Rebodied HTV Render

Carrying on our series of blog posts with renders showing new models in production we're excited to be revealing this re-bodied dia. 1/146 coal hopper.

Diagram 1/146 started to appear in about 1952 and with its BR style hand brake, Morton brakes and welded body can be considered to be the standard design of 21T coal hopper. This is further reinforced when you consider that some 17000 wagons were constructed.

However, carrying coal in any type of steel wagon has one big problem, corrosion. This was originally dealt with but cutting out corroded sections and welding in new metal. By the late 1960's this approach had been generally superseded by the process of replacing the whole body. From 1971 to 1978 a major re-bodying program took place with larger numbers of wagons from all diagrams receiving a new style of welded body with two ribs on each side.

Given their sheer number a many dia 1/146 wagons would have received the new body and this is what is featured in our renders above. Fitted and unfitted wagons from other diagrams were also re-bodied and some gained vacuum brakes at this time too.

BORAIL EB Render

We've been beavering away quietly on a few things lately and selfishly haven't shared! As an example of what's been going on here's a render of a brand new model that has it's first version complete.

The wagon in question is a British Railways designed, vacuum braked, bogie rail wagon used for transporting lengths of rail from steel works to customers and for export. Originally these wagons were not for the use of the engineers department and were built as a traffic wagon. This design was dia 1/483 and was the final design created following a number of variants based on pre-nationalisation designs.

The deep fish belly underframe is particularly distinctive and makes this wagon impressive at over 60ft in length. The vast majority of the design were overhauled and fitted with new bogies, air brakes and a new deck and bolsters, but that is the subject of another model and another blog post!