HO Adam's Italian Diversions: Ein Supermodell (Brawa Köf)

AJC

Western Thunderer
Having recently been round Europe by train I returned with an urge to model some of what I saw. Normally, I'd dither and let such an instinct pass; not this time. Following a dose of internet research, a box has arrived from Italy containing wagon kits (what else?). So what's in it - basically, a handful of vans and a ballast hopper.

Boxes.gif

All of these are vehicles of types we actually saw, mostly stowed in some siding somewhere. The three vans are very reasonably priced plastic kits (under €15 each for kits with wheels, transfers and nice instructions with good isometric drawings) while the ballast hopper is in etched brass with brass castings and, once again, transfers and detailed instructions.

I've already cracked and started on the vans which can broadly be defined as ancient(ish) and modern(ish) in the form of a Carro F - many of which seem to survive dumped or as stores around the Italian network and a Hbillns which seems, more or less, to be the equivalent to the BR VGA. @Neil has already encountered one of the variants on these plastic vans and to someone well-versed in British plastic kit designs these present some instructive contrasts.

Carro_F_002.gif

Note that the W irons are separate mouldings to the solebars, something I've not seen in 4mm, though Parkside do in 7mm. I'm not entirely sure why this is, but the floor seems to cater for different wheelbases so perhaps alternative sprues or slide in the tooling cater for different variants. There is much more positive location than would be used in a similar British kit (a good thing) and this is repeated with the Habillns (this must be some sort of UIC code?) where the - handed - solebar mouldings have slots and tabs ensuring positive mechanical location. This wagon won't progress until some better wheels turn up: appropriately you could use those supplied to at least score pizza...

Habillns_001.gif

It all goes together pretty well and soon - owing to a spare set of 10.5mm Gibson lowmac discs hastily regauged from EM - here is something that looks pleasingly like the prototype images on the box.

Carro_F_003.gif

I'll add a bit of brake detail in due course, but this has been a pleasant digression from what I was supposed to be doing. They'll be a suitable bit of motive power as well at some point though the choice is slightly limited by the fact that much of the Italian network is electrified and right at this moment I don't want to pursue this as far as building my own catenary. And no, this isn't going to be P87...

Adam
 
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oldravendale

Western Thunderer
Particularly interesting Adam, as although I worked in Italy off and on for about 20 years I never once met an Italian railway enthusiast. Maybe there actually are none, in which case these kits will be intended predominantly for people in Germany and the UK, but the investment in tooling to produce plastic kits is such that they must expect to sell quite a few.

Perhaps I was just unlucky - or more likely was more interested in sampling the local vino.....

Brian
 
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AJC

Western Thunderer
Particularly interesting Adam, as although I worked in Italy off and on for about 20 years I never once met an Italian railway enthusiast. Maybe there actually are none, in which case these kits will be intended predominantly for people in Germany and the UK, but the investment in tooling to produce plastic kits is such that they must expect to sell quite a few.

Perhaps I was just unlucky - or more likely was more interested in sampling the local vino.....

Brian

Going on how - relatively - easy it was to find images and information (in Italian), I'd reckon that there must be a fair number. LIMA and Rivarossi were both Italian companies and evidently catered for their own home market. There's quite an amount of stuff - including some excellent layouts, confusingly, these are called 'Plastici' in Italian - here: Ferrovie reali, Modellismo ferroviario, Auto collezionismo - Duegi Editrice and on the accompanying forum, here: Duegieditrice.it • Visualizza forum - Plastici & Diorami

A plank of my own may yet be forthcoming.

Adam
 

AJC

Western Thunderer
This enthusiasm hasn't vanished over the horizon and while the kit builds trudge along behind other priorities, I have also invested in some RTR, in the form of a pair of these delightful 4 wheel flats from ACME - that Italian railways still use such things is surprising, but very modeller friendly - and a short container train will result. The UIC code is KGPS and these really are good; full brake rigging, a pack of additional parts (yet to be added) and most amazing of all, brass pinpoint bearings.

Pianale.gif

Now the close coupling mechanisms will go and the reason I had the wheels out is because they could be by Aveling and Porter and so I wanted to check the axle length which turned out to be 24.5mm. Gibson can supply 24.5mm pinpoint axles and 10.5mm discs and these will be subbed in due course, but you get the idea. Nothing on the UK market really gets close to this. The one thing that grates is the planked deck which has a heavy-handed moulded representation of woodgrain on it. This had to go and thus Miliput was deployed (not all the way across, because both wagons will be loaded with shipping boxes. Here is is at stage one with the filler applied and smoothed off.

Flat.gif

Here is the current state of play with the filler sanded back and the plank lines reinstated. There should be some variation in texture which is all that is wanted in HO. Couplings next - Masokits screw couplings are my plan though in the short form, 'scale' length for 4mm - but I have to be in the mood to spend an evening doing the whole etch worth...

Flat002.gif

Oh, and there are a couple of locos. Watch this space.

Adam
 
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allegheny1600

Western Thunderer
Oh, and there are a couple of locos. Watch this space.
Adam

I most certainly will!
I've had little looks at the Italian scene (visited in 1971 & 1977), I really like the class 636 B-B-B electric locos and the general 'stylish' appearance of the network. Not to mention the very pretty AGV in Ferrari red!
I found the Italians seem to be nearly as prolific kit builders as us, brass loco and rolling stock kits are certainly available - you just have to translate brass kit into the Italian (kit in ottone), put into ebay.it and away you go!
Or, if you want to spend a fortune, look at ACME, OsKar and the like!
Cheers,
John.
 

AJC

Western Thunderer
I've spent a pleasant hour or so adding detailing components. It turns out that there are two slightly different wagons here with minor detail differences in terms of handbrake, footsteps and so on.

You can also model posts on the wagon decks raised or lowered and in the details pack are brake pipes, dummy couplings, functional European style coupling and these are all well and good, but there's scope for improvement. The first are the footsteps. The plastic mouldings are supplied, but the locations are a bit big for the holes and I weakened one significantly just installing it. I therefore plugged the holes with styrene and cyanocrylate (superglue) and redrilled for replacements, the birthpangs of which are below:

Kgps_002.gif

All this is from scrap etch, as were the step treads themselves. The steps were located with a small notch cut centrally to locate the bracket - the twists have been tinned to reinforce them - and the tag locates in the hole. All this was blackened and superglued in place. As you can see, I've also lost one of the lifting/roping lugs so more brasswork - 51L does a nice etch for these - will be required. Bother.

Kgps_003.gif

Kgps_004.gif

Here's the other wagon - this container is from Faller, though ACME supplied a couple of 20' jobs, these will be used on another wagon (coming soon) - the handwheel is a bit clunky, I might replace this too.

Kgps_005.gif

Adam
 
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AJC

Western Thunderer
Half a year on and I've done some more on my Italian vehicles. Don't get excited, it's only couplings, though these are important since they make the vehicles usable, well, they will once the accompanying locos (for there are two) get sorted out. The couplings are from Masokits, my standard screw coupling in 4mm since they are simple, cheap and, most importantly, indestructible in service. The only difference is that I've used the shorter version (scale in 4mm, a bit more that scale in HO, but usable).

More on the locos - and the fitted couplings - some other time, but for the moment, the important bit is that I've painted the couplings prior to installation because I'm dealing with RTR models and European practice is to paint screw couplings. So I've rigged up a painting jig, of that's not too grand a term for a lolly stick with holes drilled through it. Observe:

Couplings.gif

This batch have now been fitted, but more on that when the sun comes out again.

Ciao!

Adam
 

AJC

Western Thunderer
And so, two Italian vans, a Gbhs by Os.Kar and perhaps the stereotypical modern Euro-van, an Hbbillns, with light detailing in the form of the sub-buffer handrails and couplings. The consequence of this is that they won't go round my circle of Set track coupled up but that isn't a problem (or at least, it isn't for me with my finescale intentions and the eventual Italian - dare I say 'Cameo'? Well, that won't have curves of a sub-metre (it's European, after all) radius. I have a stock of rather nice Rivarossi sprung buffers [bizarrely, these come in packs of 10] that are available as spares and the Os.Kar van may yet get these as a retro-fit.

Gbhs_002.gif
I'm not quite convinced by the paint finish on this - the grey panels behind the lettering are plausible as part of a partial repaint but I have yet to find a picture. Hmm.

GHbs_001.gif

And the Roco one - Roco do this moulding in a variety of liveries so it's 'near enough'. All I've done is to add the visible handrails: I won't bother with air pipes.

Hbbillns_002.gif

The livery on this one is correct!

Hbbillns_001.gif

Adam
 
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AJC

Western Thunderer
It turns out that I couldn't live with the rigid buffers on the Gbhs. It's seen here coupled to a half-complete Habillns from a plastic kit which also has sprung buffers - the packing behind them is to allow for a brake platform which some of these vans have. One such is visible on the left hand edge of this picture: 832472051-3_21_Hbbills

Habillns_003.gif

These are quite softly sprung and thus do what sprung buffers are supposed to do and, so long as I remember to mask the stocks before painting, all will be well.

Adam
 

AJC

Western Thunderer
Back on more comfortable ground, so far as I'm concerned, with plastic kit wrangling. Nothing out of the ordinary here - a bit of reinforcement amidships to resist handling and a bit of trimming to allow the ends of the roof to fit. Like the chassis members, the roof clips in place quite well, once the flash was cleared, but had a tendency to 'spring' a bit until held in place with a pair of ex-Royal Mail elastic bands. I got so preoccupied trying to make the first one fit that I completely forgot to add any weight inside until the roof was firmly welded on. Oops.

Habillns_005.gif

This is the second which eventually had 12 pence worth - very precisely calculated - of weight epoxied in and the result? Well, a pair of white plastic boxes ready for detailing.

Habillns_004.gif

Habillns_006.gif

Adam
 
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Lyndhurstman

Western Thunderer
This is the second which eventually had 12 pence worth - very precisely calculated - of weight epoxied in and the result? Well, a pair of white plastic boxes ready for detailing.
Adam

Good Stuff, Adam. I'm liking the excursion to foreign shores.

12p? Surely that should be in Euros? Far too rich for me either way; I go for 8p in a 12T van

Cheers

Jan
 

AJC

Western Thunderer
Good Stuff, Adam. I'm liking the excursion to foreign shores.

12p? Surely that should be in Euros? Far too rich for me either way; I go for 8p in a 12T van

Cheers

Jan

I didn't have the Euro change jar to hand! Bear in mind it's quite a long van (even in HO) so worth the extra. One of the locos I have - a Roco lump, a D.345 - will probably shift an internal wall, so a couple of extra cupro-nickel sundries won't make any difference even when I strip it of its traction tyres whose only purpose, I assume, is to make the thing stick to the ceiling. That will be treated to a set of Black Beetle wheels before it's commissioned: I can't live with the flanges. The other loco is going to be subject to more radical treatment, more anon.

Adam
 
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Steph Dale

Western Thunderer
Adam,

Fitting Black Beetle wheels is a good idea for locos or rolling stock. I've got them in a lot of my P87 stuff and much of the regular H0 too.

Just watch you get all the insulated wheels on the same side...!

This set of pages from my website might give a flavour; ÖBB 2048

Steph
 
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AJC

Western Thunderer
That's splendid Col., thank you. That's precisely the sort of thing currently influencing my layout sketches; the buffer stops are one of the key FS signature features - with their concrete fencing - that I want to incorporate. The state of the track is something I might have to hint at; in HO there have to be some limits...

Adam
 
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AJC

Western Thunderer
And here we go, a spare twenty minutes yesterday evening saw the ROCO D.345 reshod and it looks much better already. Once painted and the the whole thing (when detailed) weathered, I think it will look pretty good, in a dumpy sort of a way. From purely academic interest, the real thing - like an awful lot of Continental stock, has 1m diameter wheelsets which in 1:87, this scales out at 11.5mm - so I've cheated and used 12mm wheels. I decided that I would rather the thing rode 0.25mm high (more or less undetectable) than 0.5 too low. Now, you can get 11.5mm Black Beetle wheels, but not from Branchlines...

D_345_001.gif

D_345_002.gif

Adam
 
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Steph Dale

Western Thunderer
Adam,
Admittedly it's a few years ago, but I had no problems getting hold of the 11.5mm disc wheels from Branchlines. Even the double insulated versions.

I know he wasn't carrying them in stock, but even then they arrived within a month or so.

Steph
 
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