Back in September 2015 on these pages I started to convert a Parkside kit for a BR Pipe wagon into the earlier LNER version. I got it almost finished when I popped it aside for some reason and there it languished until recently. Looking at it, it looked like all it needed was a set of couplings and it was good to go so a couple of weeks ago I made up soe of the rather nice castings from Sanspariel and fitted them.

Of course it was only after viewing these photos that the penny dropped that it was also missing it’s vacuum pipes….

These have been added and photos of the completed wagon will follow. When I say completed, it would have been and is pending me deciding whether to repaint it. I recently received a late fathers day present from my son (it was out of stock at the time) in the form of LNER Wagons part 4B by Peter Tatlow. This combined with a discussion on Tube wagons on one of the forums caused me to study the Pipe and Tube wagon section of this book in detail trying to ascertain if the bauxite came down to and included the solebars with all below the solebars black or as a few people have painted them with the solebars and headstocks in black. By good fortune, despite them being in monochrome there are a couple of period photos that quite clearly show that I was wrong and that the solebars and headstocks should indeed be black. The jury is still out on whether I repaint it.