Two flavours of Scottish timber...

A few weeks ago I wrote about some new rolling stock for my N gauge Scottish adventure. With the weathering complete and couplings fitted, today they get their own dedicated post!...

They depict two different era of timber traffic on the Lochdubh branch. The OBA were a general purpose air braked open wagon, without stakes they had a limited pay load for timber, but their use proved the traffic was worthwhile and led to the modification of the under-utilised steel bodied OCA to provide the OTA. These distinctive vehicles continued to handle timber traffic into the early years of this century.

On Lochdubh, the OBA will operate with the Class 26 - and as well as timber can be utilised to represent the occasional fertiliser trains that ran in the early 1980s. They are 'out of the box' Farish models with the couplings replaced with DG and a weathering wash to the chassis, body and wagon interior making the most of this characterful tooling. A really useful wagon and a lovely model.

The OTA will be used in the later period, when Class 37s took over from the 26. They will be attached to the rear of passenger trains as required, as was the case with the real Kyle of Lochalsh service in the same period. I opted for a light blue, which was specific to one particular customer, but all the OTA I can find photos of in the period in question on the Kyle line were blue. These Chivers kits are built 'as they come' with a number of stakes cut off to match the prototype. Fitted with DG couplings and weathered to represent the sort of hard use they would have encountered in service.

I am hoping that Father Christmas brings me further items for the Scottish project, namely 3 Mk1s and a Class 37 (of course I know he is, because I wrapped them myself) - at which point I'll have 99% of the stock and a lot of ideas - but no 'layout' for them to stretch their legs. In the meantime I'll continue to pose them on Lochdubh and day dream of what is to come. Until next time, more soon...

Donate

I love writing and creating material for the blog. If you enjoy what you read and engage with I would be appreciative of any donation, large or small, to help me keep it advert and restriction free.