Skips on the Assembly Line (1/35)

You may all wonder: 'How many skips can this little railway possibly find use for?' And yes, the question is valid. Three rakes of skips is pretty much what it takes to keep a production process to go uninterrupted. At any time during the work day one train of skips is in transit between the works and the pits, one train is being loaded at the pit face, while the last is being unloaded at the gravel works. As I had only two rakes of skips I needed a third for my little railway.

After the war's challenging gravel transports Nystrup Gravel needed to replace 10 old, worn out skips. Having found no useable skips at the auctions over old German equipment after the liberation, Nystrup Gravel was fortunate to receive brand new, imported skips from Great Britain. As Denmark had a huge export of agricultural products to the UK an equal valuable stream of industrial products flowed back to Denmark. Including Hudson skips. Read a short history of Robert Hudson Ltd.

A page from a Hudson catalouge. Here sourced from http://www.yorkshire.16mm.org.uk/BuiltinLeedsnew.html

In a recent post I told about the Hudson 'Rugga' skip I found in my collection, and how it made me acquire more 'Ruggas' from Slater's Plastikard. They have now been built in assembly line fashion. It really speeds up production and six skips are quickly built. Probably also an indication of a well designed and produced kit? Although the work was repetitive I liked that I was not challenged every other second to figure out how to produce a tiny part myself and find ways to attach it to the model. Here I could really put my brain on 'stand by' and just build.


Six skips fitted with wheel sets - and the spare wheel set that came as a surplus. After a bit of adjusting all 12 wheel sets were rolling freely, promising good running from the skips. The red table testifies that I was again modelling outside - this time in my family's summer cottage.

Ready for skip bodies! Adding the six parts on each skip that carry the skip body took no more than 1-2 minutes.

Drilling shallow holes at precisely the right spot is made easy with the supplied etched brass jig. 

Assembly accomplished. 1:35 scale figure for size comparison. Evidently the figure is not as far progressed as the skip. He still needs the huge pocket on the right thigh scalpelled off, new arms and a head. The figure comes from the Zvezda figure set 'WW 2 Soviet Tank Crew'.

The skips will now be painted black and fitted with decals proudly spelling out the full name of the gravel company 'Nystrup Stone and Gravel Company Ltd'. Left over decals from a military kit will be used for numbering. Weathering will be limited as the skips are portrayed as relatively new.