Theakston - Fantastic in Pastic

At the recent 7mm NGA AGM at Burton-upon-Trent Roger Chivers had examples of his second O9 plastic kit on sale. It is for a Ravenglass & Eskdakle 'Theakston' stone wagon and simply requires wheels and couplings to complete.

A very pleasant 45 minutes of my time one evening put the parts together. I must admit I did struggle to get any wheels into it, I have resorted to a bit of drilling and splaying out of the axle boxes in order to fit Farish coach wheelsets (current production). Technically they are too small at 6mm diameter, but Roger has designed the kit to take the correct 8mm downwards.

The next job was to equip it with MicroTrains couplers. With Farish wheelsets fitted the base of the headstock is 6mm from rail level so only a 1mm deep section needs to be removed to put the coupler mounting height at 7mm.

You can just make out in this picture where the middle bar of the chassis frame is cut back to clear the coupler and to give it space to move backwards to function.

I then made a refinement to the top edge of the body in an attempt to reduce it's visual thickness. I have removed some material at a 45 degree angle, carefully stopping at the line of moulded rivets on the sides. This is a trick I've used in the past on items such as Airfix mineral wagon kits and once painted should trick the eye into believing the top edge is thinner.

Whilst at Burton Steve Lamb's 'Reclaim' caught my eye. A development of the Julian Andrews' 'United Brick' layout plan (now of course Howard Martin's 'Avalon Brickworks') this has provided much food for thought, and the possibility of an O9 version using materials stored in the workshop is quite apealing...

Colin