Holiday wagon

A longish weekend to the west country needs something to pick up at the odd moments when Mrs F. is watching something dreadful on the TV. In this case Rhiw 2 is in need of several late-period 16 tonners of which I had one in stock. This is the Parkside PC19 kit of a 1975 build Dia 1/099 which has been around for decades now. Essentially this is a standard 16-ton shape with a vac-fitted 10' wb as opposed to the even older Dapol/Airfix 9'.

As with all Parkside kits the body is good, but the chassis mouldings are a bit of a curate's egg, seemingly in a softer black plastic and less crisp. In most cases I would replace the buffer heads at least. Here though, far from the spares box, I made do with the supplied parts. Breakages are likely and if you get through the build without losing one of the axlebox tiebars then you've done pretty well. I didn't and the unseen one has been replaced with plastic strip. The eight gusset plates are awful, and I've replaced most with some plastic sheet bits which was quicker than trying to make the supplied parts work.

This suggests that the kit is crap... it isn't, just that there are a couple of things that can be improved. Peco now supply this with transfers so even better. Half a dozen similar ones to buy and build.

Piccys of the real thing here.