British Industrial Sand PGA in N (part 2)…

A couple of weeks ago I kicked this ‘simple’ conversion project off with an introduction on the blog. You’d be forgiven for thinking that all this British N had been forgotten with the plethora of Canadian ramblings but no, the flame of Speedlink era freight continues to burn brightly here…

In that introduction I shared how I would use the N scale ‘Cavalex’ PGA as the basis for the conversion offering a detailed chassis and generally proportionally accurate foundation for the body. In the weeks since that first post I’ve finished off the basic ‘first’ wagon with extra detail and got it primed. I hadn’t intended to modify the supporting ribs, and indeed, left the ends with the incorrect number. However the sides gained a piece of micro strip on their cut back front edge, contributing effectively to the overall look and deception - and finished off with some brass wire between each rib (as if it was passing through) for the old air operated top door mechanism. This I’ve modelled as removed, based upon some photos I found of the wagons in Holmethorpe / Warrington traffic, saving a bit of time and lots of fiddly repetitive part making.

As you can see in the header photo a second Cavalex wagon has gone under the knife too! Whilst not quite as neat in some places, it is actually an improvement in others. The air tank now mounted above the frame is from the Cavalex underframe detail and the end screens are Slaters embossed wood planked styrene. I modified my first attempt at the hand brake wheel too - lowering their mounting. They should have 6 spokes (as I had originally above and below), but I figured it was better to have the pair of wagons matching (top).

The next piece in the jigsaw is their distinctive branding (paper mock up below). I looked for a vector artwork of the BIS logo online - no luck, so resorted to drawing this by hand - it’s such a distinctive feature but is just a series of lines and quarter circles. The text isn’t straight forward either, but I hope I’ve matched the weight and spacing in my design. This will be printed (along with data panels) as a one piece decal and I’ll finish the wagons with some ‘generic’ Fox transfers for the Procor PGA wagons.

But that can all wait for part 3, where things will be wrapped up with painting and weathering too… I hope that unlike some of my previous wagon projects this goes to show how you can use modern ready to run as a shortcut to produce the model you want without resorting to 3D printing. All the modifications here use simple hand tools, styrene and brass wire. Scratch and kit bashing skills are great tools for all aspects of modelmaking and more, enjoyable too… for now, until next time, more soon…

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