GWR Crocodile H/Weltrol WH

[Richard08]

Fitting the buffers and couplings is next. I can't find any (internally) sprung equivalents so I've had to go with the kit ones. Nice castings that they are, I've not had great experiences with white metal heads in white metal bodies - white metal has a very high coefficient of friction on a par with superglue when its one part sliding in another. I also worry about white metal buffer heads bending, they're not all that solid. Any how, the way this works is quite neat - although the drawbars went straight through the buffer beam slots. A coupe of tiny bits of brass soldered appropriately solved that, and look 'deliberate' to boot, which is nice. There's no, er , squarish thing that the drawbar goes through on/for the buffer beam. While searching for the etch full of them I have somewhere I checked the photos and it looks like the drawbar on the real thing is actually slotted sideways, presumably to allow the coupling to swivel a bit on sharp bends. I'm going to quietly just ignore that.

[Richard08]

And the bogies go on. I've gone with spoked wheels - mostly because I got a ruck from eBay for next to nothing! The bogie support that goes between the bogie frames needed a bit of hacking to get clearance for the wheel flanges and Slaters very long axles required a deal of drilling in the axle boxes (forewarned in the instructions). The buffer height was set using washers on the pivots, and the cross bearers added in the well. I used them all, stamping the models as one of the ones modified for transformer carrying. I still need to find out just how the handbrake levers should be, but adding load clips (MMP wagon accessory kit) completed the model. To the paint train...

This was a fun kit, but suitable for complete beginners? Not really, the bending of the upper and lower girders to match the sides was not easy and fraught with danger (kinks in the brass). This one has the current Favourite Wagon position, bad luck QM brake van. Talking of which, ... nah, must finish the vans before starting the latest acquisition.

[Phred]

Looks great! Almost seems like a shame to paint it.

[Bigmet]

Looks very well indeed.

...The handbrake levers have been fitted temporarily (so I don't forget/lose them),but I'm not clear how they should go exactly, the ones in the photos are all somewhat 'used' (mangled)...

I am not surprised at the real brake levers being bent, if the kit is representative of lever length and position! I associate the 'lever with a disc' with the Dean brake gear, but that's the limit of my GWR wagon brake knowledge.

... it looks like the drawbar on the real thing is actually slotted sideways, presumably to allow the coupling to swivel a bit on sharp bends. I'm going to quietly just ignore that.

Which is a reminder that many bogie wagons could be worked around very small radii by design in order to get to restricted locations. Many were capable of one chain curves, which would have been a fine way to mangle such a protruding brake lever on some fixed lineside kit or building...

In my youth there was a rail served steel stockholder and fabricator's yard in town, and it was most entertaining watching a large vehicle being inched in and out. Later in life I had the chance to access the site, my employer having acquired it for redevelopment, and the curve in place was on a radius of 70 feet to centreline, so four feet over a chain. Pretty confident of that measurement as the amiable surveyor did his stuff with a theodolite; with a real surveyor's chain (borrowed from FiL who was a civil engineer) I had measured it as a chain 'near enough', with the help of a rail enthusiast colleague. (It took much longer cleaning and re-oiling the chain to a fit state to return to FiL, than taking the measurement...)