At the last Bolton Show before its sad demise I picked up a Connoisseur kit for a pair of Single Bolster Wagons. These were the last design of 13 ton single bolster wagon built by the LNER between 1945 and 1948 with all steel body and underframe.

Having finished the LSWR Brake vans that I had previously been working on while demoing at shows I needed something else so at Harrogate show last year I made a start by folding up and soldering the body pans which are all one piece. Then they were put aside until last weekend.

I didn’t get much done on Saturday because it was so busy. Literally all I managed was to solder three layers of brakes together for each wagon.

Sunday it was quieter so I managed to get quite a bit of detailing done on both bodies.

As I was adding the details I had been looking at the rivets in each corner of the body initially thinking that I would have to fill in the unsightly dimples on the inside faces where I had pressed them out with the rivet press. This got me thinking that there must have been something on the inside. A Google search found an good image of a preserved example at Bo’ness which clearly showed that there is an inner washer plate which isn’t provided in the kit so on Monday morning I had a go at seeing if I could make some.
It took a couple of goes to sort out the spacing and sizes but I got there in the end. The most fiddly bit was getting them to fold straight.

They just need soldering in now.