Project no.2 - Wooden Flat Wagon

In June I joined (re-joined actually) the 7mm Narrow Gauge Association (7mmNGA) at their annual exhibition in Burton-upon-Trent and purchased a copy of the society's 'Going Minimum Gauge' handbook.

A wooden flat wagon is one of the modelling ideas… Using a Peco N gauge wagon chassis and a handful of those wooden coffee stirrers that every railway modeller I know squirrels away by the handful.

Given that my 'Project no.1' will need something to pull and that my box of potentially useful bits and pieces contains both a suitable chassis and numerous coffee stirrers I'm going to build one, something along these lines…

Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway 'Top' wagon, Irton Road Station, 10/7/14

This is one of nine four-wheeled wagons used by the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway's permanent way department. Eight of the wagons have removable bodies (tops) for ballast carrying (as seen above).

Remember, remember! The fifth of November…

With tonight being 'Guy Fawkes Night' (Guy Fawkes, the last man to go into the Houses of Parliament with good intentions? Discuss…) I thought I'd post a photo of something I saw at the Bala Lake Railway a couple of years ago…

Oakeley Quarry Gunpowder Wagon, 15/8/14

This 2ft gauge gunpowder wagon was originally used for transporting explosives around the Oakeley Quarry in Blaenau Ffestiniog when blasting for slate and had arrived from the Llanberis Lake Railway for restoration a few months previously.

Despite constant disputes over the rates for slate shipment the Oakeley Quarry sent slate over the Ffestiniog Railway until the railway closed in August 1946 but also had a connection to the London & North Western Railway exchange yard in Blaenau Ffestiniog (via an incline built in 1930) and large tonnages of slate were sent out via this connection until the closure of the quarry in 1970.