Cattle Wagon Roofs

The last entry about the D120 Van coincided with my return to work after 6 weeks holiday over the summer and the resultant demands on my time have curtailed the pace of activity which had characterised January.  Still, all hasn’t been lost as I have managed to make some headway on the Cattle Wagon Saga which has been mentioned a couple of times previously.

One of the big attractions of joining the 2mm Scale Association was the availability of a variety of kits for similar wagons – indeed, if you are keen, there is over 10 different kits for Cattle Wagons available from the Association from 3 pre-grouping railways, 3 of the big four and BR (the GWR seems to be the one missing).   Compared with the offerings from N Gauge RTR manufacturers (Peco and Farish) the opportunities for variety in your train abound, especially since cattle were freighted reasonable distances to market or to farms following purchase and the wagon would go the distance, rather than transhipping the beasts.

The LMS Twin Pack kit (2-514 – see below) is one of the older kits for the Association being as it is injection moulded plastic, rather than etched nickel silver like the newer kits (which have been the subject of previous posts).

Now Ben had obtained 8 bodies (so 4 kits) in various stages of completeness via the Bay of E.  When he passed them to me to complete for him as part of a barter deal involving some GUVs only two of the plastic roofs as shown came too.  There was an etch (2-236) of roofs for LMS, MR and SDJR roofs which, considering the theme of his layout, seemed like a good idea – the 8th roof was made using a plastic van roof.

The problem with this kind of detail is finding out if the bodies you are putting the roofs on are, in fact, the right bodies.  Certainly the kit is for LMS Cattle wagons but which of the five etched roofs are LMS, which MR and which SDJR – and does it matter?

Well fortunately, Ben has these books:

and on consulting them I was able to ascertain that the body is a MR design which was built by the LMS until they came up with their own, newer design.  Good.  Even better was I was able to find pictures in the MR Book which showed that all of the roofs (there are 4 designs for the 5 on the etch) are appropriate to use.

Top row – etched multi ribbed roofs (the only two which were the same on the etch) of which there was a photo in the MR book showing this roof type.

Second top – etched left, made up plastic right.  The plastic had a crack in it so will require some filler before it is finished.

Second bottom – etched with rain strips left and original plastic roof from kit on right

Bottom row – plain etch roof on left, and original plastic on right.

The plastic roofs will need to be smoothed/filled before completion.  The plain etch has some bumps in it from the rolling process – not sure how as the other 4 rolled ok with no bumps and they were done first!

So even though there are 8 bodies the same, by using the various roof options available, a variety of wagons become possible – and as homogenous block trains were a thing of the future when the S&D was in operation, then it is a good thing.  Now to complete the chassis to go under them, then paint, then transfer…