GEM RAF Hudson wagons.

Whilst sorting through my box of OO9 goodies I found three GEM kits for RAF Hudson wagons that I must have bought over ten years ago. They cost £3.95 at the time, and came with wheels. One was half finished and the other two were still in their packaging unbuilt. As I was looking for a quick project they came out of the box and onto the workbench.

The kit itself is very basic and is based on some Hudson wagons which were built for the RAF before being sold to the Ffestiniog for carrying ballast etc. The castings are quite heavy and chunky although the hinge and strapping detail is nice. The chassis is a simple brass etch with fold down legs for the axles to run in, which is far better than having to drill bearing holes in cast axleboxes. It also means that the wheels can be fitted after painting as they are secured in place with small lengths of wire. The ends of the etched chassis are designed to be folded up, I found that the etch is slightly overlength so I removed the folded part. The floor is piece of .030" plasticard.

The bodies being glued together;

Rather than use the supplied cast buffer/couplers I fitted Greenwich etched couplings. To give a bigger surface for glueing the couplings in place I glued a plasticard spine along the centre of the chassis. I filed the axles down to 11.7mm long, and fitted a couple of 12BA washers along with the fibre washer supplied to reduce sideplay. Parkside Dundas wheels are supplied, the metal tyres on these wheels have a habit of parting company with the plastic centres so I removed the tyres and then superglued them back on. Here are two wagons ready to have their wheels fitted;

And all three together;

Painting was very quick and easy using aerosols of Hycote car primer, a coat of red oxide followed by a light coat of grey, allowing just a hint of the red showing through, finally a coat of matt enamel varnish was applied with an airbrush.

I think that this kit was originally released by the Ffestiniog Railway who made a small range of whitemetal kits, some of which are still available from GEM.
These aren't great kits to be honest, the sides are overthick and the wagons lack the distinctive rounded ends which are a feature of Hudson products. But they've kept me amused for a few hours and now I have something for my A1 Models diesel to pull (I'm somewhat short on narrow gauge wagons as I sold most of my OO9 stock last year).

Paul.