Venting - TrackGang Ventilated Z van - 3 - wheels and weathering

 DB Says: Step away from the paintbrush.

So the 'wheels and couplers' dilemma resolved itself fairly quickly. The one set of assembled Trackgang 'old style/passenger' bogies supplied, were indeed used on Z roadsiders on the old Limited expresses, but this is before my timeframe. I might save them for a future 50 foot passenger car. The kit had an ideal style of bogie for my era, but the frame has been assembled way too wide, so the wheels won't sit in there (bottom-right below). I might need to find someone who has low-temp soldering apparatus that can thin it down.

In the meantime, I borrowed the set of Arnold/Rapido coupler-equipped GraFar bogies that I own (stolen off a slightly bent UK wagon) and used these on one wagon, as the couplers have almost-long-enough reach. 

On the other wagon, I stole a spring loaded Arnold/Rapido coupler from one of my horrible 1991-cast Lc highsiders and body mounted it, sticking it out a little so it can couple to the other Z with its short-reach couplers. With the spring it should be OK on curves. At the other end I attached a body-mounted MicroTrains, which will couple to the locos. The bogies on this one were from Kato Japanese tankcars, and stolen off another old NZ120 wagon - this place is starting to look like South Auckland with all these wagons up on blocks...

Some truss rods were attached - bent brass ones on the side and plastic rod in the middle. I should complete the angled parts of the middle ones, but I'm not sure they can be easily seen...

As for a final review of the Trackgang kits, I'd say four out of five. If it had a 3d printed roof and pre-assembled bogies it would easily score ten out of five. If you see any of these floating around TradeMe, snap them up.

But then some bad things happened. I've been accused of over-weathering things before. And with good reason:

I did somewhat go to town here. Usually my weathering strategy is: eeeeaaaasy does it...  oh, that's a bit strong, I'll go back and.... Oooo, now it's worse. 

Urrk. Ugly closeups. And the other sides:

Bonus:

I found my old XC master from ten or so years ago in a box of goodies and thought I might as well turn it into a third XC wagon.

A use for some Trackgang bits I didn't use from the Z kits is seen below, as the plasticard top is super light:

The finished wagon is top-right on the ventilated wagons 'family pictures' above.