Railfreight Minilink (part 1)…

Phew, after two months I’ve finally managed to climb out of this rabbit hole! I fell really deep, deeper than usual. It has taken the ‘completion’ of the second part of the story to feel in a position to tell the first, so just what exactly am I talking about today?

It is funny, I was flicking through an old book, one I bought at ‘The Works’ in Chester back in my early teens - ‘Railfreight - today’. I was actually looking for a photo of the steel carrying Powell Duffryn container wagon, but in its pages found a mention of Minilink. My interest piqued, an internet trawl dug up all sorts of interesting information.

There is a rather good write up of the concept here and it was also reported contemporaneously in Commerical Motor magazine at launch in 1986, and later when expanding the service in 1987 here and here. Equally useful for the modeller are Paul Bartlett’s inevitable photos. You’ll find them hiding in plain sight too, in Speedlink trains on the WCML. Photographers and caption writers not commenting, presumably as they weren’t entirely sure of what they were?

Now this all seemed rather wonderful. A little known prototype, just about extant in my time period. Further research turned up the fact the FMR (now Fox) produced the transfers in N gauge! Was this ever a commission model or kit in the past? Deeply curious I began to contemplate a model.

It seemed obvious to start with the container. I had no dimensions, just some photos. However, I’ve recently enjoyed designing the 20ft containers for the steel wagon, I felt comfortable with estimates and opened up my 3D editing software with just a Farish OBA, ruler and a commitment to make it a reality.

The results, above, were transformed via Shapeways to a physical product, below, in little over 2 weeks. This looked great, and I think captured the prototype as well as I could have hoped in this small scale. It is a solid model so has a reasonable weight too, so a set of 4 will give a wagon some mass…

But what to do about that wagon? Earlier this year I’d built a Chivers OCA kit - I wondered if the side frames could be used as the basis for the frame? In the end, the Chivers buffers were useful too but the internal frame itself was scratchbuilt. Mosskito disc wheels completed the look. Posed with a set of four containers I felt really excited. This is a unique project and despite a lack of ‘useful’ dimensional information the result seemed to capture the prototype.

Painting followed - warning panel yellow first, carefully masked followed by flame red. The 30 year old decals worked - amazingly - and I was feeling buoyant, however, those black rubber door seals nearly killed me!

 

The chassis was simply black with some random decals to suggest more than be accurate. Studying the photos again, the base of the containers and the frame on the wagon were picked out in grey before I could seal them in lacquer and apply a very light weathering.

Eagle eyed readers will notice one container doesn’t have numbers! There were only enough for four containers… but there are four? No, there are five - but the story of that fifth example will wait for Part 2!

I have found this distraction deeply restorative. A beautiful blend of my favourite things - research into a rare prototype, 3D design, kit bashing and painting and finishing. The result is not only this unique N gauge model, but can be measured in the positive impact on my mental health. Life can be really tough - working on this has reminded me a little of who I am, what I enjoy and what can be achieved with passion and skills practice.

As I end, I also ponder those transfers… it seems very unlikely that FMR printed them on a whim? Who commissioned them? Was there a kit? Have you ever seen a model (in any scale) of this prototype? Before we go, a trailer for Part 2… this one also has 4 wheels but is a little smaller. For now though I hope you’ve enjoyed this story, until next time, more soon…

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