How I made a small Permanent Way wagon

After completing the IP Engineering Lollypop Railcar kit (see How I constructed an IP Engineering Lollypop Railcar), and fitting it out with batteries and Deltang radio control (see Deltang radio control - an evaluation), I felt it needed some sort of trailer to enable the crew to carry their equipment. The flat wagons which I had constructed previously, were too large (see How I constructed some flat wagons) and so I cast about for something suitable. I noticed on the IP Engineering website that there were some Hudson wagon chassis, one of which I thought might be suitable and so, after parting with my hard-earned dosh, I received the kit.

The kit is extremely straightforward to construct - after cleaning the castings, the four axle boxes were epoxied to the frame with the axles installed.

While the glue was setting, ten coffee-stirrers were cut to a length of 90mm .......

...... and another four were cut to a length of 51mm.

Two of the shorter planks were placed across the chassis frame and coated with PVA adhesive.

Eight of the longer planks were then glued to these cross members. When the glue had dried, the ends of the planks were marked and trimmed with a craft knife to even off their lengths.

The remaining four planks were  trimmed to length and glued around the edges of the platform, ......

..... and a couple of spacers were trimmed and inserted between the sides. Then everything was held in place with an elastic band until the glue set.

In the meantime, a strip of 0.2mm thick brass was marked out to the width of a coffee-stirrer (7mm), and then cut-out with tin-snips.

These were then snipped into 14mm lengths and six depressions were punched into them with an automatic centre punch tool, to represent rivet heads.

These corner plates were then marked across their centres and folded to 90 degrees by applying pressure along the centre-line with a  craft knife.

Some of the plates needed to be flattened with pointed-nose pliers ......

.......... before being superglued on to the corners of the wagon body.

The wheels of the chassis were masked with masking tape before the chassis and the body were given a couple of coats of Halford's grey primer from an aerosol rattle-can.

Once the primer had dried, the corner plates were picked-out with black acrylic paint.

The chassis was given a couple of coats of satin black from a spray can before the masking tape was removed. The body was then given a light wash of mucky brown and black acrylics, and the chassis daubed with various shades of brown acrylic to represent rust. The body was then fixed to the chassis with superglue.

 A set of Bachmann tools had been purchased .......

....... and then dulled-down and dirtied with acrylics. These were then superglued on to the wagon body in what I hope looks like a random but workmanlike manner.

 The wagon was then coupled to the Lollypop railcar and given a test-run (or several).

To my mind, the wagon gives the impression of a home-built utilitarian truck such as those which a permanent-way gang might have constructed for their own use. It maybe needs a little more battering and abuse, and the railcar could do with some weathering to suggest more wear and tear, but overall, this little addition to the stock list seems to fit the bill.