Two new 3D-printed models at the Exhibition

Marbelup Models unveiled two brand new 3D-printed models at the 2014 Model Railway Exhibition, neither of which have been modelled before, as far as I know.

The QMC car wagons were converted in 1963 from the earlier QMB wagons.  The WMB's were used to carry car bodies only, which were fully assembled in local (WA) factories, whereas the QMC's and later QMD's carried complete cars.  Photos indicate that the wagons were mainly used between Kalgoorlie and Perth and were often included on the Westland passenger train as well as freight trains.  These narrow gauge car wagons were made redundant after the standard gauge trains started running right through to Perth, and some were converted to QMG long, bulkhead flat wagons between 1970 and 1973.

The steel-sided RB open wagons were built between 1930 and 1937, with a total of 177 being built.  Some RB's lasted until 1971 in their original form.  Others were converted, quite early on, to class RBW by the addition of wooden hungry boards to increase the capacity for carrying wheat.  The RBW version survived until 1990.  Marbelup Models intends to produce the RBW version in the future.

The MRWA FA Guard's Van

The FA Class Guard's van

The MRWA had  thirteen or fourteen Guard's vans during the life of the railway between 1894 and 1964. Some but not all were taken into WAGR ownership after 1964. Andy May's Railway Page explains the long and complicated history of these vans in great detail.

The simple kit produced by X-class models replicates the vans which were re-built by the Company in the 1950s. These rebuilt vans were numbered 61-68. FA 61-64 had truss rods and full-length running boards. FA 65-68 had angle iron trusses and shorter running boards or steps below the doors.

The first of the following photos shows a kit assembled by Greg Aitken of a very nice example of FA 61 which shows the truss rods and full length running boards as per FA61-64.

The second photo shows an assembled kit of an example of FA 67 which had angle Iron trusses and steps below the doors.

The third photo of the prototype of FA 67 kindly supplied by Joe Moir does not show the trusses but is handy to get some idea of the roof detail and curvature and the paint colour of the vans. It also shows that the roof colour is the same as the colour of the body, unlike WAGR practice which was to paint the canvas roofs a stone colour at least in the corresponding period. The MR vans were painted a chocolate brown for which Humbrol #113 provides a reasonable colour match.

Interestingly the next photo shows that the MRWA were by no means consistent in their use of the colours they used on their guard's vans. This valuable photo also shows the flatter roofs of the un-re-built vans and the oval end of train disk used by the MR compared with the round disk used on the end of WAGR trains. As an aside, looking at the paint colours of the building behind the van with the disk, it shows that the Company's painters were not averse to using the paints that they used on their wagons and vans on the buildings in the yard at Midland. (Photo courtesy of  Rail Heritage WA)

 
Finally it needs to be said that a number of the MRWA guard's vans survived in WAGR ownership for a number of years and so they would not be out of place at the end of a model of a WAGR train post 1964 though the vehicle numbers would have been altered to have a 40 in front of the them. For example FA 64 became Z 40816 and was not written off until 1977 albeit in yellow livery and without the angled tongue and groove sides.  Once again, Andy May gives a very good explanation of this in his excellent website. Very nice number plates for FA 61-68 are available in waterslide decal form from Westland Models, through the AMRA WA Sn31/2 Special Interest Group.