plank wagon and the model has 5 planks but the overall proportions are correct and I think this wagon conveys the impression of its full size counterpart. I have decided to keep this wagon in service. I recently purchased some solebar detailing sets from IP Engineering and after spraying with grey primer I have applied a full set to this wagon. The solebar details differ from the original but a) it's not a true scale model anyway, b) the extra detail looks good and c) it's my railway so I can do what I want!
• Brandbright GS14 3 plank open wagon with removable sides - TBLR number 11. Apart from the addition of a dummy handbrake assembly in 2009, this wagon has not changed since it's original upgrade in 2008. Although it is a freelance design it is a well proportioned wagon and the removable sides are an interesting feature. I have also decided to keep this wagon in service but with the addition of extra detailing and a working handbrake, see part 2 of this post.

So two of the three open wagons will be retained in service and although they are not totally authentic examples of Irish NG rolling stock I think they convey the right impression. These will be classed as being original TBLR stock.