16 ton steel mineral wagon - what kit/RTR?

[S.A.C. Martin]

Morning all - decided this year I would concentrate on kit building again, albeit of the plastic wagon variety.

One glaring omission in my planned trains for my layout is a rake of 16 ton mineral wagons.

My layout is ostensibly 1943-52 or thereabouts, so the idea is to have a mixture of LNER built wagons and BR wagons (as almost new).

I am however finding it something of a minefield to work out what kits I should be building and what their livery would be for my time frame.

I can see Parkside make this - the BR 16 ton mineral wagon:

https://peco-uk.com/products/br-16ton-m ... veted-body

This would appear to be only be applicable for 1950-52 and likely bauxite livery (?)

Dapol make this version (ex-Airfix):

https://www.dapol.co.uk/c037-16-ton-ste ... -wagon-570

This would appear to be only be applicable for 1950-52 as well and likely bauxite livery (?)

Cambrian make this one, which they state is the LNER type:

https://www.eileensemporium.com/materia ... thway-4235

But they will require the following to complete (wheels and bearings:

https://www.eileensemporium.com/index.p ... thway=4220

This would appear to be be applicable for the whole period 1943-52 but I can't see anywhere on the internet (!) what the livery should be. Presumably NE prefix and number in grey or bauxite?

What's the best source to get this right - any particular book, website?

This is my first foray into wagons building outside of the fish vans at the moment - having made a cock up with the livery of one fish van in particular I am anxious not to get it wrong again on a different wagon type!

[Hatfield Shed]

A book would be Tatlow LNER Wagons part 4A. (Obtain the full set, hours of interest and items to build.) As these vehicles would always be common user, the LMS equivalent would be useful too.

[jwealleans]

The best overview of the different types is Peter Fidzuk's series of four articles in Modeller's Backtrack.

More recently, David Larkin's Acquired Wagons of British Railways Vol.2 gives a broad overview of the different prenationalisation types. The private builders started to produce them in the 1930s, the LNER, LMS and MOT all contributed up to 1948 and then BR propagated the various types. Don Rowland's book is as good as any for the BR diagrams, or Larkin's Wagons of the Early British Railways Era.

[S.A.C. Martin]

Thanks Gents - much appreciated for the pointers.

[S.A.C. Martin]

Just looking at tatlow's (which I hadn't realised I had!) on page 50 is a photo of what I think must be the same as the Cambrian kit. Is it in grey though, or bauxite? The text doesn't say, and my minor red colour blindness doesn't make this any easier

[strang steel]

I may be showing my ignorance here, but were mineral wagons bauxite in pre-BR days?

I thought that was a colour introduced for vacuum fitted stock, and I wouldn't have thought many of the Big Four's 16 tonners had vacuum brakes. But, I may be wrong.

I built a number of those Cambrian kits in the past, and while rather fiddly to begin with, they do result in a decent wagon, although they may need extra weight adding - as they are rather light.

[S.A.C. Martin]

That's a really good point John - I guess that means the grey livery is the correct answer for the LNER types.

Thanks for the heads up on the Cambrian wagons.

[jwealleans]

All LMS wagons were brown after c1937 and MOT builds during the war were also a shade of bauxite or brown.

Unfitted LNER wagons were, of course, grey.

[S.A.C. Martin]

Thank you for this - much appreciated.

I will be happily putting together my Cambrian kits in grey!