LA Story

Something you don't see too much on the railways these days are good-ol four wheeled wagons; and of all of the varieties, was there anything more straight-up than the hard working highsider?
I just finished off this LA (above in the middle) on a shorty Peco chassis with spoked wheels and Rapidio couplers (oh the shame) and some coal ballasted in as a load. I don't know where I got the resin top - possibly off Mr Murgatroyd in the late 90s. I have a pair of LAs and a pair of LC tops from that transaction and they're very nicely made - quite straight and square. Especially when compared to the LCs flanking it above.

These were my very first casting attempts. Some quite tough reddy-brown RTV rubber and some flashfix fibreglass car bog were purchased from somewhere, and a master was made of plastic and stripwood.Twenty years ago we didn't seem to have the abundance of styrene shapes that make scratchbuilding much easier today.

They weren't pretty, but I churned out about twenty of them in pretty short order (many on the more-readily available 'short' Peco chassis which was cut down the middle and the ends split to get the longer wheelbase) and they were effective when seen from a distance in a long string. Rhys applied his previous experience and made a much better master and mold, so he had about twenty as well, and the full set looked mighty fine on the old Otaki to Cass layout with a KP and a van bobbing along at the back.
Although my own modeling abilities have (hopefully) moved ahead since those early days, I still have about 15 of my old battered LCs that I hope to run if I ever get this layout done. I've said it before and I'll say it again: things don't have to be perfect in NZ120, its the effect, not the details that matter.

That's one of the reasons NZ120 appeals to me. Its also why our crowd barriers were further away from the layout than most...