HEA HEA HEA...

Over the past few weeks I've been making slow but steady progress on this batch of ten HEA coal wagons in N gauge and I'm very excited...

You see these aren't some careful repaint and detailing of the Farish effort, or some lucky acquisition of the old Taylor tooling styrene kits - no, these are prototypes from Coventry Rail Works and they are fantastic.

Will designed them in short order after I tracked down a drawing in an old Model Railway Constructor annual. His efforts are superb, this is a 2 piece 3D print (chassis and hopper) and the examples here are just painted and decal'd straight from the printer. Clean and crisp (if a little light), they capture the character well, and with the fidelity of the chassis work and those body framing struts being see-through look superb... perhaps even difficult to tell they are N?!

Coventry Rail Works (left) vs Poole era Farish (right)

The Farish tooling is still crisp - but posed here you can see the problems. The  chassis has been made a little high (perhaps this was due to pizza cutter flanges on the original wheel sets, yet needing material above this for rigidity? Either way - the top of the chassis is about 1mm too tight. The hopper body features a flat plate at its base - mounted on top of the already too tall chassis a compromise has to be made - and this is the amount of 'hopper'! Note the upper flat sided area is the same, it's the sloping part that is compressed. This alters the impression of the prototype, so whilst it's not easy to spot on the wagon alone, something didn't look right. Will's efforts instantly show it up - but lets be kind, this must be 30+ year old tooling now...

So as the rake of ten progresses thoughts are turning to 'where to use them, and do I need anymore?' Both questions to be answered soon enough. If you want to get some of Will's wagons I'm afraid you will need to wait as he is planning to convert the CAD into artwork for his own injection moulding tooling to release them as plastic kits - for now though, Until next time, more soon...

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