British Rail Diag 1/152 Coke Hopper wagons…

A while ago I was asked to build a couple of Coke hopper wagons. These aren't a wagon type that have ever been on my radar to be honest and there aren't too many photos available either. As ever, the most useful starting point is Paul Bartlett's website:

Paul Bartlett's Photographs | BR & PO Coke Hopper wagons HCO HCP

In model form, there's an absolutely ancient kit available from Three Aitch and the more recent RTR offering from Hornby. To complicate matters, I was asked to build the solid sided wagons - these aren't offered by either of the aforementioned manufacturers.

The RTR model, as available from Hornby

First up, I have to say that I find the prototype wagons to be absolutely uninspiring and really hideous looking things!

I was sent two Hornby models to use, and the bodies were duly sacrificed in order to make use of the rather nice underframes. They needed to be EM gauge, so the original wheelsets were utilised, albeit with re-gauged wheels. This is an easy enough job, but does mean that some work is necessary to bring the brakegear in line with the wheels.

Fortunately, the plastic parts are easy to remove from the metal chassis and with a bit of careful trimming can be refitted without too much difficulty.

The new body shared the same basic proportions as the now discarded Hornby items - the length and width were the same to ensure it would fit the underframe with no issues. Construction is from plastic sheet, and utilised a [admittedly very short!] production line to ensure consistency. 

The bodysides are pretty featureless and, mercifully, devoid of any visible riveting so everything could be made using various thicknesses of plastic strip and other offcuts.

The underframes are metal, so are nice and weighty, and the new bodies were mated to the chassis using Araldite for robustness.

The funky colours you see in the photos are my way of checking the various joins! The ends sport some grabrails, made using brass wire - note I've only added them to one of the wagons so far.

I now need to batch produce the triangular fillets that are present along the lower edges of the hoppers before thoughts can turn to paint.