How I Anglicised an LGB tank wagon

The raw materials
A bog-standard tank wagon (the least well detailed and cheapest) was bought on eBay:

and a kit of bits was bought from Garden Railway Services (GRS)

Shortening the body
Firstly, the wagon was disassembled which involved unscrewing six screws:

One end of the body needed to be shortened to match the other end and leave room for the uprights. This was achieved with a few strokes of a craft knife:

The tank was sprayed with Plasti-kote grey primer (the standard colour for all my goods stock)

Modifying the chassis
I also removed all vestiges of the brake gear using a razor saw (I now wish I had left one brake block in place) as per the Welshpool and Llanfair.

Adding the tank stays
First, the two baulks were trimmed and glued to the ends of the body:

The uprights were then glued together and added to the ends, and the two upper baulks were glued in place.

Holes were drilled in the sides of the chassis and the upper baulks and the wires provided in the kit were superglued in place.
Finally, I decided to snip the heads from four suitably sized bolts, added a nut and superglued these to the ends of upper baulks. I ought to have done the same for the diagonal ties but decided there was insufficient room.

All the added paraphernalia and straps across the top of the tank were then touched up with black acrylics.

A nice little job which can be completed in an afternoon and to my mind is well worth the effort.

Update - 9/3/15

 Since completing this wagon, I have converted another tank wagon (using square section Plastruct and wire - see Progress Report 37) and weathered both wagons.

Progress Report 22 - Platform & Goods stock

Peckforton platform
I finally got around to giving Peckforton station a platform. Owing to limited space, I decided to put the platform on the inside of the curve. This meant I could experiment with a different approach to forming a curved platform. This time, I used concrete platform edging formed using a JigStones mould.

I have only one platform edging mould and hence I had to produce the 19 sections over a period of three days (see How I made structures using JigStones [to come]). Fortunately, rapid-set cement takes only 20 minutes or so to set sufficiently well for the sections to be removed from the moulds so the turn-round time is quite quick.

The first job was to prepare the intended location for the edging blocks. These were bedded on a layer of cement, and then the space behind was back-filled with more cement with wooden shuttering to contain the cement on the back edge of the platform.

The platform surface was initially smoothed down with a trowel. However, I then decided to roughen up the surface with a paintbrush using a mix of brushing and stippling.

There are a few anomalies - as I progressed I realised I needed to use the running surface of the rail as a datum when settling the edging blocks in place and I needed to clean out wet cement from the mortar lines on the mouldings.

However, overall I am pleased with this approach to creating curved platforms. It is relatively straightforward and provides a pleasing result.

Goods stock update
Four wagons have been modified to become more appropriate for the railway.

Tank wagon
A standard LGB tank wagon has been modified, using an anglicising kit from Garden Railway Services (see How I Anglicised a tank wagon)

Guard's van 1 The kit-built guard's van (I think it's an IP Engineering model) which I bought on eBay (see Progress Report 19) has been given a repaint and had a few extra details added. Plasti-kote grey primer is used as standard for all goods stock (it's a lighter shade than Halfords) with the underframe and handles picked out in black. Footboards removed from an LGB closed van (see below) were added and LGB couplings have been installed (which seems like a travesty - one day I will pluck up the courage to change over to centre buffers on all my stock).

Guard's van 2
A half completed GRS conversion bought as part of a job-lot from eBay has been finished off. The basis for the conversion is the ubiquitous LGB closed van which includes a balcony at one end. The previous owner had decided to add another balcony and use plastic mouldings from GRS for the duckets. The conversion was missing one end to the cabin. The door-end of another LGB van (see below) was removed and added to fill the gap, a missing ducket from GRS was fixed in place and roof modified to fit. Various gaps were filled and smoothed down and the whole thing was given a coat of Plasti-kote primer (after masking out the underframe and windows). Various features were picked out in black acrylic.


Closed van
The 'donor' LGB van pillaged for parts for the above two conversions was given a new plain end made from plasticard to replace what was the balcony. The curious side windows were filled in with plasticard and filler which was then smoothed down and scribed. The body was then grey Plasti-koted with details picked out in black acrylic.

Progress Report 21 - Platforms and ballasting again

Sunday was a day of unbroken sunshine and so unfinished 'work' work was put to one side and a full 14 hours was spent on doing a few of those railway jobs which have been on the to do list for more than a while.

Platforms for Beeston Castle

First of all the platform sections were cast for Beeston Castle station. As this is a curved island platform it had to be prefabricated, using the same method described in 'How I made the platforms'.


The moulds were made from 1/2" chipboard for the bases and 1/8" ply for the sides. These were liberally greased before the cement was poured in both the protect the wood and to prevent the cement from adhering to it.

Using the technique learned from Bickerton station platforms, the platform edges were masked with off-cuts of wood and sand was sprinkled into the centre. When the cement was partially set (ie 'green'), the masking strips were removed and the exposed edges were scribed with the end of a trowel to represent stone edging blocks.
These will now be left for a week for the cement to harden off, then they will be removed from the moulds, tidied up and cemented into position.

Here's the platform in situ (just after clipping the hedges). All that needs to be done next is ballast the track.

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Ballasting the extension

The extension to Beeston Market and the Copper Mine was ballasted using a combination of the techniques described in 'How I ballasted the track'.

This time, once the dry mix of sand, gravel and cement had been brushed into place:

... and the whole lot dowsed in water from a watering can (with rose attached). Liberal amounts of watered-down PVA adhesive were dribbled on in an attempt to bond the mix together and help it stick to the underlying roofing felt.

After this, the sides of the rails were cleaned up with a screwdriver, to removed gunge from the running surfaces, and a damp cloth was wiped over the surface of the rails to remove as much PVA as possible.

So now Beeston Market station:

the Copper Mine sidings:

and Peckforton station:

have all been ballasted.

Only Beeston Castle station remains unballasted. This will be done once the platforms have been fixed into place.

How I made a wooden platform

The station at Beeston Market is mounted on timber supported around three feet from the ground. It seemed sensible to make the platform from wood rather than concrete as in the case of the other platforms. However, I found when positioning a plank in the location as a temporary measure that underneath it attracted the damp (and an accumulation of woodlice, centipedes and the odd slug). I needed some way to protect the wooden platform - even though it is treated timber I could see the rot setting in pretty quickly! I considered wrapping it entirely in roofing felt, but that would be difficult to fix down realistically. I therefore decided to embed it in the existing layer of felt.

The first job was to make an incision in the felt roughly along the centre line of the platform, The felt was folded up and the platform plank was eased into the gap.

Next, the edges of felt were trimmed to a uniform width.

The edging strip was snipped at intervals to represent paving slabs. And more felt was cut to fill the gap in the centre of the platform.

The whole lot was then stuck down with bitumen-based felt adhesive and weighted down with a series of concrete blocks and rocks and left for a week.

When the weights were removed, Evostick was used to fix the odd few bits of edging strip which had not stuck.
It needs a little tidying-up and detailing, but the foundations have been laid.

How I skewed the LGB truss bridge

In addition to the large 'bridges' which span access to the patio and the sheds, I have two smaller bridges, one across the stream and one taking the upper section of the line over the lower. Both these bridges are skewed, in that the stream and the lower line are crossed at an angle. Both these bridges are simple (and cheap) LGB truss bridges which have been modified slightly (you could say 'bodged') into skew bridges. A ten minute job:

Firstly, the bridge as taken from the box.

Next, the bridge is sawn in half, following a joint between two planks on the bridge deck.

The two halves are then slotted-in beneath the tracks (very handy if ever you need to replace a bridge without having to remove the tracks).

Because this bridge needs to accommodate a point leading into Beeston Castle station, I widened it by cutting a strip of planking from a broken bridge I had available. A strip of Plasticard could be used if you don't have a spare bridge to hand.

The stream bridge was also widened in the same way, as the track curves to one end of the bridge.

At present, I have not glued the extra planking in place, in case I need to remove the bridges for maintenance. However, this can soon be remedied with some liquid polystyrene cement.

Progress Report 20 - Coaching stock developments

I have just taken delivery of two Pickering coaches from Accucraft - which are quite magnificent. At some point in the future I will have to decide on the livery for the coaching stock, but for now they will have to remain in GWR colours - I haven't the heart (or possibly the courage or skills) to repaint them.

Prior to their arrival, I was running two Bachmann WP & YR observation cars and a baggage car as a temporary measure. My thinking was that one day I would 'bash' these into something resembling Pickering coaches - at least they had the correct bogies. These will now go the way of all redundant stock (via eBay).

Prior to the observation cars coming on to the scene, I made do with the two four wheel balcony coaches which came with the original LGB Starter Set. They saw good service but I decided they were too 'continental' to be anglicised and so had to go.

I have actually got three four-compartment coach kits on order from Maddison Coaches. The plan is to construct these over the summer holidays to have two distinct sorts of passenger trains available - which is, of course, more than the Welshpool and Llanfair had in its former life.

Update - June 2013

 Eventually, I decided to sell the W&LLR coaches as they fouled the platforms and I did not want to modify them to be able to run on the railway. The Maddison coaches were constructed (see How I constructed a rake of coaches from kits). Maddison coaches are now no longer available.