Some minor surgery combined with Sinusitis has laid me up for the best part of two weeks so the work bench has been quiet. Filling a little more in the way of head space I opted to finish a long time inhabitant of the queens shelf, a Powsides GER 5 plank Open. Before placing it aside I had built it all apart from adding the castings and I am not really sure why I hadn’t completed it.

It proved a fairly straightforward build apart from the fact that the brake shoes were miles from the wheels so I had to split them and move them out towards the wheels. Then make a brass strip to represent the tumbler which I soldered to the rear of the castings after filing a slot. The only other changes were (after reviewing photos in Tatlow) to add some ex Connoisseur GER ratchet brake lever guides instead of the supplied hole/pin version.

Next its back to the NER Brake vans.