Revolutio’N’ tanks…

During the period of interest (mid 70s to mid 80s) the Cambrian coast still saw a pick up goods travel the line twice a week. Whilst the oil terminal at Aberystwyth had already switched to trainloads of TTA tanks the small Bates and Hunt (local Esso wholesalers) at Machynlleth still received supplies in 35t vacuum fitted tanks…

The visible seam line on the grey tank is more obvious than the brown, here with natural but side lighting. Under top lighting it is almost un noticeable. Presumably a limitation of the tooling perhaps even hand smoothed at the factory?

This was excuse enough for one of Revolution’s lovely tanks to arrive here, released as a crowd funded model a few years ago and now re-released with both Class A and B variants this is a wonderful piece of miniaturisation, whilst not quite as refined as Sonic’s VEA it is still a truly remarkable vehicle. What follows is not a review, but perhaps a reflection?

Joined by the debranded Esso tank is a United Molasses example for no better reason than because I liked it. If I’m honest it’s too early for my Railfreight 26 as UM had switched over to air braked tanks to make use of the Speedlink network, so quite why it will be seen on Paxton a road remains to be seen however it’s vacuum braked nature will allow the brake van to legitimately appear!

One thing that impressed me as much as the detail were the couplings. Respectably close coupled on straights and kinematic so they open to prevent buffer lock in corners. However, they have been replaced in my usual slightly bodged manner by super gluing on some DG.

The close coupling is slightly improved but the real difference is side on, we’ve lost the heavy side profile of the ‘standard’ N gauge couplings, and we’re edging into finding it difficult to ‘scale’ this photo…

For what these wagons cost they represent fantastic value. Many of the Farish wagon toolings are beginning to show their age with slightly heavy planking gaps and details, and whilst still well detailed, here the combination of both detail and fidelity make these wagons wonderful examples of the way forwards in N. I can assure you there will be more soon…

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