Steve

Tri-ang Big Big Wagon + Salt Weathering

The large War Department bogie wagon in 16mm scale makes me happy.

So I decided to make another 16mm scale bogie wagon.

This time the starting point was a Tri-ang Big Big Train wagon I brought on ebay. (Click an image for a larger version)

Here’s the wagon I brought.
I will not be returning it to Taunton 🙂
It’s a Tri-ang Big Big RV259 eight wheeled gondola wagon, originally in blue.
The O scale ladders will look too small in 16mm scale.
I removed the two ladders using a chisel, and sanded the panels down afterwards.
The only other modification I made was replacing the couplings with something more suited to SM32.
The wagon body was sanded to remove the transfers and provide a key for the primer.
It was painted in a rusty brown.
I sprayed the wagon with hair spray and sprinkled on salt flakes.
Then I sprayed the salty body with a grey colour and left it to dry for 24 hours.
The salt was scrubbed off using a toothbrush to reveal the rust colour underneath.
Here’s the result.
The panels were painted a rusty black.
I created a base for the wagon load from balsa wood.
It was painted a dark sand colour.
I lined the wagon with cling film and inserted the balsa wood.
A very generous coat of PVA (white glue) was applied.
A sand and gravel mix was scattered over the surface and pressed into the glue.
When the glue had dried I gathered up the cling film and removed the wagon load.
The load was placed into the wagon again.
As it is removable I can create other loads in the future.
Here’s the final wagon.
It’s quite a transformation from the original !

This build was an interesting mix of the familiar and the new.

  • I’ve never chiseled details off of wagons before. I was surprised how effective a half inch (12mm) chisel was on these large models.
  • Using cling film to stop loads sticking to wagons is something I’ve done before and it was great to see it working well in a wagon that’s 285mm (11 inches) long. You just need to use a bigger piece of cling film !
  • This is the first time I’ve used salt weathering. It looks daunting when you first read about it but it was much easier to do than I had expected. I would use it again on large scale models.

The Big Big Train range was produced from 1966 to 1980, first in Margate in England, then the tooling was sold and production switched to Russia.

I wonder if this wagon was produced in England or Russia.

Either way I feel I’ve given a second life to a model that is at least 45 years old 🙂

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