West Highland Models wagons on eBay - any experiences?

[cmason]

I used a old Woodhead sheet when labelling my LMS Fish van last month.

I still have the remains of two sheets which sometimes come in useful

Martyn

If that artwork exists somewhere so a reprint could be done it would be most useful...

[martyn]

I think that the artwork may have once been offered to the Society, judging from a conversation I had once with a committee member.

They may have been offered the limited Ultima (?) range as well. I'm sure there was also a cryptic mention of this in the Journal or the management committee notes, that were issued separately with the Journal.

However, both were declined at the time (over twenty years ago, probably) and I've no idea what happened to it.

Martyn

[jmupton2000]

Ooooh, these look very interesting.  I am wondering if I can get away with some of these https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/176405865982? as stand ins for the side discharge wagons once used on the Lavant/Drayton gravel runs around Chichester?

Always good to find a new cottage industry level supplier.

[cmason]

However, both were declined at the time (over twenty years ago, probably) and I've no idea what happened to it.
Martyn

It a shame nobody picked them up as there are things ( on the LNER sheet at least ) that are currently to be had nowhere else.. Actually have been thinking of funding something else but that has to wait until I find my roundtuit .... so busy these days I cannot remember where I left it ... 

Colin.

[mojo]

Just received 3 of the Transit vans and really pleased and surprised at the quality.
Apart from the wheels, any advice on the difficulty or otherwise on changing for metal ones? I have some Parkside spoked sets.
Maurice

[icairns]

I have just received a package of four LNER 20T hopper wagons from West Highland Models.

My first impressions are excellent!

More details on my 'Ferryhill' thread here:

https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?topic=49706.new#new

Ian

[mojo]

I had a running session yesterday including my 3 Tranship vans. Fitted with Peco wheelsets and after an hours of running-in they are not as free as I would wish.
I then hooked them up to various other brands and found that they de-coupled quite a lot at various places of straight track. The couplings are about 1.5mm lower than standard Peco, Farish and Minitrix so may have to resort to spots of bluetack.
Will be in touch with Callum about this problem.

Maurice C.

[class8mikado]

Had a concern regarding 3d print chassis - putting flexibility into the mix such that fine details such as brake rigging are not so brittle as to snap off and that there is some flex to insert wheelsets is required, but is the resulting compound hardwearing enough that pinpoint axles dont wear out their housing in short measure ?

[icairns]

I then hooked them up to various other brands and found that they de-coupled quite a lot at various places of straight track. The couplings are about 1.5mm lower than standard Peco, Farish and Minitrix so may have to resort to spots of bluetack.

Interesting. 

I lined my LNER 20T hoppers up with some Farish and Peco rolling stock.  I found that the WHM hopper couplings were exactly level with Peco ELSIE couplings but were slightly lower than Farish couplings.  (This means that the Peco couplings were also slightly lower than the Farish couplings).

So, I assembled a mixed freight consisting of three of the WHM hoppers with various Peco and Farish wagons and successfully completed about 50 circuits of my continuous run layout without a single coupling separation.  The slight difference in coupling heights with the Farish wagons did not seem to cause a problem. 

It may be that the coupling design on the tranship vans are slightly different to the 20T hoppers.  Also, my test train only consisted of nine wagons.  If the tranship vans are in a long train the weight of the vehicles behind the vans may cause some uncoupling problems on certain sections of track (although not usually on straight track). 

Ian

[cmason]

I had a running session yesterday including my 3 Tranship vans. Fitted with Peco wheelsets and after an hours of running-in they are not as free as I would wish.

Last weekend I ran in both the 6x12T DiaG2 and the 3x15T Dia G6 (Tranship) together. Multiple ovals while I was exercising a couple of locos. Fitted with PECO hardlon wheels ( which I believe are slightly shorter axle than GF ? ). The G2s ran very well - the 3 tranships proved a slightly heavier load causing wheelspin on a dapol terrier (of course they presented no problem to a union mills B12/3  ).

However there does appear to be an issue with the coupling of the tranships where the 3 kept dropping off the back fo a 9 wagon train. As you mention it may be that a spot of blu-tack , or maybe tacky wax, may need to be applied...

Colin.   

[w greatbatch]

I ran 3 ICI hoppers behind a 9F with no problems, on the strength of this I've got 6 more , running trials on Tuesday night, also awaiting 8 LMS 40 ton coal hoppers to arrive, but I'm running out of Peco wheels.

[PaulCheffus]

I ran 3 ICI hoppers behind a 9F with no problems, on the strength of this I've got 6 more , running trials on Tuesday night, also awaiting 8 LMS 40 ton coal hoppers to arrive, but I'm running out of Peco wheels.

Hi

Are you meaning the old all plastic Peco wheels if so I have 88 axles with solid wheels and 48 axles with spoked wheels.

You can have them in exchange for a donation to the forum.

Cheers

Paul

[w greatbatch]

Thanks , but it's ok , I sourced a plentiful supply this very day.

[bigdawgks]

Today I finished work on a set of 24.5 ton mineral wagons I ordered a few weeks ago. I am quite impressed with the quality of these prints, however I did discover that the integrated NEM coupler pockets were not very good.

The flexible material on the chassis I think works well for all the fine details, but it did not seem up to the task for NEM pockets. The motion in the couplers felt sticky. The parts flex too much to keep tolerances and ultimately proved to be too delicate as I damaged one pocket on every wagon by clamping it in an alligator clip (lesson learned there).

However, I'm kinda glad I went with my backup plan of replacing them with Dapol NEM pockets. I tore out all the printed pockets (which were weak enough to just pry the bottoms off with my fingers). I then cut and filed off all remnants until there was a smooth surface to mount the Dapol ones. I also used Peco wheelsets in place of the included printed ones.

There were a few defects on the wagon bodies but nothing too noticeable. They were fairly tricky to separate from the chassis and to reattach later, being worried about breaking parts as they are held together with quite a lot of friction. However I was again impressed with their lack of brittleness and had no further damage occur during the process of squeezing them back on.

The only other downside was the shipping method chosen by eBay for delivery to the US. I would have been ok paying more for a service that had more reliable tracking.

[ScottishModeller]

however I did discover that the integrated NEM coupler pockets were not very good.

The flexible material on the chassis I think works well for all the fine details, but it did not seem up to the task for NEM pockets. The motion in the couplers felt sticky. The parts flex too much to keep tolerances and ultimately proved to be too delicate as I damaged one pocket on every wagon by clamping it in an alligator clip (lesson learned there).

However, I'm kinda glad I went with my backup plan of replacing them with Dapol NEM pockets. I tore out all the printed pockets (which were weak enough to just pry the bottoms off with my fingers). I then cut and filed off all remnants until there was a smooth surface to mount the Dapol ones. I also used Peco wheelsets in place of the included printed ones.

Hi all,

I was beginning to think it was just me!

I agree with all the points raised.

But I decided on a different approach to finding a solution.

I've coated the whole model in extra thin superglue.

This stabilised the print and stopped it being as flexible.

Not had chance to run the rake yet, but will do shortly.

Thanks
Phil H