Elevation, and more wagon rejuvenation

DB continues to rehabilitate dozen-year old wagons:

With the dramas of Christmas now behind us, it was time to pull out some more damaged wagons. Most of these have moved country a few times and despite being fairly well packed, a few bits have fallen off, quite a few couplers have been damaged, the odd bogie is broken, and even a dozen years ago there were a few cripples amongst the herd.

A bit of gluing and cannibalisation had four of the 40-footers back in action, as well as the four HLC coal carrying wagons. One of these has been a chronically bent UK for a dozen or more years. It was replaced with a straight UK borrowed from under a 40 foot container which I have other plans for.

The HLC set is below (on three PKs and one UK), with the bent and disgraced UK (now sans containers, couplers and bogies) lying on its back:

I could probably do another one or two additional wagons with HLCs as I have a few spare bits. A few of the worst wagons (including that PK with four green 10-footers, and some of the other sticky container castings) are being binned. 

Some "1990s-era" wagons are in the track behind, including the roadrailer, which is still on some ancient Bachmann(?) bogies with old school rapido couplers. The roadrailer, the IB with 3x20-footers, and the Spaceracer were built in the Otaki-to-Cass days. 

A few of these locos were converted for my West Coast fetish of a decade or so ago. Wish I'd left the zinc etched blue DXC in Fruit salad now. Maybe I'll strip the paint off and repaint it one day.

I've also been thinking about the Fremo layout height. I absolutely love the 1200mm above the floor height personally, but it might just be too tall (with a backdrop) for most people to reach over comfortably at exhibitions. Maybe for me too. 1200mm might be fun for playing trains, but it isn't very exhibition-friendly when punters are forced to observe from a distance, and as I'd like to join up with the Trackgang layout one day, with its rail height at a more exhibition-standard 1000mm, that would require a massive gradient to bridge 20cm in height... then consider the heavy resin and whitemetal wagons.  Perhaps the incumbent should set the standards... 

Maybe I'll whack 10cm off the legs and see if that is a reasonable compromise. Even down at 1000mm (a bit low for my liking personally), I could always sit it on simple riser feet (or even bricks) at home for my own use.