Emergency Service

My current challenge is to try to produce a pair of Fairlie ‘ambulance bogies’ to go under Livingston Thompson.

The bogies in question are the ex-Polish ones which I previously scratch built to run under our oil tanker 66, which I’m using as a guide.

These bogies have a very distinctive short wheelbase and a semi-circular frame at the front.

Last time I fabricated them entirely from styrene but this time I think it might be a better idea to try to cast them from resin as one piece to give it more strength.

I’ll use the technique I adopt with the brass-framed bogies of having the axle box and suspension detail as a secondary casting to glue the sides afterwards.

The first attempt at a master for the frame is ready to create a mould, and we’ll see if the concept works.

Warm Woollen Mittens

It's totally unprototypical to be sitting in the siding at Beddgelert, for lots of reasons, but this model of one of the FR's former oil tank wagons counts as one of my favourite things.

The model was a challenge to make because I had to kit-bash a plastic kit for a vintage road tanker - from Cooper Craft if I remember rightly - to get the distinctive oval shape, and then scratch build quite a complicated chassis.

The bogies are also home made being a very unusual Polish design which the FR acquired a number of once, and for which I could find nothing similar on any N gauge wagon or carriage.

It also makes very creative use of waterslide transfers to represent the livery carried by this vital, yet unsung, fleet of waggons which have now passed into history.

Can you see how the word oil is made to look like a loco?