Parkside Kits O Gauge PS607 W-607 BR 16 Ton Steel Mineral Wagon Diagram 1/102 Plastic Kit
Built in their hundreds of thousands and seen all over the rail system, these are the wagons which replaced pre war wooden private owner wagons. With side and end doors. Easy to assemble from the correctly coloured injection moulded components. Kits include Transfers. Buffers are sprung and 3-link couplings are included on all models, while the BR wagons also feature working axlebox springs and moveable brake levers. Fine scale metal tyred wheels on pin-point axles supplied, spoked for the GWR wagons or 3-hole disc for the BR types. Fully illustrated instructions included.
This model kit is based on an early 16-ton steel mineral wagon with pressed steel end door, welded side doors and no top flap over the side door. This corresponds generally to BR diagram 1/102, a design built for the Ministry of Transport to replace old wooden wagons lost, damaged or simply life expired during WW2.
Over 300,000 16 ton steel bodied open wagons were constructed to orders from the Ministry of Transport or Ministry of War Transport during WW2 and later British Railways. A number of designs evolved as private industry contractors used different construction methods and door options.
This kit builds into a model closely matching diagram 1/102 with side, end and bottom doors. This design had a solid top rail, omitting the top flap doors fitted to several other diagrams and to the later standard British Railways diagram 1/108 wagons (Parkside kit and Dapol/Lionheart RTR).
On rebuilding many minerals had the top flap doors replaced with solid plating and continuous top rails, however the more robust welded end doors were fitted to rebuilt wagons in place of any surviving pressed doors. It may be possibly to combine the Peco and Parkside kits, adapting the welded end door from the Parkside kit to fit the Peco body and similarly fitting the Peco end door to the Parkside body to create one of the diagram 1/108 wagons with the pressed end door.