Almost Spring Watch

Here we are in March and we awoke to snow falling this morning! However, it's been a busy week with the YQA Super Tench completed and sent out for test and more excitingly for some the release of the YQA Parr which can be found on Steam Marketplace.

Alongside this we've decided to create an extra bonus item to include in a future pack and settled into process of starting another wagon we think will be popular.

ZEA Bream

Runner wagons have always been an important part of railway operations. When a load is too long for wagon a runner can be marshalled between that wagon and the next to provide the space for the overhang without the load colliding. As a quirky and useful item we thought it would be fun to include a runner wagon in our forthcoming YAA Brill wagon pack along with some suitably long loads to make use of them.

Following the wholesale transfer of the early BDA conversions to the engineers department a need would have been fairly quickly identified for suitable air braked runner wagons to operate with them. One of the sources of these wagons were the less than successful SAA 2-axle steel wagons which had already found themselves in runner use for revenue traffic along with a considerable number converted for other uses.

The runner conversion itself was relatively straightforward with the folding stanchions and various other surplus components removed to give the required 10cm clearance between the top of the runner wagon and the underside of the overhanging load.

JNA Falcon

It's been refreshing this week to start with a blank canvas and a whole new model to tackle. This is likely to be another one which many people will want to add to their collecting in the shape of a JNA Falcon ballast wagon.

The wagon is still in floating wagon state at the moment as the rest of the major steelwork is added to the body but the intention is clear from the render above. What has become apparent as the modelling progressed is that the construction is much more than a simple box!