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Railway Departmental Plant & Tools
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A selection of various items of plant used
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for the maintenance of the Permanent Way.
Track relaying gantries by Hywel Thomas. Further details showing them being made on the
work bench in the May 2012 update page (omwb072).
Departmental conversions at Morfa Bank Sidings - a start has been made on this ex-GWR
TOAD brakevan for carrying and operating P.W. machinery. Inset photograph of converted
brake van by Roy Hennefer.
Another relatively quick project, this time using the Bachmann BR standard planked van,
was this tool van for the rail positioner set. Modifications were minimal and involved
removing the label boards from the end, adding a siren to the roof (and some suitable
switches near the wagon number) and two oddly placed lamp brackets above the doors.
The yellow panels on the original were quite crudely painted, while the markings were
created using several photos of the original van.
This is a scratchbuilt Lister HA3 engine and winch that will form part of a WR rail
loading set. A number of these sets were produced for the WR, LMR and ER (and possibly
for the SR too) using mainly Grampus but also Ling. One wagon contained the winch and
the other a series of rollers. In between was placed one or two track carriers and the
winch used to haul lengths of rail up onto them.
The Lister HA3 has now received its coat of deep green and the winch
red paint as per the prototype.
The roller wagon and winch wagon pictured finished. They did vary slightly but as far
as I know all the WR examples that I saw followed this design. The model uses two Parkside
Grampus, one is the earlier kit for the unfitted version and the other a ‘de-fitted’
current kit. Most of the sets used unfitted wagons although one of the earlier WR sets
was based on clasp-braked wagons but were returned to original condition by the late 1970s.
