a surprise this morning when postie delivered (yet another) a box from Hattons.

four Dapol grampus ballast wagons in engineers grey / yellow.

usual high quality moulding and paint / markings, and a load included.

hopefully the start of a trend, surely not too much to ask with the prices of wagons these days.

the usual bag of long and short knuckle coupler pairs, why don't Farish do this with their NEM pocket wagons and carriages.

probably a bit expensive, at £11 each, but not something you'd need tons of I would imagine.

the surprise was I didn't realise they were released, hadn't been on Hattons to check the new releases for a few days, so I'm guessing they came in, and flew straight out of the doors again.

like so many things these days.

overall rating - 9/10, and only then because I've now got to weather them.

got mine yesterday from hattons.
had 3 emails from hattons minutes apart on tueseday, one to say they were in stock, one to say my pre order was processed and the final one to say they had been packed for despatch.
very nice wagons indeed, will be added to the growing fleet of grey and yellow sidding hogs.

I had a look at some for the first time today and they look fantastic.

If I had the space in my stock boxes, I would get 1 or 2 to attach to my other dutch wagons but I'd be concerned that I couldn't get the ballast colour to match any other loaded wagons. Anyone got any ideas?

I guess painting is an option but I imagine painting a non-Grampus loaded wagon (which has n gauge ballast in) would be a pain and wouldn't look realistic?

Didn't the Grampus wagons sometimes run in very large trains IIRC (up to 50?).

I wouldn't worry about matching ballast colour - the real thing is not a uniform colour anyway.

Cheers, Mike

Quote from: Mike W on June 27, 2013, 05:11:12 PM
I had a look at some for the first time today and they look fantastic.

If I had the space in my stock boxes, I would get 1 or 2 to attach to my other dutch wagons but I'd be concerned that I couldn't get the ballast colour to match any other loaded wagons. Anyone got any ideas?

I guess painting is an option but I imagine painting a non-Grampus loaded wagon (which has n gauge ballast in) would be a pain and wouldn't look realistic?

Hi Mike,

The loads in the grampus wagons are removable, so you can easily load them to match with whatever you used on your other wagons

Ollie

50 wasn't uncommon when major work was on. Used to see 50's pulling those rakes plus long rakes of welded rail during the track renewals in the late 70s early 80s.

It depends what your ballast looks like but I paint my wagon ballast loads with Faller Granite Paint which is a grey paint with speckles in it that works really well for grey ballast.

Alan

i'm just waiting for some to be on sale for a reduced price...

tim

as late as 1988 i remember running about with 35/40 unfitted with a 31 and brake van.

Quote from: Ollie3440 on June 27, 2013, 05:45:03 PMThe loads in the grampus wagons are removable, so you can easily load them to match with whatever you used on your other wagons

Oh, didn't realise that, thanks Ollie. So much for the bank balance!

With all this talk of massive rakes of them, did they ever tend to run in mixed rakes at all with only 1 or 2 Grampus wagons and some dogfish or ZKVs etc?

I used to work the ballast trains from Severn Tunnel Jct to Machen Quarry and back in the early/mid 80's.  You would get allsorts,  Sealions, Seacows, Dogfish, Grampus and Mermaids.  From fully fitted trains to class 9 with a brake van. The larger wagons (Sealions, Seacows and Dogfish) were always full of railway ballast for engineering trains. The Grampus and Mermaids mainly so but sometimes had huge rocks in them, maybe 1 or 2 large rocks. Not really sure what they were for or where they went.

You could get a mix of wagons with any sort of combos but the Sealions, Seacows and Dogfish were always at the front.   I particularly enjoyed it with a class 9 and a brake van on the rear.  We almost always had a single class 37 on these trains too.

Jamie

By the way I'm getting ready to purchase about 6 or 7 Sealions and up to 12 Grampus. Unfortunately I missed out on the Dogfish that Dapol had but i'm looking around to see if I can pick up as many second hand ones as I can.  No Dutch for me though, I'm modelling the late 70's to late 80's BR blue.

Jamie

Ordered a Dutch Liveried Grampus off ebay for £14 plus P&P. Car'nt wait to see it on the layout. I will only have the one though..... A bit out of era for modern layout BUT easy to pose in a semi deserted siding

Quote from: 47033 on July 07, 2013, 04:46:10 PM
By the way I'm getting ready to purchase about 6 or 7 Sealions and up to 12 Grampus. Unfortunately I missed out on the Dogfish that Dapol had but i'm looking around to see if I can pick up as many second hand ones as I can.  No Dutch for me though, I'm modelling the late 70's to late 80's BR blue.

Jamie

You can get away with Dutch Livery for the late 80's

Quote from: OwL on July 07, 2013, 04:51:43 PM

Quote from: 47033 on July 07, 2013, 04:46:10 PM
By the way I'm getting ready to purchase about 6 or 7 Sealions and up to 12 Grampus. Unfortunately I missed out on the Dogfish that Dapol had but i'm looking around to see if I can pick up as many second hand ones as I can.  No Dutch for me though, I'm modelling the late 70's to late 80's BR blue.

Jamie

You can get away with Dutch Livery for the late 80's

And unless your the supreme rivet counter apply rule 1 of the modellers code.

Quote from: AndyGif on July 07, 2013, 05:22:30 PM

Quote from: OwL on July 07, 2013, 04:51:43 PM

Quote from: 47033 on July 07, 2013, 04:46:10 PM
By the way I'm getting ready to purchase about 6 or 7 Sealions and up to 12 Grampus. Unfortunately I missed out on the Dogfish that Dapol had but i'm looking around to see if I can pick up as many second hand ones as I can.  No Dutch for me though, I'm modelling the late 70's to late 80's BR blue.

Jamie

You can get away with Dutch Livery for the late 80's

And unless your the supreme rivet counter apply rule 1 of the modellers code.

Could'nt agree more !