Cool Van

The last of the lot 3890 VDA vans for RailWorks have been completed.

In this case it's the unique white painted van 200987 so painted for Rowntrees' chocolate traffic instead of just having a white roof like other vans in this traffic.

Slightly Worn

To finish off this little series of screen shots and almost complete the feel of what our VDA pack for RailWorks will contain, here's a flame red and grey van after it's seen a little bit of use.

There's still one more livery to show once we get the lot 3890 vans sorted and each of the variants of the other two lots to complete. The heavy work is done now though so they shouldn't be too much trouble ...

Red, Grey and a bit of Grime

Another lot 3855 version of the VDA van - this time a little later in life with some fairly recently applied Flame Red and grey paint.

You dirty old van!

After a slightly used example yesterday lets get downright filthy!

A once maroon VDA to lot 3855 - I might let you see the Flame Red and grey ones later ...

One slightly used van.

A busy day has been spent giving those pristine VDAs we've come to know a bit of a dirt.

This is the 'clean' version - well as clean as you're likely to see in the case of a VDA, unless you're sat by the doors of the paintshop at Ashford in 1976.

Time to get really dirty tomorrow.

Chocolate Box

A fairly large number of VDA vans gained white painted roofs when assigned to chocolate traffic for Rowntrees between their factories and depots. It's thought the coat of pain was applied to reflect some of the heat away in a similar way to refrigerated containers and meat vans in the past.

In this shot we can see a maroon liveried van from the lot fitted with experimental suspension. What has become apparent is the wide variations in the way each livery was applied to different vans, the maroon buffers being quite surprising.

This is still a quite flat textured version ready for testing to check everything is where it should be before the grime brushes come out!

We're back ...

Sorry about the quiet spell - an ISP issue has meant no internet access for over three weeks and there's only so much you can get away with at work ;-)

Anyway, one of the jobs that's been done while I lurked in the stone age was getting the master textures on to the VDA vans. The maroon versions still need some tweaks but this virtually ex-works version was spotted at Darlington a few moments ago.

It looks like the van has already carried a couple of interesting loads judging by the warning diamond and remains of another that's been removed. Once you have them in your possession you'll be able to choose which warnings are shown along with a Carlisle Currock sticker if the mood takes you.

Out of the oven - VDA version 4

And the last one - complete with tail lamp as a check.

The last batch of VDA vans built returned basically to the design of the original batch with notable exceptions of revised hinges for the outward opening pairs of doors at the ends and longer hand brake levers.

Now it's time for the 20T brake van to receive the same treatment.

VDA - The Final Version

The last few days have seen the final master versions of the VDA vans for RailWorks created and a start made on unwrapping ready for pre-shading and texturing. The last things have been a few niggles spotted by the beta testers along with adding some missing brake gear to the disc braked versions and creating the experimental clasp braked version.

The two renders (using a different set up than usual) show an original van built as lot 3855 with disc brakes and the lower one shows the experimental lot 3890 clasp braked version. The differences are subtle from this angle but just about discernible.

Gone a bit Airfix

This is all a bit reminiscent of making the Airfix wagons for the wagons for the model railway. You get it together and then just can't wait to give it a run before painting it months later, sound familiar?

Seriously though, here's a picture of 7S66 Tees-Stranraer complete with grey plastic VDAs passing through Durham in the third scenario being developed for the RailWorks VDA stock pack.

dia 1/507 Brake Van Progress

Have sent some more time on the dia 1/507 brake van that will accompany our VDA vans for RailWorks.

The model starts to resemble a brake van now and the next session should see the majority of the big bits completed.

As is always the case with WIP renders they show the bits that need a little refinement. In those super chunky foot boards need a bit of attention along with a couple of other small things.

Take a Brake?

A little earlier than planned we've started work on a dia 1/507 brake van for RailWorks. So far there's just the basic body but worth a quick render anyway.

Although the original plans had seen a brake van making an appearance in a supporting role with a future stock pack the need has arisen to pop one into the VDA van pack. This has been prompted by the arrival of the initial test version of the first scenario, a service which was diagrammed for a brake van  due to the hazardous nature of some of the commodities carried and it just didn't look right with the default van.

The completed brake van included in the VDA van pack will be a CAR version with both through vacuum and air pipes in brown and yellow livery and the Railfreight grey and red colours.

Bring on the doors

Most of the modelling time since the appearance of the tail lamp renders has been spent experimenting and baking the textures for the 102t bogie tanker. Work commitments at the moment mean there's no access to a pc with RailWorks installed to check the appearance so it felt best not to show any of the progress until the wagon and textures are actually in the simulator.

For a bit of a change tonight we've had a play with the VDA van and have been rendering the high poly doors onto their low poly siblings and adding some colour to check out how they appear. The image above is a quick render of the baked textures for the doors brought back into the modelling programme to see what they look like with a few other parts unhidden to bring the doors into context.

This really is a bit of experimentation with two liveries and associated locations of lettering. Perhaps we could justify it by saying the wagon has been damaged and a couple of doors have been salvaged from a withdrawn example ....

A phat VDA!

Sorry folks couldn't resist that one.

Another one of those moments where something looks easy and then isn't is finally over. The final shape for the VDA vans is basically complete and has been an interesting puzzle. At first glance the experimental FAT13 suspension fitted to the 100 vans built to lot 3856 at Shildon in 1975/6 looks straightforward.

First impressions can be deceiving though, it looks like all that's required is a couple of pedestals, a long and strangely thin spring, axle box cover, some rams and a few other bits. Then once you start to delve further you realise there are extra bits all over the place that actually make it all work. Progress on this puzzle was going really well until the realisation dawned that there were parts that didn't appear to do anything!

Closer inspection and a lucky find in a book revealed that the van we'd photographed in use as a stores van on a preserved railway had a number of parts removed, possibly to enable the vehicle to be moved when required on a vacuum braked site?

Anyway the final shape is complete and is here for you to take a look at finally!

VDA Van: Two completed shapes

It's been one of those sessions today where the expectation of what can be done and the reality are slightly different. It had been hoped that all the shapes for the VDA would be finished before the end of the day, but distractions and fatigue have taken their toll.

That said here are two completed shapes ready for a final spin in RailWorks before unwrapping begins:

This first offering is of the original design that 330 vehicles under lot 3855 were built to at Ashford Works in 1976.

This second example is based on the 300 examples built under lot 3908 at Shildon Works in 1977-8. The design has evolved a little by the time this lot were constructed and much more substantial hinges are fitted to the pairs of hinged doors at each end of the wagon and the handbrake lever is considerably longer.

The last main variant, that will be the subject of tomorrows effort, are the 100 vans built with experimental FAT13 suspension.

VDA Van: Wheels and Details

Not quite the progress on the VDA we'd have liked to have seen today, but there was a little more progress after this render was made.

The original version to Lot 3855 is now basically complete, just in need of the handbrake mechanism completing, some elements of brake rigging adding and a few other small details like the latches for the centre sliding doors.

The VDA is proving to be an interesting prototype with all three of the large lots built having notable differences that we will begin to encompass once the shape for this version is complete.

What a difference some buffers make

Not the greatest of updates today. We've spent a fair amount of time tweaking the end framing to try and get the proportions correct, and eventually think we've got there. Can you spot any of the tiny changes from yesterday to capture the character?

The actual body has been raised by a ridiculously small amount as it didn't look quite right when the buffers were offered up, who'd have thought that 3.4cm could make such a difference! Of course the other big change has been adding the sole-bars and their associated webs.

Going round in circles

We decided to spend the second half of this week working on the VDA van...

It's been one of those annoying processes over the last couple of nights where one small change has had a knock on effect all over the place. In a strange twist the render that's been posted here looks almost identical to the one we nearly posted last night!

The problem was that there were a couple of annoying errors that looked like they needed a few minutes to fix. Like all 'just jobs' the small adjustments snowballed and both the body and end braces have been rebuilt. There's still a bit of tweaking needed to get the proportions of the end ribbing looking just right but it is a fair impression of progress.

Perhaps a VAA with those nice smooth ends would have been a better plan ...