1930’s PRIVATE

Wayne Brindle

Private Owner Shell Tank Wagons

In my article in the December 2013 NZ Model Railway Journal I referred to a photo (from T Bradley) and a drawing (in the above article) of two Shell Tank Cars with Red lettering on Yellow tanks. I decided that due a lack of suitable kits available that I would scratch build the two Tank Cars, so I got in the brass sheet, channel, angle and T sections. Building of the wagons proceeded at a pace until the stage I had the wagons ready to fit the bogies, but no tank or end restraint framing. Then other tasks got in the road and they were put away. Then towards the end of 2017 and the

2018 Easter Convention coming up it was time to complete the Tank Cars. The tanks were turned from a length of 32 mm OD plastic water pipe, and the ends are 4mm thick Evergreen styrene sanded to shape. The domes are two pieces of Evergreen tube; the inner one had a sheet styrene cap that was drilled in

eight places and fine styrene rod inserted to represent bolt heads. The valves were turned from styrene rod in a battery drill. I produced the decals with an inkjet printer and Testors Decal paper. For the Super Shell sign writing I selected the nearest font I could find, and modified it in Photoshop to better match the sign writing in the photo. For the Shell sign writing I scanned the drawing that appeared in the Dec 2013 article, took it into Photoshop and coloured the sign writing and removed the surrounding details. From Photoshop the sign writing was inserted into a word document, sized, and printed onto A5 paper to check everything before printing on to the decal paper. For the rivet details I used Archers S Scale 7/8th inch diameter rivet Decals. These decals were a breeze to apply as there was a very short time from wetting the decal paper to the time it would slide, and as there is over 200 rivets per wagon the decals went on quickly. I used S Scale rivets, and although they are correct to scale, I suspect that if I had used the O Scale rivet decals it would have improved the look. For the Uc 795 I used North Yard BP3181 bogies, and for Uc 1031 I noted that the bogies were BP25340, these were Trackside Bogies that I obtained several years ago and I suspect are now out of production.

Peter Ross supplied me with a set of Uc tank car drawings, and I spotted the Uc 12 tank car that used the forward defunct Garratt water tanks on a U Wagon for fuel oil. As I am partial to Garratt Locomotives, this may be as close as I get to an NZR Garratt model in my collection. The model consists of a Trackside U wagon, which I replaced the angle iron trusses with rods and changed the brake cylinder to match the drawing. The bogies are BP3181 with the split spoke wheels replaced with 8 spokes and 25mm axles. The tank retainers were constructed from brass angle, strip and U channel. I scratch built the tanks using 2 mm styrene ends, spaced with four lengths of Evergreen 3.2 x 6.3 mm rectangular tube section. Two placed at the outer lower corners and two on the upper edge just inside the start of the curve. The skin was 0.4 mm styrene curved to fit before applying the glue. The domes were again styrene tube and rod. I have now seen a photo showing individual Garratt tanks sitting on what appears to be 26ft long steel bogie wagons and sign written for Liquid Fertilizer traffic. (See plan and notes Page 24. Ed) Drawing Uc12 Loco Fuel Tank Wagon

Top. Wayne’s completed loco fuel wagon, Uc740. Above. Wayne built the tanks at the June Auckland Modellers Day and then later fitted them to the under frame. Below. The under frame was built using a Trackside U wagon kit, brass truss rods and bogies. Fittings such as tank retainers were built with K&S brass shapes.