The Claptowte Railway is set in an era when milk is still transported in churns that are either delivered to the railway station milk loading dock , or left at designated lineside farmer’s loading platforms, along the way. The company was in need of a vehicle to transport the churns to the dairy. My initial thoughts were to construct a bogie vehicle with louvred sides along the lines of the Great Western Railway Siphon. This would have been finished in passenger stock livery and included in the passenger vehicle rosta. I purchased two LGB Toytrain box vans to join together and form the basis of such a vehicle.
Sometime after the event, I decided instead, to keep the box vans as two 4-wheel vehicles, still with louvred sides, and finish them in the railway’s freight livery. They could then be run as part of a mixed stock milk train, creating more visual interest, with the mix of 4-wheel and bogie vehicles and passenger and freight liveries. Although technically freight vehicles, these vans will only ever be run with passenger stock, either forming part of the early morning milk train, or when being returned empty, attached to a passenger train, for return to the milk loading dock. In such workings they would be shunted by the passenger locomotive. Thus came about the following conversions.
The starting point, as with all of my goods van stock, is the LGB Toytrain Box Van
After dismantling, the firsr stage is to remove the moulded end ladders, side steps and handrails. The smoothed off areas are then scribed to restore the planking. You end up with a plain inside framed wagon that forms the basis of several different conversions.
In order to add some visual interest and character to the plain van body, outside framing is added using plasticard strip.
I experimented with different ideas to represent the louvre panels. Nothing came close to the appearance I was striving for. I decided to bite the bullet and create the louvres by building them slat by slat, for real. Twelve panels per wagon, ten slats per panel (some panels actually have eleven slats in order to get the height correct), that’s 120+ slats per van. The conversion may not have been as dramatic a transformation as the cattle wagons, that I created, but this has been the most time consuming and detailed conversion that I have attempted. A real labour of love.
The roofs were both GRS van conversion kits that I bought years ago in anticipation of using them on the pair of cattle wagons. As it happened, those roofs came from another source, so the GRS kits were spare. The usual Claptowte Railway embellishments, brake lever from plasticard. Lamp irons, handrail knobs and wire, roof ventilators from GRS. Al Kramer wheels. Homemade maker’s plate.
The finished model. I have yet to complete the second van. Initially I ran out of plastic strip for the slats, now the paint shop has run out of paint. Watch this space for the two completed vans together.
David
Sometime after the event, I decided instead, to keep the box vans as two 4-wheel vehicles, still with louvred sides, and finish them in the railway’s freight livery. They could then be run as part of a mixed stock milk train, creating more visual interest, with the mix of 4-wheel and bogie vehicles and passenger and freight liveries. Although technically freight vehicles, these vans will only ever be run with passenger stock, either forming part of the early morning milk train, or when being returned empty, attached to a passenger train, for return to the milk loading dock. In such workings they would be shunted by the passenger locomotive. Thus came about the following conversions.
The starting point, as with all of my goods van stock, is the LGB Toytrain Box Van
After dismantling, the firsr stage is to remove the moulded end ladders, side steps and handrails. The smoothed off areas are then scribed to restore the planking. You end up with a plain inside framed wagon that forms the basis of several different conversions.
In order to add some visual interest and character to the plain van body, outside framing is added using plasticard strip.
I experimented with different ideas to represent the louvre panels. Nothing came close to the appearance I was striving for. I decided to bite the bullet and create the louvres by building them slat by slat, for real. Twelve panels per wagon, ten slats per panel (some panels actually have eleven slats in order to get the height correct), that’s 120+ slats per van. The conversion may not have been as dramatic a transformation as the cattle wagons, that I created, but this has been the most time consuming and detailed conversion that I have attempted. A real labour of love.
The roofs were both GRS van conversion kits that I bought years ago in anticipation of using them on the pair of cattle wagons. As it happened, those roofs came from another source, so the GRS kits were spare. The usual Claptowte Railway embellishments, brake lever from plasticard. Lamp irons, handrail knobs and wire, roof ventilators from GRS. Al Kramer wheels. Homemade maker’s plate.
The finished model. I have yet to complete the second van. Initially I ran out of plastic strip for the slats, now the paint shop has run out of paint. Watch this space for the two completed vans together.
David
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. In fact, I am cribbing your ideas for some wagons; why do my own thinking when someone else has done it better? 
