Build A Custom Conflat Match Wagon, A Great Tool For Model Railway Shunting!
Well I started out with a bit of a problem! The fact that I build a great new layout of a shunting yard (TMD) and I have a few HST Power Cars (dummies) that I want to use on the layout, but they don’t have any hooks on their couplings at the back of the HST Power cars, and my pair of Class 08 shunters only have one hook on each of the locomotives. So I needed a wagon on my layout that has hooks to move the power cars if the shunter’s are in the wrong position.
Now I have seen other modellers use 35ton oil tankers as barrier wagons, or a CDA wagons but in my option ‘It does not look right’ even though in real life these wagons are used. The only types of barrier wagons that I could find for sale were for nuclear freight and a 35ton tanker with ‘barrier wagon‘ written on the side, and to be honest I did not fancy these options. Well I remember reading a copy of Traction (A British diesel magazine) and seeing an article on a little flat bed wagon use for shunting at a goods yard, so that was what I wanted to have on my layout for shunting the HST Power Cars, you can see an example of this wagon here.
But the problem I faced now is that as hard as I tried I could not find a wagon like this for sale. So a bit of scratch building was in order to make this little wagon come to life on my layout. Given that I have already built two other wagons in the same way that I was going to build this one, I had a very good idea of how I was going to build this flat bed wagon. (To view the other Article on scratch building wagons Click Here)
The ‘Shunting Wagon’ comes to life
So I started with removing the top of a small disused wagon with a screwdriver, the wagon was a small green Hornby Lucas Wagon that I have not really used in some time so it did not matter about taking it apart.
But because the wagon is really small, without it’s container on top it is really light. So the first thing I need to address was how to add weight, un-like the Pipe-Carriers I had made I could not stick anything on top of the flat-bed of the wagon as this would compromise the look of this wagon, so the weight was going to have to go under the wagon. I had some brass tube that would fit perfectly under the wagon, so I cut a piece that would fit snug between both the axles of the wagon.
TIP: The reason for adding the extra weight is to stop the small lightweight wagon from pinging of the track as I push other locomotives to where I want them, plus sometimes lighter smaller wagons will de-rail over points so adding weight has it advantages.
So when I was happy with the brass tubes size I painted it black, then stuck it to the bottom of the wagon with a bit of NoMoreNails then painted the adhsive with black paint as to hide the white colour that it was.
Then I used a bit of card and stuck it to the chassis of the wagon with All-Purpose Glue, as you will see two other bit of card were added to give a bit of relief to the a plain flat bed. This also helped to make it look a bit more purpose built I felt. Then a yellow base coat was painted on the whole flat-bed and top of the chassis.
Now came the detailing of the shunting wagon, given that I can’t really remember the full look of the prototype that this wagon is based on, I decided on a Yellow and black Hazard striped look suited it very well (as you can see in the picture here.)
Well now you can see the almost finished product, there will be a little more detail added to this wagon at a later stage. But again given this project has cost almost nothing it is a really effective and useful addition to any modern shunting yard layout.
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