Wagons and Vans

Locomotives are usually made out of metals and unless your a model engineer with a lathe and a well equiped workshop you usually need to buy them in, however the matter of vans and wagons is another thing completely! The basic materials are wood...(stuff that is everywhere!) and thin brass...to make metal fittings. I usually make my rolling stock from pictures or ideas 'out of my head' with cheap brought wood that I can cut to size as my £40+ bandsaw (Machine Mart-Worcester) which has a rip-fence fitted! 7/8" scale modellers are fortunate in England as to having a company such as 'Back2Bay6' in our 'backyard' so to speak! 'Back2bay6' sell's SVE wheel sets plus real scale fine cast resin figures and lots of stuff to make a fine 'rubber-scale' garden railway. (See links page for information) I usually have a 7/8" scale figure handy and use that as a upright scale comparision. One can buy 7/8" scale rulers but I made my own by marking a length of wood in biro of/in 7/8" 'inches' and on the other side a 5' 8" figure in 7/8" scale just in case one does not have a scale figure handy! In picking the conserve industry as a reason for my outfits existance I find you then start thinking about all the different sorts of specilized wagons and vans needed which start coming to mind! The brake WAGON at the bottom of the page show's this thinking. Note the large sprag brake at one end of the wagon. Note the brakeman which cost me 49p and then was 'bashed'. Inside the wagon there is a stove/kettle and bottles of milk plus coal for the stove. The 'curtains' are one of my cotton handkerchief's cut up stained to make mucky.

I have noticed quite often that people when starting up in this scale the first thing they ask is "where can I buy a kit or ready made wagon/van?"...It is of course people's own business how they spend their money but I find this all rather sad as the scale is so large scale-wise that making the fittings is very easy to do. I do buy 7/8" scale wheels I admit but all the rest of the fittings can be adapted or made. It must be pointed out that the price of ready made stuff and kits is truly awfull in this scale. This must be the reason why so many manufactoring ventures in 7/8" scale seem to never get off the ground! Then of course fortunately the scale is still blessed with many fine modellers who turn out lovely hand-work and using proper scale wheel sets so things are still being made in a proper manner. I must admit myself to using commercial skip wagons and tanks off 'G' scale tank wagons to convert into 7/8" scale skips and tank wagons. I do this as its way too much work and palaver to make these sort of thing's completely by hand. (02/10/2011)

Two mineral skips. Note diffent tub design.
The company three plank swede wagon
The wood billit wagon with a load.
The company special fruit tub wagon
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Here is the contractors ex. U.S. Army 'Porter' pulling the new miners transport wagons around the edges of Lake Dodford. Its a nice day but the afternoon shift starts soon and nice view's become a distant memory!

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Here is another one of our latest products....a brake wagon. This is a cut down van as the original van was top heavy and wobbled!! Note the sprag brake fixed to the rear of the wagon. Mr. Brown looks happy anyway....(26/01/2011)