Fuel Transport to the Pits (1/35)

In the days before the Gauge 1 exhibition I built a little load for one of my old wooden flat wagons. They are some of the earliest 1:35 scale wagons I built. Nystrup Gravel had two and used them for many different tasks. An archive photo shows one of them loaded with cast iron stoves. On a second image one of the wagons (they were unnumbered, so it's difficult to know which one) is loaded with jerry cans with fuel for the machines in the gravel pits. The cans were loaded in a large low-sided open wooden crate covered with a tarpulin.

Morning train with fuel for the gravel pit machinery. The first rays of the sun are hitting the wood behind the cutting.

I built the crate from plasticard and plastic strip filling it with jerry cans from several sources. I was careful when placing them in the crate, as I wanted only one type of can to show where the tarpulin had been rolled away. The tarpulin was made from thin copper foil cut to fit and modelled over the loaded crate. Easier than rolling out a thin piece of Milliput and using it as a tarpulin and less messy than using a piece of paper towel and thinned white glue.

A view down on the jerry can box.

The load is painted in somewhat bizarre colours; the crate being sligthly pink and the tarpulin light tan. A splash of colour is refreshing among the dark, dusty and rusting skips normally rolling over the tracks at Nystrup Gravel. A nice, quick project!