Tanked Up Again

In the unlikely event that anyone is interested, I finally got my central heating fixed last week.  I eventually found a plumber who didn't have parking issues and who actually approached the problems analytically.  The result was that what I had feared was a leaking coil in the hot water cylinder wasn't, but instead a defective valve in the heating header tank.  Consequently, I was saved a lot of money as only the pump had to be replaced, not the cylinder.  So, I'm warm and happy.  So happy that I found myself buying a collection of dilapidated and badly repainted tank wagons for my model railway.  

 

Hey, they were cheap and they are basically sound.  That said, there are some obvious issues, most obviously that the top 'tank wagon' is nothing of the sort - it is actually a cement wagon.  Of the others, the two black wagons are actually continental tankers - I'm pretty sure that they are Joueff models - and have continental-style couplings, which will have to be replaced.  Of the wagons on the front row, the Triang-Hornby Esso tanker on the left and the Mainline BP tanker on the right are pretty much ready to roll, while the one in the middle is missing its ladder, (repro ladders are available) and could do with new decals, (again, repro versions are available). The three TTA wagons are Triang-Hornby and atrociously repainted.  Like the cement wagon they'll have to be completely stripped and repainted.  On the plus side, most of them seem to have been re-wheeled with some decent quality running gear.

These were all bought as a job lot on eBay.  Nobody else bid on them, perhaps not surprisingly in view of their general scruffiness.  But that's the key to getting model railway related bargains these days: taking a chance on unpromising looking items.  Speaking of which, I was at the monthly local Toy and Train Collectors Fair earlier this week, where I picked up five sets of used Hornby points, bought as seen, for a fiver.  One was in perfect working order, as it turned out, while three more only needed minor adjustments to get them working properly.  The fifth set has more serious problems, but I might yet be able to effect a repair.  Contemporary Hornby points are, I find flimsier, than their Peco equivalents, so I tend to avoid them, preferring the earlier Austrian made versions, (or Peco), but these were a bargain I couldn't pass up, so took a gamble on them.  So far, I'm happy with it - I still won't use them on the main lines, instead using them to swap out better quality points currently being used in sidings so that they can be used on the main lines when I expand the layout.  Speaking of trackwork, another way to save a few pennies is to look at second hand continental track - a lot of people ignore it because they think it is incompatible with British track being HO gauge rather than 00, whereas the fact is that HO and 00 use exactly the same gauge track.  The continental stuff, particularly the German made items, are very high quality and often very reasonably priced, (particularly the more complex types of pointwork, like slips and three-way turnouts).

So, there you are, yet another project to add to the ever going queue.  I have actually made a start on some of my long-stalled projects - I recently got around to repairing one of my brake vans that had suffered some damage.  I even bought some paint today to finish the restoration, (not to mention repainting a couple of tatty open wagons I bought at the Train Fair for use as tanker train barrier wagons).  So, you never know, I might actually get these latest tanker wagons sorted out in the foreseeable future.