These wagons are Lima Castle Cement Tanks, well they are if you can see them! This was an exercise in trying to duplicate some photographs I had of some cement wagons. The five PCA are joined by one JCA, basically a double tank.

The only modifications I made to these wagons were my usual coupling modifications, although I did lower the bogies on the JCA, as it looked like it was on steroids!

As you can gather, this is a heavy weathering exercise. I used airbrushing, dry brushing  and wet paint dripping.

These are basically standard Hornby wagons, only the couplings have been changed. This was essentially a weathering exercise using airbrushing as the main form of achieving the finish I wanted.

I consider these are light to medium weathered for Cement Tanks.

I saw these wagons in a book many years ago and thought that it would be another conversion for the ever faithful Hornby TTA. I purchased the tank ends from, I think, Mendip Models in the mid eighties and the conversion started. The thing that attracted me to these tanks was that they had their ladders on the barrel and not the ends, this was quite different to other builds.

I decided on a rake of three, and I run these either on their own or part of a BP Company train with Class A tanks.

Again hardly a difficult conversion, but something a bit different.

These wagons are another use for the Hornby TTA base model. Again the ends have been removed and replaced with Genesis white metal conical ends. This time, because they were used for chemical traffic, they need over-riders on the ends. This is a relatively easy conversion to get a fairly accurate different wagon type. It is also a cheap conversion.

This conversion was triggered by a transfer company bringing out various hazchem transfers. I think they later gave up or closed down, whether they went to another producer or not I don’t know. The chance to do something different certainly spurred me on to do some conversions. I think that all or most of this traffic has disappeared from wagon or block load traffic, some may possibly still travel in tanktainers on intermodal traffic.

This is a rake of three.

Another Thrall product was the MDA, these were effectively a lower sided version of the MBA.  These wagons were never common in East Anglia, but with the re-opening of Whitemoor  Yard  it did bring some into the area. I saw a rake of four of these go through Ely in the  early 2000’s and that was it, I had to model them.

Again this was just before Dapol and Bachmann produced their models, so I looked towards kit building. At an Exhibition I was attending the new owner of Mendip Models had his trade stand, I purchased the four wagons I needed.

The kits were OK, and other than a few air bubbles that needed to be filled, assembly soon started. They went together reasonably well and were soon painted and Fox transfers were applied. I decided to run them full and inserts were made and virgin ballast added.

One little note, EWS later cut down some MBA’s to the same height as the MDA’s, however they were allocated the code MOA.

These were one of the many builds by Thrall when EWS took over our privatised freight companies. Whether they were successful or not I don’t know, but I used to see them regularly at Ipswich and Ely, but I have not seen any for more than five years now, are they still used?

Anyway I purchased two kits from Genisis Kits many years ago. They went together quite well, but I did have to re-enforce the ends as they were a bit vunarable.  The transfers were Fox.

I used to run these in rakes with other EWS leased Container flats. I also used to run them on my interpretation of enterprise services to Potters of Ely during the early 2000’s.

Please note, I also slightly weathered the containers. Containers do show a little rust over time, but they never seem to be to bad. Patch painting is quite common to cover repairs, scrapes are also seen.

Quite a story this. I purchased two MBA kits from supplier at an Exhibition. This was way before Dapol and Bachmann models appeared, Oh how I wished I had waited. When I got the kits home the resin castings were terrible, they were warped and twisted beyond use. I tried to straighten them in warm water and put in stretchers, but all was to no avail. The white metal casting were of reasonable standard. At this point I decided to cut my loses and scratch build the wagon bodies. The one advantage I had was that I had all the dimensions I needed on the mis-formed parts. On and off it took about a month to make the two bodies. I then married the bodies to the white metal parts, I then painted and weathered them.  I had already decided that these would remain ‘stand alone’ and would turn them into scrap wagons.

Just before this exercise, the supplier ceased trading, so there was no way I could seek a refund.

I filled the wagons with metal filings to represent shredded metal waste, this was a bit overpowering so I dulled them down with various rust coloured  paints.

During the mid/late 2000’s RMC added some PCA cement tanks to some of their long distance aggregate trains. This usually amounted to between three and five wagons. This was certainly not a long-term operation and I don’t know why it started or why it finished.

As usual after seeing photographs of the prototype I felt the need to make some. The base model was the dear old Hornby TTA!!! But this time it needed surgery to the suspension area. At this time I also wanted to backdate some Lima grain hoppers, so a suspension swap was put into operation. All went relatively well and I ended up with exactly what I required. I need to say that these wagons are not 100% accurate and just a fair representation. Again, better to have something than nothing and this was a very cheap way of getting these wagons. Oh and the grain hoppers turned out fine as well.

Mix and matching or call it cut and shut can work!

Adding the optional three tanks on to a rake of ten Bogie hoppers looks great.

I purchased these kits from ‘S Kits’ some time ago. They are superb and went together very well, my only problem was I only purchased three instead of at least six. The kits are resin bodies/chassis with whitemetal bogies and buffers etc.

As these wagons were converted from existing wagons, there are several variations, especially the bogies. As Railtrack was a short-lived part of rail  history, they later moved to other duties. I modelled mine when owned by wagon leasing company ‘CAIB’